Tuesday August 19th, 2014

 Been here since early...   nurse last night made it sound like my mom was dying and told me to be here really early...  7:30 at the latest.  geez  needless to say I'm running on what's left of my energy which isn't much these days.  Got myself some breakfast while she's down getting another chest x-ray.  Poor old woman is going to glow in the dark soon.

  I have not seen her Dr. yet.  She is in a room with 2 others, one male and one female.  She is in the stroke section of 14 even though she has had no stroke.  Kind of freaked me out when I noticed where she was but I ran into Bev, her old nurse and she told me if they wander or are a safety threat to themselves they put them there now.  There is a sitter in her room, a lady.  On her break now and I don't care for the fill in really.  I went down to get some breakfast and got 3 sausage and a scrambled egg and doesn't she ask me to move up the room more, the food is bothering her!  It's making her hungry.  Really?  So what the hell did you do when you had to feed a patient their breakfast????  So I moved not 2 feet up and I swear she said that was better.  Freakin neurotic.  I really don't have the patience for these people today.

  Oh my god.. these f'in people.  Want me to leave my scooter out in the hall.  This is a room for 4 people, there are only 3 in it.  My mom is in a space big enough for 2 people but it's just her.  So there is a lot of empty space here.  Don't these two sitters get all uppity telling me to leave my scooter in the hall.  I tell them no way, it has all my id in it, food in it, everything I need for the day while I'm here.  They have the nerve to tell me to take it all out and bring it in with me.  Yea, sure, with no bags yet..   I tell them that there is only one sitter in this room, why do they need 3 chairs in the way?  Felt like telling them to shut the fuck up.  It's taking everything I have right now to bite my tongue.

  Anyway, seems that her super shakes are not coming yet.  I got here and there was some kind of orange gel (she hates orange other than the sherbert), a cranberry juice, an apple juice (everything is very acidic) and a tea.  She drinks coffee.  No one fed her any of it although the calories wouldn't really count.

  When I got here I gave her a wee sip of apple juice.  She won't even take her meds for anyone and actually tried to bite a nurse last night and they took her damn teeth out for it!!!   I found them this morning sitting out on her little dresser, dried out.  I hope they're willing to pay for a new pair if they break.

  A volunteer came in and asked to pick up the menu's but she doesn't have one.  I heard the nurse say she is on a cardiac diet, no salt.  No mention of the super shake. 

  2 pm and I'm still here.  It's been a long day.  I'm trying to type on a slant because the regular sitter is gone again for lunch and miss neurotic is here and is more concerned about my laptop than anything else in here.

  Look, this place wants to get rid of the sitters.  They bitch that they spend a million a year on sitters yet it's proven not to prevent falls, etc.   Well no shit Einstein.  That's because they are so damn busy feeding their faces, reading their books, doing puzzles, reading newspapers and talking on their freakin cell phones what the hell do you expect?  You think maybe they would prevent situations if they actually did their job? 

  These people are useless, they run in and out of the room they are suppose to be in to yak with each other and joke around.  It's also wrong how they care for these folks, most of which are elderly.  They antagonize them literally and lie to them to get them to do something they don't want to do.  It's just wrong.

  The regular sitter, I admit, has her hands full with one particular patient here, a man.  He wants to get up and go for a walk.  Of course they can't allow that but he is also anxious.  He really wants out of bed.  He's been here 6 weeks now and he has to stay in bed or sit in this chair that has a tray that they can snap on and restrain him.  At times he is quite lucid.  He told her he didn't want to be restrained in the chair.  His words.   She forced it anyway.  Then she proceeds to tell him if he sits there for a while she will let him out to go play the piano!  Really?  No.. she's bullshitting him.  I think this floor does have a piano on it on the other side.  She keeps reinforcing this lie to him.  Now he's getting agitated because time has passed and he wants the piano.  She told him he could go play it.  Has she no experience with people with dementia or delusions?  They fixate on things.  Although they tend to forget everything you want them to remember they remember things you want them to forget. 

The next thing you know she's on her cell phone talking to her contractor/painter about painting around her windows.  Then she takes yet another call from a friend who it seems is also a contractor and she's chastising him about not telling her because she would have hired him instead.  I'm just sitting here rolling my damn eyes when all of a sudden you hear a loud crack and I turn around and here is this elderly man snapping off the restraining table. 

So...   why is there no fall prevention when there is a sitter in the room?  That one story should tell you something.  But..   it's a way for this hospital to cut their budget and of course the cut seriously effects the patients but hey.. it saves them $1 million a year now doesn't it?

2:30 pm and my mom is gasping for breath and is looking even paler if that's at all possible.  I get the nurse, ask if she can have oxygen and am told it's not prescribed.  I explain she has it at home and is having a problem breathing.  She takes her bp and it's down too low, tries the other arm and it's almost ok.  As is her heart rate so I don't know what's going on but it's not good.  She is getting agitated at times but I told the nurse she is weaker now then when I came in this morning.

Dr's came in, her blood pressure is low and she's getting dehydrated again.  One Dr is trying to tell me she is looking better than she did yesterday when she saw her.  ya think?  I certainly don't.  She looks worse than yesterday and much worse today.  She seems to be struggling at times.  I'm getting afraid to leave her. 

What a night .. and day.. Monday August 18/2014

Not sure what time I went to bed last night nor what time I fell asleep.  Had a hard time for me to wake up too.  I'm bushed.  Finally dragged myself out of bed around 11 am for crying out loud and called the hospital to check on her.  Found out she's still down in emergency!  15 hrs and she's still here.  They put me through to talk to someone here and they told me she had a bad night.  Was VERY combative and continued to try to get out of bed.  Doing that could have caused her to break something.  So he then informs me that they had to put her into "soft restraints".  I felt a lump in my throat and it sank to my stomach.  I felt sick at the thought.

I told him I would be there soon.   When I got here, her space was empty.  Turns out they took her for an x-ray for some reason.  Still don't know why.  Will continue to ask.  When they finally brought her back they did so in a full hospital bed.  They took her off one of those horrible stretchers and got her an actual hospital bed.

She was restrained with these things around her wrist with like a sponge material and they were each tied down to the bed.  She was yelling at everyone.  They had to clean her and she literally fought them the entire time.  I've never seen her like this.  She's like a little tiger, screaming and yelling at them to stop it, leave her alone, she was cold, she had a headache.  They got her cleaned up and she just curled back up.  She hasn't even acknowledged me.  I may as well not be here but I won't leave no matter.  Let her sleep and hopefully she'll sleep some of it off.  She is complaining of a bad headached.  She did last night too.  Not sure what the hell that is about because she isn't a headache type person.

Wondering when she's going to get a damn bed in a real room.  This place needs a bigger emerg and more rooms.  The also need damn drapes that close to give some privacy.  The c.a. here ended up getting a safety pin to hold the drapes together while they changed her.

It's 5:30 pm and if I could smack a nurse there is one with a target on her forehead here.  Had the nerve to tell me that my mom is faking it!!!  She says she's fine one minute and then when someone comes she plays like she's all confused.   She said this in regards to my nephew coming by.  She says mom was fine and then when Greg came she played confused.  Here comes my potty mouth...   I told another nurse that if that ones doesn't know how delirium works then she should shut the fuck up.  Delirium does come and go with some people or lessens and then comes on strong.  Stupid bitch.  I'll find out her name and put a complaint in about her before mom is finished with this hospital stay.  I'm sure nothing will be done, this hospital obviously allows pretty much anything but at least I'll get it off my chest and it's now blogged too.  Now all I need is for this blog to go viral ....  I wish it would.  Someone said that St. Mike's would sue me..  go for it ...  just go for it.  Could you imagine the shit that would come out in that trial???? 

Called my nephew to see how it went when he dropped in to see her and he told me she wasn't very responsive even to him.  That's unusual.  If anyone can get her to respond it's me or Greg.  Greg also told me that bitch nurse told him she was faking it at times too. 

Almost 6 pm and trying to get her to take her meds and she won't take them.  Her blood pressure is way out of control at 181/116.  And that's thanks to that bitch Dr. D'Silva.  Am I angry?  You betcha.  If something serious happens to my mom I will go after her for my mom.  She took her off all the meds I told her to leave her on.  The meds that control her heart rate and her b.p. and now both are out of control.  Hopefully that cow never treats her own mom.  Her nurse is going to call the Dr's upstairs and ask if she can give her the bp meds via I.V.

So..  Dr. comes down, looks all of 18 ..  either I'm getting old or they are getting younger and younger.  Anyway he tells me she's combative at times, delusional, over tired and sleeping a lot and not taking her meds.  DUH!!  ya think?  This is why I brought her in.  Anyway, he's not happy but he'll put her b.p. meds into the I.V. for her.  Finally considering her bp has been up for days.  Tells me like I'm an idiot that he can't give her a sedative to stop some of the agitation because she's so sluggish.  Sure.. let's just crash her entire system.  Idiot.  I wasn't asking them to do that.  She's out of it enough already. 

Also, the only thing I can get out of her right now is her head aches..  I keep putting it down to all the noise in this emerg and the bright lights and such.  Finally someone tells me that the patch I discovered on her back is NITRO!  No damn wonder she has a headache to beat all headaches.  I'll never forget the first time they gave me nitro, it was with my first heart attack in the emerg.  I honestly don't know what was worse, the chest pain from the heart attack or the headache from the nitro.  Felt like someone took a ballpeen hammer and hit me between the eyes and split my head right open from front to back.  No exaggeration.  So she probably has a headache much like that and then add all the noise and lights. 

Oh.. I'm told there are no rooms in the hospital at all !!!  That's why she is still down here in emerg.  This place is a zoo.  The E. D.'s really need to take some pay cuts to hire nurses and do some building up to add floors.  Where the hell is all the money going that people donate?  If you come into this hospital the first thing you get when you get home is on their damn donation list and you get an onslaught of bloody letters asking for money.

6:25 pm..  ok, it's official..  they are trying to kill her for sure.  Guy comes in with a food tray for her.  She's been on a strict liquid diet for 4 years now so they give her...   a very dry vegetarian pattie, cumin sweet potatoes, hard green peas and a brownie.  really????  guy says he knew nothing about her diet.  Told him it's right on her chart but again he says no one told him about it...  for Christ sake...  get your shit together.  If she was slightly awake and tried to eat any of that crap she would have aspirated it and ended up in i.c.u. again.

shit.. here we go again.

oh shit, here we go again.  At 8 pm Sunday August 17th I called an ambulance to take mom back to S. Michael's hospital.  This infection isn't going away.  Probably would have got a better hold on it if that damn Dr. D'Silva had not been so damn eager to shove her home and had waited for the 2nd part of the test.  It would have showed it wasn't receptive to Cipro.   It should have been to the other one that the family Dr of ours put her on though.  I'm wondering if it got such a hold thanks to the wrong meds that the right one wouldn't even work right.

Today started out not bad.  She actually took her morning meds.  Yesterday she spit them out at me.  I thought "finally...  we re going around the bend and something is finally working".  I was wrong though.  By noon she was looking pale and sleeping all the time.  I had to keep waking her up to give her a drink of water or her liquid diet.  By 6 pm all hell was breaking loose and she was yelling for me every 5 minutes and wanting to get out of bed herself.  By7 pm when her psw came she was combative.  Wouldn't let her touch her.  Kept yelling she wanted out of bed.  Wouldn't let her put her pj's on her.  Nothing.  I finally told her she had to and got firm with her which is really hard but it worked.  We got her ready for bed and cleaned up and then I called an ambulance.

Got her here and I followed a little bit later after printing her meds and getting the dogs ready for when I went out and around 9 pm I got here and there she was, on the stretcher still waiting in the main waiting room of the hospital. 

About 9:30 pm they finally took her in and put her into intermediate care, not the regular trauma room she usually goes in due to her heart.

I left the hospital around 3 am I think.  In between I spoke to many Dr's.  Mom's disposition changed on and off but was good for the most part although confused at times.  I've never seen her so bad that she didn't know her own name at one point but always knew mine.  Next thing you know, she's clear as a bell.  When the Dr asked her if she knew what City she was in she got this look on her face like he was nuts and said "Toronto of course"! lol 

When I left they had put in an i.v. for her for the upcoming antibiotics.  She was calm and willing to try to sleep and was ok for me to go home.  She was concerned for her dogs and that they get out and then go to bed too.

The crap care at this place starts again....

I took my mom back into St. Michael's Hospital in downtown Toronto yet again at about 7:30 am on Monday August 4th. She was in delirium and had fallen out of bed.  She spent all day and into the evening in the emerg waiting for a room to come available on the General Medicine floor.  The 14th floor where nothing ever goes well for her. :-(  (other than the last visit).  The problems started immediately.

She needs a sitter because she is in an unsafe, unstable condition.  She tries to get out of bed due to delirium and is seeing things thanks to an infection.  So they put her in a room with 2 other patients.  Both of which are men.  The one beside her is fine..  however..  the one across from her looks like he's in a serious detox and likes to lay there with nothing on but a diaper and touching/rubbing it or spreading his legs.   Oh yeah, if you go back in this blog you'll see this kind of thing is the norm at this hospital, not the exception.  Needless to say, my mom is very upset and he scares her.  Scares me a bit too the way he looks.  All red in the face, hair all greasy and stringy and nothing he is saying is making any sense.

The sitter she has is yet another matter.  Male as well but that means squat.  They have some very good male sitters but this one is something else.  They need to take my mom to get a ct scan of her head to be sure she didn't hit it and there's no problems so this guy grabs the gurney and slams it into her bed jarring the hell out of her and making her cry out in pain and start to cry.  He's certainly got my attention now.  Mr. Expose Himself is now attentive too.  Then what does this sitter do?  Well he needs to move her from the bed to the stretcher so he whips off her sheets leaving her pretty much exposed to Mr. Expose Himself!  Now she's freaking out laying there in nothing much more than a little t-shirt and her drapes wide open and this asshole doesn't give a rat's ass.  I jump in at this point and yell for him to give her a bit of respect and decency and shut the damn drapes.  He smirks, gives me a look as if to tell me to fuck off and proceeds to drag her onto the stretcher.  I run up, grab one drape as another c.a. grabs one too and we pull them shut.

They take her down for a ct scan and I go head hunting for that bastards head.  I tell them that the guy is exposing himself and what the sitter did and I wanted her moved from there. I want them both away from her. Then I'm told that they can't!!  They can't afford a sitter to sit with just her so if I want her moved then they will however she won't have a sitter for her protection/safety!  oh.. but Mr. Expose Himself will have one??  Absolutely!

Their end result to fix this issue is to have Mr. Expose Himself pull his drapes and to change the sitter with another one.  The sitter solution was fine by me but every time someone pulled that pigs drapes he pulled them back!  That's quite the solution St. Mikes...  quite the solution.  Now my elderly mom is terrorized by this pig.

"Urban Angel" my ass.. more like the "Devil's Den"

I would take her elsewhere but the problem with that is her family Dr who is simply amazing is with that hospital.  Her cardiologist who is also amazing is there too.  Her tummy Dr that she's had for 17 years now and knows her literally inside and out.. is also there, as is her arthritis specialist.  So..  with that being said, every test, every scan, every scope, every x-ray, every I.N.R., every everything she's had done to her since they closed the beloved Wellesley Hospital is right there at a Dr's fingertips to see.  No second guessing, no 50,000 questions, all the answers to their questions are right there in front of them.  This isn't available other places.  And it can make a difference in her care, especially in the emerg who for the most part, work great.  It's once you get upstairs to that general medicine ward that will kill you.  Or scar you psychologically for life.

Right now I'm limited with time due to my mom's illness thanks to 2 Dr's at St. Michael's hospital.  Dr. Jennifer Watts and Dr. D'Silva, both of the Geriatric dept in there. Don't know D'Silva's first name however I'm sure there aren't too many Dr. D'Sillva's on the Geriatric team during this time period.  Young woman.   Anyway, don't ever let either one of them touch your loved one.  You'll be lucky they don't kill them.  If I wasn't there constantly and overseeing most everything I don't believe I would have brought my mom home.  What's worse, they wouldn't listen to their patient when she told them not to do something, and not to change her meds.  Then they wouldn't listen to me as her Power of Attorney so the long and short of it is this...

1)  They took her off her Diltiazem (her heart med) and she was tachycardic twice.  Enough to put her on fluids to settle everything down including her blood pressure because that med also regulated her blood pressure.

2)  They jacked up her other 2 blood pressure pills because of course they removed her heart med that helped regulate it.

3)  They took her off her Lasix (her water pill) and after giving her bolus (large amounts of fluids fast)  twice she then had a crackle in her lung which meant there could very well be fluid there.  When I got her home her one ankle was swollen one morning and she had fluid filled bags under her eyes and still did by the Friday when I took her to her family Dr.

4)  They removed her domperidone for her swallowing issues and in little time it was more difficult for her to swallow too.  This means since she's on a liquid diet due to swallowing issues, she's getting less and less calories as time goes one.  She definitely lost weight again in there.

5)  They removed her from her iron even though her iron was low.

6) They removed her from her pain medications even though we told them not to.  They put her on a different one that she can tolerate at very low doses (1 mg) however they were pumping her full of the shit and she simply curled up crying in constant pain and saying she wanted to die.  At times she was fairly unresponsive. 

7) When I finally lost it on Watt and wrote a letter to her boss D'Silva telling her I wanted Watt to have nothing to do with my mom's care, not to even have consulting privileges didn't D'Silva step in and start bullshitting us too and damn near overdosed her again.  This time she said she would agree to putting her back on her old pain meds so she could get some relief and the minute I left the hospital, she cut it back in half and I found this out via the nurse.  Next day I took it up with them again and again they said they would start her back on her old pain meds and again reversed it when I left and only gave her one dose for the entire day and only gave her a minimum dose at that.  I told them I wanted it started back slowly and each day to add a bit more until we got her back on track but nope..  they'd rather see her suffer.  I knew this was a safe way to do it because I spoke to a pharmacist that was well acquainted with my mom and he told me how to do it safely.  In the end she was only getting 30 mg of codeine once a day there for a couple of lousy days, in excruciating pain because of it and then this dumbass Dr comes up with pumping 60 mgs all at once into her?   Oh goodie, let's just kill her off.  The 60 mg's never happened, I wouldn't allow it no matter what. 

Something else bizarre happened too and I'm sure it's in regards to those meds they kept pumping into her that were doing nothing but putting her out in some zone never mind even on the planet...  on the Saturday she was there she saw yet another Dr.  A young man, very nice.  While he was talking to me and her (although she wasn't really listening) her jaw started to chatter for lack of a better description.  Like someone freezing cold.  I never saw anything like that before and told the Dr to look at her.  I asked him why it was happening and she's never done that and he didn't know.  I'm no Dr but I'm putting it down to the overload of that freakin hydromorphone.  At this point in time she was on 3 mg slow acting and throughout a few hours another 5 mgs @ 1 mg per hour.  No wonder she didn't know where the hell she was and her jaw was jiggling.

8) Meanwhile Monday morning my mom was complaining that it burned when she peed so this means that the infection was still there and more so so I let them know.  For some reason, probably because D'Silva was tired of me, we got a new young Dr who was amazing.  She not only ordered a urine test on my mom, she also ordered an x-ray of her lungs since she also heard a crackle in there that she normally doesn't have.  Seems D'Silva heard it the day before but chose to ignore that as well. 

9)  All along my mom had been delusional as well due to the infection but between Watt's and D'Silva it simply didn't matter.  It's normal. On my mom's last day there she was even combative and I told D'Silva who reappeared that morning because she wanted my mom out of the hospital regardless of what else was going on.  So that morning she was seeing pink turtles on her bed.  Little bitty ones. She had not slept one night since she got there which wasn't helping the confusion.  It burned when she peed.  Her lung had a crackle and she had turned combative but she was going home. And she was in more pain than ever because she wasn't getting proper pain control for a week now.  Exactly how long do they think an 88 yr old little lady can tolerate full blown pain?

10)  D'Silva called a transport ambulance for her and ordered Cipro for my mom.  Even though I had told her that at times it has not worked for my mom.  She was so freakin eager to get rid of this little old lady who was now sicker than when she went in there that she didn't even bother to wait for the 2nd part of the test.  The "sensitivity" test.  This part tells you basically what kind of anti-biotic to use for that particular kind of bacteria.  So she just shoves her on Cipro and ships her home @ 1 pm on Tuesday August 12th barely able to smile when she got home .

While home I know something isn't working...   my mom is getting sicker.  And more hallucinations too.  That night she was seeing all sorts of things.  People in her room that either owed her $150 or wanted $150.  Things on the wall.  Mumbling and muttering that I couldn't make any sense of.  But of course, we have to remember that all this shit is alright according to Watts & D'Silva.  She tries to get out of bed which is nothing short of frightening because she can't walk and will fall again and possibly this time seriously hurt herself.  Even her sitter is scared. 

I call her family Dr's nurse and leave a message telling her what is going on and Wednesday evening about 9 pm her Dr called me to discuss it.  I told him she's getting worse instead of better and as I started to tell him that D'Silva shoved her out the door with Cipro without waiting for the sensitivity test he told me he knew and that's another reason why he's calling, the bacteria isn't sensitive to Cipro, she's on a drug that is doing nothing for her!!  He then faxed that night a new prescription for a new antibiotic for her which she started Thursday around noon.

By now though things are not looking good.  I take her into our family Dr on Friday afternoon and he's rather dismayed at how she looks.  Her bp is ok but not like it normally is.  Due to the fact she's not her normal perky self and is barely holding herself up in her wheelchair, she looks pale, guant and is crying at times, he doesn't want to do anything with her meds other than her pain meds for some relief.  I have to call him Monday morning again.

All day yesterday and last night she was just laying there..  barely lucid it seemed at times.  I was so worried I took her bp and then called the family Dr's service to speak to the Dr on call.  Her bp was up and he had me push her back and she was tender.  If she has a kidney infection now due to all of this I'll do something even if it's only blog and blog again about those 2 Dr's to save some other family's loved one from their reaches.

Suing isn't an answer.  No lawyer out there will take on a case with an elderly person in bad health.  A lawyer literally told me this a couple of years ago when I contacted lawyers about my mom and that damn place.  He actually told me that no one would take her case because they were afraid that 2 years down the line when the case finally got to court that she would pass away and no one would be able to cover their fee's at that point!  I told him that's illegal.. it's ageism...  he said that's true but that's why no one would take her case.  Listen.. if those asses did it 4 years ago when she had a clear cut case with them the case would be over and done and she would have won I'm sure.

Further to all this.. let me tell you, that before she got the urinary infection that sent her to the hospital this time, for years now her blood pressure has been right on..  her A-Fib has been so well controlled that it is almost undetectable...  she had no swelling..  and when her family Dr gave her meds for a urinary infection he always waited for BOTH tests to come back.

It's Sunday August 17th, 2014 and I'm worried that I am going to have to take her back to the hospital.  She woke up a bit more alert this morning and took her meds but in the last couple of hours she is waning agqin.  I just asked her her name and she couldn't tell me.  She is looking sick again.  If I take her back I absolutely refuse to let Geriatric's touch her.

end of June 2014

Back we go..   she has another infection but I caught it really fast and she was in and out in 4 days!  She had a good Dr that didn't mess with anything and came by frequently.   Wish they were all like that.  I do believe that his attentiveness helped in her getting home early.

More about Jan/Feb 2014

Things were so crazy I never finished that part of the blog and I've since lost the remarks damn it.  If I find them (had a motherboard crash) I'll post them.  To finish this particular time in the "Devils' Den"...  let me just say by the time I got her home she had lost 18 lbs!!  She was tiny to begin with.  Since then she never got her same baseline back.  She is more forgetful these days.  She is terrified of the dark for some reason now and of the hospital.  Gee.. I wonder why??? 

Sunday February 9^th/2014

Yea… another day at St. Michael’s Hospital.  I didn’t hear from my mom this morning so I knew we were at the start of another off day L

I got here @ 11:50 am – did a run in the Timmy’s in the lobby so I could get a bagel for breakfast.  I’m sick of the food/junk food in this place.  I lost 11 lbs after my recent heart attack and think I’m going to gain it back thanks to the food available in this “health” institute.  They should be ashamed of themselves in regards to the food in this place, especially in the vending machines.  It’s all junk.

Speaking of which, I am going to write Toronto Public Health about the cafeteria.  A couple of days ago I got a “hot” meal there, the chicken souvlaki.  My mom was on the 7^th floor, the cafeteria is on the 6^th.  Her room is but 50 feet from the elevator, even less if I take the staff elevator and by the time I sat down at her bedside and opened the food, the chicken wasn’t much better than tepid.  The hot food is not being kept to safety standards.  Certainly not the chicken.  Gee thanks for the salmonella folks.

It’s noon, time for her pills.  I can barely wake her up.  Got them in her though finally.

She needed water and all I can find is a cup that is dirty on the outside and warmish water in it.  No jug.  I go to get one and not a single clean jug in the pantry.  Goodie.  No facecloths, no clean water jugs, no clean cups…   so I go looking.  I ask the lady delivering the food, she doesn’t know.  I ask her nurse T only to be told she is on a NO WATER restriction!!  Hellooooo  she’s already been dehydrated are we trying again?

No water…  why?  I told T that this damn place doesn’t know what to do with her and don’t follow the damn directives there, to just ask me.  No water my ass.  I finally found her jug, hidden behind the chair on the windowsill here.  I took it into the pantry and filled it with ice and a bit of water and got a clean cup.  Maybe tomorrow I should not only bring a facecloth but bring cups too?  Anything else?

Her lunch came.  They keep messing around with it as well and I’m pretty fed up with this issue too.

Took off the couple of things she can actually have on it..   the applesauce for her pills, her supershake and there’s a thing of asparagus soup too but doubtful she’ll eat it since she’s drifted off yet again.

I also cleaned up the leftovers from yesterday and caught a look at something.  Yesterday she ate very little, maybe got one supershake in her.  But I just got an eyeful of the best before dates on these.   The strawberry one which looks a pale yellowy colour is dated February 7^th !!!  She got it the afternoon of the 8^th.  The vanilla one is dated the 9^th.  That one is fine but why the hell is she getting one that obviously isn’t the right colour, you can see a wee bit of pink and the rest is off, dated the day before?

Got the tv finally on and the poor thing is sleeping through the one thing she loves the most, the Olympics, especially the ice skating.

She has eaten nothing today.  I got a few teaspoons of applesauce into her with her pills and about a third of her morning supershake.  That’s it.  According to this place it really doesn’t matter that she’s not eating either.   So exactly how long can a person sustain their health on maybe 300 calories a day at best? 

So let’s see…

-          They give her food she can aspirate into her lungs

-          They have someone that doesn’t have a clue feed it to her as well

-          They have removed her water  and have said she shouldn’t have it

-          They no longer have her on i.v. so she isn’t getting fluids that way either

-          They can’t get her food order correct and no one feeds her the one thing she is suppose to have that is her calories and nutrients for the day and to sustain her health.

-          They take her c.i. away so when she is agitated and trying to get out of bed there is no one watching her and chances are, she is going to hit the floor yet but I can’t be here 24/7.  I’m physically unable to be.

 1 pm and she’s still sleeping.  When will this sleeping stop?  I just keep trying to think sleep is healing. 

Her nurse also brought her pills in.  Her codeine and Tylenol.  I can’t wake her up enough to take them all.  Got her codeine in her in one spoonful of applesauce and only got one of the two Tylenols in her.  She’s down for the count yet again.  Think I’ll go and buy her some flowers from the gift shop.  Maybe if she wakes up later they will cheer her up.

 

Are you kidding me?  No damn wonder you can’t find a sheet or bedspread here for the patients.  Last night after I left at 8 pm someone went into my mom’s room and removed the only chair for anyone to sit on and it turns out they dragged it up the hall to a room 4 rooms up.  Guess they figured since she was pretty much passed out it was ok.

 Today I come, no chair.  Her nurse found it up the hall with a c.i. sitting in it.  She got it back for me.  I told them I wasn’t about to stand for the next 8 hrs.   This chair was uncomfortable for some reason, made no sense since it was comfy yesterday but there was a sheet over it.  I figured the sheet was bunched up and that is what was uncomfortable able so I got up and I removed the sheet.  There was another one under it..   I removed it and something was in there and it was a bedspread all folded up to make a cushion.  Under that was yet ANOTHER sheet all folded up to make another cushion.  And then under that is another freakin sheet, this one was a fitted bed sheet tied in a knot at the back to keep it in place.  6 damn sheets on this freakin chair!!!  I pulled them all off, went for some wipes and wiped down the stupid chair then sat my ass down.  It was now comfortable.  What the hell is it with this place?  So now patients have no sheets, and believe me, I looked in her cupboard, there is only a fitted sheet in there, there are now 6 sheets in the bin for washing and I can just imagine the laundry bill in this place without all this excess because someone working here obviously has some kind of germ phobia.  Cripes..  get the damn wipes and wipe it off. 

 2 pm – nothing..  still sleeping.  One of her old nurses, Bev, dropped in to say hi and we couldn’t even wake her long enough to say hi back.  I think she saw her but I’m not sure it registered.  Bev was sad by my mom’s appearance.  I remarked it didn’t even look like her and she agreed.

 2:15 pm a Dr. Gallagher came in.  Says he will be her Dr for the next few days.  Nice man but gave me a scary scenario saying this confusion may last a long time.  She will be here for another couple of days according to him with hopes of getting her back on track like she was last Thursday.

 2:30 pm nurse and c.a. came in to change her and damned if she didn’t fight them off.  Yelling my name, being combative, she wanted nothing to do with it.  She won’t even listen to me.   Kept saying she’d do it herself ..  don’t know what on earth is going through her head.    It took 10 minutes just to change her and put a fresh gown on and clean pad under her.  But then I noticed something, she is laying on a dirty bottom sheet and the c.a. said it was ok.  Could be changed later.  It had a urine mark and some feces.  It can wait?  If I could do it myself I would but in the shape she is in I can’t, she’d fight me all the way.  What the hell is with this place?  This is ok?????  If that Dr comes back in any time soon I’ll ask him if he would appreciate his mom laying on this. 

 4 pm..   nothing… nurse brought her heart pill for me to give but I can’t wake her up enough.  No one even comes in here unless necessary for the lady in the next room.  In all the hours I’ve been here  the nurse popped in twice for meds which I’ve given her.  That I don’t care about, she takes them better from me at times.  And once to change her.  So that’s less than once an hour.  Good thing she’s not on the floor again eh?

 Speaking of floors.  Just looking at this one.  There is stuff on this floor that has been here since she came here Friday evening @ 6 pm.  Stir sticks on the floor.  Yesterday the student nurse dropped the bag that covered the syringe they use to clear the iv and it’s still there too.

5 pm – her gums are bleeding, as usual, no one cares.  She woke up and I managed to convince her to take her teeth out so I could clean them because of all the crap I took out of her mouth yesterday and she is sticking her fingers in her mouth and coming out with more crap.  I used the green sponges to clean inside her mouth as well and damned if they didn’t come out with blood on them.  WTF?  Nurse wasn’t concerned, thought I scrubbed her mouth too hard.  Ass.  It’s a sponge for one thing and for another really????  Sure..  I just dug in there like I was digging for gold.  Stupid.

6 pm – sleeping yet again, she has sleep 90% of the day I think.  At least.

 No one ever puts lotion on her skin either and it’s getting dry.  Just what she needs, cracked skin.  What the hell happened to real nursing?  Some of these younger ones are in and out so damn fast your head will spin. 

I’m worried about all this sleep, it’s just not normal.

7 pm she’s refusing her medications …  with much ado and prompting I finally got 2 in her that she needed but not her pain meds. 

 I left at 7:45 with her telling me to bring her curling iron tomorrow for her hair.. sheesh

 

Her nurse contacted me near 10 pm and mom was so combative.  They needed to change her and her bed and she was having nothing to do with it.  I've never heard my mom like that.  I told them to call me if they had problems.  At least while I'm on the phone with her I'm somewhat of a distraction and they can get their job done.

Fri Feb 7th/ Sat Feb 8th/2014 this is a long post..

14^th floor

Friday February 7^th/2014

Up to the 14^th floor.  This floor is no good for her.  It’s like an omen, something drastically always goes wrong on this floor.

She was talking to me here from about 6 pm – 8 pm when I left.  No problem when I went.  I told her and she reminded me to feed the dogs and the birds and to call her when I get home if I could.  I left her my numbers in case she wanted to call me and told her how to use the bell to call for help.  I saw no c.i. for all the time I was here.  So much for a shared c.i., where the hell is she/he?

Before I left I let Julianna (her nurse) know that I changed her and she had a b.m.  She was then clean and dry and ready for the night.

 

Saturday February 8^th/2014

 

9:30 am I called mom and found her pretty much unresponsive.  She did not answer the phone herself, the c.a. in the room answered it.  I ended up having to yell into the phone to get a response and she was so out of it she mostly didn’t say a word.  Turned out the c.a. was feeding her oatmeal (she later changed her mind and said it was crème of wheat).  Regardless I told her not to feed it to her, it was too thick and a choking habit and to especially not feed her that when she is so incoherent and nodding off.   Exactly how stupid are these people?  Last thing I need is her ending up in step up again.  So she wanted to know then why she got this food and I had to sit there and explain that the hospital  demands some kind of diet put in the computer so pureed was the closest to what she needed.

No complimentary tv after all but at this point I couldn’t give a rats ass. 

Mom is worse than ever.  All she is doing is grunting.  I asked to see the Dr.  Was hoping either Amanda or Katherine would be here but a young man showed up.  Very nice and again I learned even more about delirium and according to him she can go back to completely unresponsive!!!  This is not fucking funny, it’s downright scary.  She’s like when I first brought her in this damn place with a raging infection.  She’s downright unresponsive.

I tried a cool wet facecloth on her face.  Her face was dirty.  Gunk all in her eyes and on her lips.  Her nurse came in and said she got her pain meds into her this morning and mom told her that she had a bad pain in her tummy.   Then at some point the mental midget tried to feed her while she was unresponsive.   She said she was a c.a. not a c.i.  and I’ve been here awhile again and have yet to see anyone.

This is not a good thing considering her nurse had to pack pillows all around her so she doesn’t  fall out of bed.  She keeps falling over onto the railings.  If she falls out of this bed I swear I’ll go after the nearest person.  She is so black and blue already from when she was thrashing around and being combative.  I believe she kept knocking her chins against one of the railings.  They are battered.  

My poor mom.  Normally her skin is so clear, unblemished.  At this point her entire peri area is so red raw it’s enough to make one cry looking at it or at least cringe.  I can’t get anyone to listen to direction from me or even the Dr.  I don’t want freakin zinc used on her, it’s difficult to wash off and at this point can tear her skin leading to more serious problems.

2 days ago I went to change her and was mortified at what I saw.  All sorts of crude in her peri area.  I swear no one had moved the folds of skin and clean inside them since she’s been in here.  It took me 5 minutes with a facecloth and lots of soap to clean just that area.  It was disgusting.  I try to clean her now every time she needs it when I’m here.  This is such bullshit.  Poor old little thing looks like she’s been through a freakin battle and back.

It’s been one issue after another in this god forsaken place.  Urban angel my ass.  I keep forgetting to bring Buddha for her to watch over her.   I started bringing him when she was in here in 2010.  I must bring him tomorrow to watch over her.

So far on this floor I have not found any of her pills at least.  On 7 I found 2 tylenols at separate times.  Both times I found one on a piece of folded up paper towel on her little dresser with drawers.  I also found her pantaloc twice!  What’s up with that?  I found one one day on the floor sort of under her bed and then yesterday I found yet another one, this time on her bed at the edge of her soaker.  How many other pills was she not getting?  There’s no telling.

Dr. came in again @ 2:20 pm and told me he ordered a scan of her head just in case she has had a stroke.  This is due to the grunting and no talking.  He doesn’t think so though since she can move both arms.  I told him I asked this question just yesterday.  He is also going to order an e.c.g. because when asked if she’s in pain she grunts and kind of nods yes.  When asked where.. she grunts again and touches her left chest area.  He is also going to get some blood work done.  She is not going to like any of this and I hope she doesn’t  get combative throughout this.

She’s slobbering today too!  She’s never done that before. 

And when I got here she’s dirty.  Her gown is all dirty and her eyes and mouth are crusty.  Geez does no one clean her at all in this place?

Maybe it’s time to blog this shit..   I started a blog years ago with her last stay on this damned floor.

A young student nurse came in about 2:30 to give her an ecg but she wasn’t having any of it L  She would not lay back and finally found her voice with constant “NO”’s being very clearly said.  At the same time they came to get her for a scan and there was no way in hell she was going to help them get her on the stretcher.   Finally they managed through all her struggling and shouting NO NO NO. 

I told them not to give her a sedative.  With her being so unresponsive already the last thing I wanted was her flat out unconscious.   And I remembered being told even giving her a sleeping pill may not be a good idea.

About a half hour after the porter came for her she showed back up to transfer her back to her bed.  She refused to participate with a resounding NO NO NO.  After getting her into her bed again they decided to retry the ecg. Well.. that simply didn’t work either.   So nothing got done and I’m sure the same will be said of her blood work when someone tries to get some from her.

At around 4:30 she woke up and looked at me and smiled.  Then she dropped her head again and that was that.  T, her nurse tried to take her blood sugar and damned if she didn’t start to fight her and I swear she even tried to take a swing at her.  She got it, its normal and it turns out that’s the 3^rd time she’s had to check mom’s blood sugars.  Why?  I asked her why and she just figured mom was diabetic but she isn’t!  Never has even had any blood sugar issues, not high, not low.  She is going to ask why she’s doing blood sugars on someone that isn’t diabetic.  Duh 

4:50 pm she lifted her head and had the meanest scowl on her face.  Opened her eyes for a bit but didn’t seem to focus on anything then dropped them shut and dropped her head back down.

This day is very disturbing for me.  I’m told she can waffle in and out, even to this point but I’m just having such a difficult time accepting this as my mom’s “norm” right now.  She has never had confusion other than when she had an u.t.i.  Other than that she’s clear headed, active, perceptive and enjoys life.  Right now I’m not even sure she knows who the hell she is and it’s tearing me apart to see her this way.  I’m not sure what to do at this point.  If I take her home tonight I have no sitter.  Speaking of which, I have yet to see a freakin c.i. and I’ve been here for hours on end.    Geez  I just dragged the chair by accident and it made a loud noise when I did and she didn’t bat an eye.  Nothing.

5:20 pm – I obviously have nothing else to do but type.  Dr came back in.   When he called her she actually opened her eyes and looked at him and she said something.  I’m thinking she asked who he was because he said “you don’t know me, I didn’t introduce myself last time I came and saw you.  I’m your Dr”.  That was that..  off she drifted again.

He told me that he wasn’t worried now that she didn’t get the scan because she obviously isn’t worse.  Had to agree with that.

I actually got her to talk a wee bit.  She was grunting again and I told her if she didn’t use her words I can’t understand what she wants so she struggled but said her tummy was upset.  I asked her if she wanted her ondansetron and she said yes.  I went and got it.

She didn’t give the nursing student a hard time when he cleared her iv line.  She got her medication.

All she does is moan and she keeps drooling for crying out loud.  What is up with that?  I told her again to stop moaning and groaning that I can’t understand it and to use her words.  With much persuasion she finally got out that she wanted water so at 5:45 she had a few good long sips of ice water which she said yes when I asked her if it was good.  And now she’s trying to strip off her gown and is moaning again.

See seemed to wake up a bit and the Dr came back in and she actually looked at him, made eye contact.  Said a few words with him.  Maybe things are looking up.  He gave me an excellent analogy of what’s going on with her, something I can actually grasp.  Thankful to him for that. 

A lot happened just before I left.  Mom got really agitated.  I finally got the tv set up for her and the skating was coming on and she loves the skating so I told her to take a nap for a half hour and I’d wake her up to watch the skating.  She kind of just layed there for a while then started to get antsy.  She wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t drink anything and finally I got a few teaspoons of chicken soup broth in her.  Then weird stuff started.  She started telling me “I can’t”.  and repeating it over and over and I kept asking her what she can’t do and finally she blurts out “I can’t skate”!  I tried calming her and telling her it was ok she couldn’t skate and that no one expected her to.  We went at this for several minutes, probably 10 before she let it go.

Next she is telling me she needs help.  To “fix” it.  I had no idea what the hell she was talking about but she finally said something that made me realize she meant her mouth.  Looking closely I could see what looked somewhat like loose skin.  I told her to open her mouth and when she did it was gross.  Her tongue and inside her mouth was coated with something.  I have no idea what.  Wasn’t thrush I don’t think but it was coming off with a facecloth like pieces of skin.  It was very weird.  Told the nurse but she didn’t care.  Asked for a clean facecloth but couldn’t have one.  She wanted me to use a stupid towel to clean her tongue.  What an ass.  I rinsed out her facecloth and went back at it.  Geez I must have done it for a good 5 minutes and more and more of this shit was coming off.  Linda (don’t know what her job is) gave me those green sponges on a stick and I swear I used half the package of those too.  No wonder she was getting agitated with that shit in her mouth like that.  Finally I got the majority of it off and she calmed down for a few minutes.

We had been talking about being time for me to leave for the night and she was fine with it and then all of a sudden she got really agitated again and started telling me no and not making any sense and the next thing I knew she was making her way down the damn bed.  She was heading off it.

I ran for the nurse and asked her where my mom’s c.i. was because I had to leave and she was trying to get out of the bed.  Nurse couldn’t have given a shit and told me she would keep an eye on her.  Really?  When?  In between all her other patients that are all in different rooms?  I told her I wanted the c.i. in there and if she falls I’ll sue the damn place in a heartbeat.  This damn floor is a nightmare.  Always has been for her.

Next thing I know doesn’t the nurse come back and tells me that there is no c.i. for her and that I was in on the conversation about it and approved it!!!  Fuck this place.  If she falls I’ll sue them so damn fast their lawyer’s head will spin.  If she falls and injures herself I’ll make sure somehow that all the other shit she has endured at their hands on that floor is exposed as well.

On my way out I saw the dr that was seeing to her earlier and I told him I wanted the c.i. in her room with her that she is very agitated and trying to get out of the bed.  That she can get off the bed at the end of it and is moving down that way.  To which I was told he’d talk to someone (can’t remember who) and that he had no control over the staff there.  This place is a hole and I’d remove her tonight but can’t bring her home in this state.

Oh and either Julianna didn’t mark down that my mom had a b.m. or they just ignored her notes too because tonight even though she went yesterday and twice today (once in the morning and again early evening and it was soft) they are wanting to give her a laxative.   And they ask her if she had a b.m.  Right, like she knows or gives a shit.  The woman barely knows her name today, matter of fact we couldn’t even get her to say it whenever we tried, and they are asking her?   I told them not to give her a laxative or she will be shit from head to toe.  Dumb asses.  She so needs to get the hell out of there.

We're back at the nightmare on the 14th floor

It's been a long, long time but my mom is sick again.  It's been almost 2 years since she's been in this place.  She's been here since January 28th and every day I fear for her health, safety and life as long as she is in this hole.  Urban Angel my ass.  More like Satan's Sister.  Yesterday while sitting at the end of her bed I decided to start to add to this miserable blog again.  I had nothing else to do since thanks to this place she took a serious step back and is pretty unresponsive the vast majority of the day. 

Things are different though this time or I'd take her home right now.  Due to confusion from a serious infection she's delusional.  Is confused and yesterday even combative.  Never seen her like this in my life.  Scares the living crap out of me.

Anyway, time for me to get ready for the day again there so I'm going to simply copy and paste my remarks for the past day and a half here. 

I.N.R.'s

International normalized ratio. A number that is used as a report of the ability of blood clotting in someone's system that is on Warfarin. 2 - 3 is good. That's what is aimed for. Under two means you can throw a clot possibly, 4 or 5 means you can bleed. Your blood is too thin basically.

Many people are sensitive to this drug. My mom is one of them. Ever since she's been on this Warfarin (yeah, rat poison) I am forever getting calls from the Dr. to change her dose. She uses between 1/2 mg to 1.5 mg but never more to maintain a Prothrombin time (pro time) of 2 - 3. I'm used to adjusting her medication, been doing it a long time now however for some strange reason she is up to 4 or 5 mg of this drug for a few days now and is only got a PT of under 2. What the hell is going on?

So today, the nurse comes in with her Coumadin again (Warfarin) and I ask her what my mom's INR is. She is unsure since it wasn't taken yet and I question the amount my mom is getting. I know what her INR's were a couple of days ago so ask her to check with the Dr. She does and the Dr says to take it any way. Now, I'm concerned that even though her INR's are low that inevitably they are going to spike with all this Warfarin in her. So we give it to her.

The nurse decides I should talk to the Dr and he comes in and I question him because now it's discovered her INR is over 4 !! 4.16 and I've just given her 5 mg of warfarin again! I'm not happy. He says it will be ok. I guess we'll see but if they don't hold her Warfarin tomorrow I'm really going to start asking questions.

What if she falls again? She can get a bleed with that high an INR. I want her off that damn drug, I hate it and so does she. We are both sorry we agreed to give it a try for her. Her Plavix was doing a great job and now she doesn't have it and she has this crap. Nothing but a pain in the ass.

On Friday November 12th, 2010

My mom fell out of her hospital bed around 3 am'ish and wasn't found until pretty much shift change at 7:30 am. I need to speak to her nurse. She was in excruciating pain. Both her back and her hip. She said she was screaming and crying for most of the time. Mind you she's in isolation so there is a double door and a long space between them and her voice isn't all that strong so I'm sure no one heard her. But why didn't someone peek in on her in all that time? She fell on the other side of the bed from where her call bell was.

What's really pissing me off though other than the fact she fell out of bed are the following matters:

1) Not a freakin person in that hospital picked up the phone to call me and tell me! I am her Power of Attorney. They are all told to call me of ANY changes. One would consider falling out of bed and not being found for an extended period a "change" worth calling about. I found out when I didn't hear from her in the morning and at 10 am called her! It was my birthday and she never forgets my birthday. Imagine my surprise when this weak little thing answered the phone in a lot of pain crying telling me what happened. She was in sad shape to say the least.

2) My brother decided to call the hospital to find out why no one called to tell me too. He decided to go to the Patient Advocacy. A useless waste of space as far as I'm concerned. And I told him so. But he talked to them anyway and the only thing they seemed concerned about was asking him 4 times if anyone called me. Nothing like watching your back (the hospitals) instead of the patients.

3) My brother called back. This time he was told a "Kim" would be contacting me. He told her that I was in the room then. This was 4 pm Friday. I guess Kim is on a long weekend because it's 10:30 pm Monday now and I've yet to see Kim and neither has my mom.

4) No one, not a freakin single person that is administration staff has approached my mom to ask her a bloody question. Not even if she is ok. "Urban Angel my ass".

5) They knew the bed she had was defective. While she was out getting checked out to see if she broke or fractured anything in the fall guess who took out her camera? You got it. Took 43 pictures. Of every freakin sticker on that bed, twice over. Every inspection sticker, serial numbers, every everything including the broken bed rail. And the distance from her bed to the doors.


I'm talking to my lawyer.

This happened Thursday Nov. 11th 2010

I'm trying to get out of here that morning to go see my sister in East General first then down to St. Mike's to see my mom and I'm hunting dead mice (a whole other story and other blog), answering the phone to St. Michael's bill collectors who are hunting down my mom for her $45.00 ambulance bill !!!! I gave them her hospital # lol then threatened them if they call her. They threaten her, with collection agencies and court for not paying her lousy $45.00 ambulance bill. Excuse me, she's still in hospital!! I've said it once and I'll say it again, St. Mike's, "Urban Angel" my ass. Imagine, threatening an 85 year old woman over a $45.00 ambulance bill. Morons.

Here is the story... happened April 3, 2010 @ St. Michael's Hospital Toronto

On April 3rd/4th a Toronto hospital (St. Michael's Hospital @ 30 Bond St.) put my mom at serious risk by putting a male patient in her room with her that is in detox. I wanted him out but I was told no and that he was no threat, he wouldn't even get out of bed. I almost lost my mom on the Wed. that week and then again this day. Critical care had to literally sit in her room for an hour and a half monitoring her, etc.

So they move this guy in the room against my wishes. A half hour after I'm assured that not only will this guy not get out of his bed, that even if for some strange reason he managed, he would pull off all his leads (he's monitored, cardiac, etc. like my mom) and they would see it on the monitor and come running. I told him I still didn't like it. I'm told he's in detox as if that's some kind of comfort.

No sooner was I given this reassurance when I was sitting watching my mom and talking to her doesn't he get up out of bed! He rips off all his leads, he walks over to almost the foot of my mom's bed, he the pulls out a packaged syringe from the dead syringe box (have no idea why there was a good syringe there) and he then pulls off the wall the large container of anti-bacterial hand gel and stands there with one in one hand and the other in the other hand staring at us. Looks like he may club us or stab us for all we know. He finally starts back for bed!! No one comes.. I tell my mom to hit the button, someone comes on and asks what I need, I tell her the guy is out of his bed and she says "ok"......... and no one comes!

The guy is delirious, he was seeing bugs, hallucinating and was holding complete conversations with himself. What if he took that syringe and stabbed my mom?? Anything could happen. I demanded they remove him from her room. Long and short of it, they didn't. I had to argue with them about what they were going to do to protect her. I had to remind them that her safety is first and foremost. I told them again to remove him but they wouldn't. I told them to put him back downstairs in Major Trauma where there are monitors and monitor him there. They wouldn't do that. I then suggested they move him to another floor. They wouldn't do that. I suggested they call security and have them sit in the room with them and again, that wouldn't work either. I was told security wouldn't do that! I reminded them that there are facilities across this city for those in detox and he should be sent there or even to another hospital via ambulance which is done a lot in Toronto. Still they wouldn't.

The charge nurse tells me she'll figure something out and in a half hour I go looking for her.

The plan was to have a "sitter" sit in the room with them all night long. I had to wait for 90 minutes though, around 11 pm by then. I guess they needed to replace her. It was a small young woman. He could have overpowered her in a heartbeat. Regardless of the sitter my mom was too scared to go to sleep. My mom jumped and yelled that he was out of bed again when she saw a pair of shoes. The shoes belonged to the person sitting in her room to watch. My mother almost died that day, I was told to call my siblings and this is how she is suppose to get her rest now they have her stats somewhat under control? This is how she's suppose to keep her blood pressure stable? And her heart? She called me around 2 am that morning, wide awake. She thinks she managed to get 3 hrs sleep that night if she was lucky. My mom has arrhythmia, dangerous arrhythmia. They can't get it under control and her blood pressure is out of wack too. Her safety is at risk as is her life as far as I'm concerned if she's kept up all night from fear.

This isn't the entire story. I left out the part where the nurse confronted him. He was going to drink that damn stuff because it's made with alcohol. I also left out the part why he was in her room, which is bull, as far as I'm concerned. I left out many parts of this story, like when a lawyer friend of mine had to show up the next day to get him removed from the room. And the part where the next evening a Hospital Director showed up apologizing profusely and remarking that he wasn't contacted and no one followed hospital policy/procedure in this matter, etc.

This should ever happen in any hospital. No woman or senior citizen should ever be put in this kind of harms way. He could have stabbed her, raped her, clubbed her to death with that big bottle of anti-bacterial gel. There is no telling what a large man in detox having hallucinations could do. He was far too unpredictable and unstable and my mother was defenceless. Especially since no nurses came. Who the heck was watching my mother's monitor if no one was watching his??? And no one will ever convince me that if my mom was a young woman that this man would have been put in that room with her. She had 2 Dr’s that continually told me “she’s old you know”.

Not 2 months after they tried to put her from a “step-up” unit into another room with a man again! Needless to say, she got very upset and I said flat out No.

Again....

What is it with this place? Again with equipment that doesn't work. First there's her nasal tube that continually blocks on her. Today I don't get a phone call from her so I know something is wrong. I wait. No call. Finally I call her and she is awfully groggy and not talking much. I tell her to call me back in a while and again I hear nothing. My phone goes and now my brother and sister can't get through to her. They call and no answer. I'm hoping it's simply a matter of someone moving her phone and she can't reach it. Happens all the time. Drives me crazy and frustrates the hell out of her. So finally around 12:30 I try calling her myself and still nothing. I call the nurses station, tell them who I am and why I'm calling and I'm put on hold. For a long time I sit there listening to canned music. Occasionally someone comes back on and tells me they are checking. Finally after about 10 minutes someone comes back on and says "she's sleeping". Now, I know that's not right because she would hear the phone and pick it up even if she was sleeping. I figure I best get the hell to the hospital.

The minute I walk in I take one look at her and know something is really wrong. She can't even open both her eyes all the way. Her pupils are pinpoints. Her mouth is pouted, her hand swollen again. Her eyelids too. She has no feeding tube working. I can't get her to respond to me and when she finally says something it's so garbled I can't barely make it out. I see.......... she's sleeping right??

Exactly who the hell is this dim twit that answers the phone and thinks she's a Dr or nurse? I had issues the other night too. Whomever answered the bell in my mom's room didn't bother to call her nurse when we rang it because my mom couldn't breath and was gasping for breath and there was no oxygen tube for whatever reason. Some idiot had removed it.

I go back out and tell this woman I want both Michelle the dietician and her Dr. And she looks at me like I'm crazy. I go back in her room and wait and nothing. I go back out and tell her that something is very wrong and I'm not sure if she's had another stroke or what but someone needs to get here fast. Finally this woman manages to take it seriously and tells me she'll get the nurse. I told her to get the Dr.

Nurse comes in, one she's had just a few days ago and says that she wasn't like this this morning. She even ate a bit of lunch (liquid). Her n.g. tube is blocked so that's why it's not on. She can't get my mom to respond and goes for the Dr. In the meantime she is going to do an e.c.g. That is if the freakin machine will work. She can't get it to go no matter what she does. She goes and gets another nurse and she can't figure it out either and because it's Saturday there is no technician in either!! What?? Are people not suppose to get sicker on the weekends here? They finally manage to figure it out, it was a paper jam, and they get the thing to work. They even do it twice to be on the safe side.

The Dr. comes in and she can't get a response out of her either. She looks at how swollen she is. Asks me some questions like was she like this yesterday? Nope, I had a conversation with her when I left at 9 pm. She was a bit sluggish througout the day but certainly not to this point. The day before too. She had the gastic tube put in 3 days ago and even as terrible as that was for her (it took 4 tries to get it in) she had a really good day. She had several visitors and talked to all of them and had a really good day. The next day however she started to get tired and a bit weaker. The following day too but she had a low grade fever later that night but yesterday she seemed a wee bit better and we talked again for some time. Remarkably her hands had lost almost all the gross swelling too! They looked almost like her normal hands.

Today though her right hand is swollen up again. They take an x-ray. The Dr orders blood work done and then she orders cultures done too. The nurse takes all the cultures from her picc. I know that's wrong but when I make a remark about her last cultures and how then were taken from different arms she said nothing. Just continued what she was doing. The Dr tries to get her to grip her hand but nothing. She also tries to get her to hold her arm up but again nothing, it crashes down to her bed limp. She calls her and she barely responds if you're lucky.

She remains like this most the day and night. She's so unresponsive that they won't even let me give her ice chips. Nothing. So now she's not only not getting tube fed, I can't even feed her or give her anything liquid.

She seemed to be alert almost some time later and kept telling me she loves me. As much as it's nice to hear it it's spooking me. I tuck her in and I headed home since there was nothing else I could do for her.

gasping for a breath...

Last night as I was about to leave my mom for the evening she started having a problem breathing, this is nothing new, it's been a terrible problem for her for some time. When her heart races (which it does on a regular basis due to the A-Fib) it causes her to gasp for breath. So when this happens last night I go and get her oxygen only to discover that someone has managed to toss the tubing out!! Real smart.

So I buzz the nurses buzzer. I think this has been buzzed all of 3 times in the past 20 days she's been there so you can't say she's a nag or a bug of any kind. The nurse comes on and asks what she needs. I tell her that she's gasping for a breath and needs her oxygen. She says "ok, I'll tell her nurse".

In the meantime I try to comfort my mom, ease her mind, relax her, whatever I can do to try to help the issue since there is nothing else I can do. Finally it starts to ease up for her after a lengthy enough time battle with it, she's exhausted now and it scared the hell out of her. It's been 15 minutes almost since I called. I buzzed at 8:56 and it's now around 9:10. I ask her if I can leave her for a few and she says ok so I go out into the hall to see if I can find anyone. I see her nurse and I'm puzzled as to why she didn't come. She's using the phone there to call the desk and she tells me she got no notice my mom needed her!

I tell her she was gasping for breath and needed the oxygen and she asks the person on the other end of the line if they called her and they said no!!! No.. nice huh? You have a patient gasping for a breath and whomever is on the desk answering the patient calls doesn't think it's important enough? Tell that to my mom why don't you? I told the nurse I was putting in a complaint and I will when I get the time but I know the date and time and that's pretty much all I need, they can look on their schedules and see who was on duty. Her nurse realized how important this was though and once hearing that came directly to her and got her oxygen hooked up again for her.

What is the matter with these people? All they have to do is answer a freakin call button and relay the message to the nurse that she's needed. And one would think gasping for a breath would qualify for action.