so at 7:10 pm they decide to put in the new ng tube.. right before shift change when everyone wants out of there and is rushing around like hell to get out. Nice time to do this.
I leave the room so the Dr and nurse can insert it. I can hear my mom complaining and in a few minutes the Dr comes out and says it's done so I go back in the room. The nurse is still there clearing up stuff when I see something. I look again and yup... there it is! The damn thing isn't even in right and it's all coiled up in her mouth! Instead of down her throat! brilliant! So I show the nurse and she darts out for the Dr. I go the other way and actually find her and tell her that it's coiled in her mouth instead. She goes in and thinks she can just pull out an inch or so and it will uncoil. ummm I don't think so. So she slowly starts pulling it out and my mom starts gagging and wanting to throw up and gagging more and now she's crying. Finally they realize how piss poor a job they did and they decide to pull the entire thing out and start again!!! REALLY???? How about if we do this to you ok?
We had a huge debate about this. She is obviously distressed after putting it in and pulling it out. They want to put it in again. I told them to wait and I'll ask my mom. The Dr complains she doesn't take her meds for them, she'll only take them for me. I turn around and look at her and say "so why is it the night nurse and the morning nurse tell me that she has been taking her meds when they give them to her? Now you're telling me she isn't taking them?? It can't be both ways and you guys need to figure out which way it is.
I talk to my mom and she says she will give it yet another try. Remarkable because I wouldn't have. This time didn't go so smoothly though and by the end of it she's crying out for her mother. I'm "mother" when she is over the edge in pain or stress. When I get in there she's still crying and telling me it hurts her. I guess there have been too many in's and out's with them inserting it and her pulling it out when she doesn't realize what she's doing. Then reinserting it now 3 times. Her throat hurts.
At 8 pm she was still crying out saying it was hurting her throat and she was gasping at times for a breath so I asked if her Dr could be called. The person (a young man) at the nursing desk called Miriama, her nurse that evening, and requested she call the Dr (resident) that was overseeing my mom.
Instead, Miriama asked me what was going on and I told her that I can't leave her like that and go home. She's in a lot of distress and pain due to the tubing and I wanted to talk to the Dr about it. She pretty much passed it off so I insisted she call the Dr.
So she does.. however she didn't bother to look behind her to see where I was before she opened her mouth. Her c.o.w./w.o.w. whatever it's called now was just outside my mom's room, as was I. I can hear her conversation with the Dr and it was extremely condescending towards me. Telling the Dr.. "you know.. blah, blah, blah" (she actually used the words blah, blah, blah in a very condescending tone) in other words what I wanted to talk to the Dr about was nothing. And then she made a remark that pretty much said that it would shut me up. She said to the Dr "please just come by for all of 5 seconds .. you know.. just ...."
We almost lost my mom last week. She was in a lot of pain and distress from this tubing. Then it still wasn't put in correctly and had to be moved yet again. Now it's 9:17 pm Saturday night and I'm sitting here waiting for x-ray yet again. How many x-rays does it take? And why is someone doing this that doesn't know how? Every Dr (resident) in this place needs to have this procedure done to them at least a couple of times. Maybe, just maybe, they will be more careful when they are doing it to a patient.
But it's Miriama's attitude that I'm writing about here. It's nothing less than rude. I sit here day and night and give her meds to her since she takes them easier with me, I've even changed her when needed at times. In the 2 weeks she has been here I think we've buzzed for the nurse all of 3 times if that. She is old, she is very frail right now and all this is pushing her over the edge. She was calling for her mother when they did the tubing the 3rd time! There is no reason for Miriama to be so damn rude and condescending towards me. I told her I heard what she said. I told her she should look around before she talks about someone. I also told her I was writing a letter of complaint and I told the Dr that as well. There was absolutely no reason for her to be like that and she needs some sensitivity training at the least. Then what does she do? She then asks me to give my mom her meds while I'm here. I did. Not for her but only because I know it's easier to get them into my mom if I do it and she really needed to get those pills into her.
The next night (Sunday) I'm still at the hospital when shift change comes. Tonight my mom has Miriama again but tonight she comes to her room first. Unusual but ok. So I wake up my mom so she can move closer to Miriama to do her bp and while she's getting the cup on her arm she turns around to me and says "Michelle & Leila tell me you have a problem with me"! Really? Like she doesn't know this? I told her last night right after her conversation about me that I didn't appreciate her comments and that I'll be putting in a complaint. She wasn't 10 feet from me when I told her. She's not deaf. She turned around and was looking at me when I had that conversation with her.
There is a time and a place for everything and trying to aggravate a situation at the bedside of an elderly, already confused patient simply isn't the place. I just said to her that she knew I didn't appreciate her conversation yesterday, her blah, blah, blah remark and left it at that. When she remarked again, I ignored it.
Before she left she asked me to give my mom her pills. I waited to leave until she gave them to me because it's important for my mom to get those pills into her. Again I gave them to her not as a favour to Miriama but because my mom needed them and I wanted to be sure she got them.
This is going to be a very, very long long weekend. Wonder who's on Monday?
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