Mom & Me Two Archive

...in a different style, apply a little stream of consciousness to our hospital experience.

A First Class Healer

    Although several nurses attended to my mother in ER, one in particular was, as I told him later, a First Class, First Rate Healer. I would say it was a fairly busy night and I believe the nurse who finally took charge of my mother's care was charge nurse that night. As well, my mother was rowdy, I was assertive and doctors were all over her and me trying to convince us [me] to scope her both down and up (to which I repeated her colonoscopist's advice after the July 2003 colonoscopy), to allow a bone marrow biopsy (to which I replied that her hematologist said, "I would not do that to my mother", to which the recommending doctor concurred yet continued to plead, "But, she's bleeding.") Well, maybe she's bleeding. Maybe not.
    In the meantime SuperNurse tended to everything and ran interference for me when I decided to hold the blood transfusion hostage until I received my mother's most recent lab reports and could compare them with her history. When I expressed a need, as in approaching the desk and saying, "Let me put it this way. She just came back from the bathroom wearing 3 pairs of underwear soaked with a quart of urine. The wheelchair is soaked. She dribbled all over the floor. Her freshly made bed will be soaked the moment she lays on it. She needs a change of underwear," response was quick.
    I found a chance, when it was clear that Mom would be admitted, to express my concern about the unfortunate nurse-initiated incidents during our previous experience in September of 2002. SuperNurse listened. For all I know he may have even checked records, as a complaint was filed by my mother's roommate. SuperNurse promised to find excellent staff for us on 4 North and was successful. Although I have a few complaints with procedures, I have only one about the staff and have a few more superior performers to mention as I continue.

Oddities

    Before the transfusion began and doctors were dropping by with results and recommendations, one staff doctor did a quick, digital, finger up the butt rectal exam. He later divulged that the results were "positive" for "occult blood". The next morning another doctor, coincidentally Dr. Gold, told me the rectal exam was "negative". Weird.
    The timing of transfusions is interesting. In my mother's case, initial infusion was slow to allow time for possible alarming reactions to show. Later, the process speeded up.
    I asked MCS why they didn't simply transfuse her into at least a temporarily normal hemoglobin. In order to avoid edema, she explained. Makes sense. However, the resultant state of dehydration the hospital kept her in throughout the next 36 hours, even as she was attached to a saline drip, was disturbing. At one point even Dr. Gold agreed that it was alarming although he attempted to cover with something about it being connected to "the loss of blood", always a safe bet when you don't know what's causing the anemia.
    "Hospitals try their best," an informal advisor assured me. I agree this hospital tried and probably did their best, "but..." he faded. I know. The wrong diet, which shot Mom's blood sugar up to 368 one afternoon when she was begging for a sweet. The skin tears from the tape that went unattended until brought to the staff's attention twice, the first time by the day staff doctor the second time by me. I can attest to the fact that she probably never went completely unattended by staff for more than 15 minutes due to the traffic of extremely helpful CNAs, one in particular whose character was just slightly more rambunctious than Mom's, breathing technicians and both shifts of staff doctors. As well, her free flying mentality, while for some reason overlooked in the history I wrote, was adjusted to well. A couple of times she was referred to as "cute", which irritated both of us but which we tolerated as well meant.
    I was there most of the time, too, and even I missed the fact that she'd somehow been put on a regular menu despite my clear indication on all histories that she is a diabetic and a reporting of her medication and med schedule the night of the ER visit. All I remember is that, around breakfast while she was still being transfused she was ravenous, ordered, received and ate a full breakfast and I thought, "Good. She needs the food. Her blood glucose was 61 last night." I assumed they'd counter any upsurge with insulin, as they do in hospitals. But they didn't.
    One sign of the excellence of the nursing staff is that although my mother was officially in Telemetry, quickly noting her flighty state of awareness the staff made their job and my mother's stay much easier by not connecting her to unnecessary hardware that would set off an alarm every time my mother moved. Thus, her blood pressure and blood oxygen level were not continually monitored. A close eye was kept on my mother's saline drip but nothing was done about the skin tears from the tape until they threatened to become serious wounds and I complained. Even then, with me informing the staff that my mother is a subconscious scratcher, the nurse was unsure what to do and asked me what I do.
    "Well," I said, "I never allow her scratching to develop into skin tears. I don't know how to treat skin tears. You're the nurse." Testy moment. For both of us. Even then I knew I was speaking to an excellent albeit overworked nurse.
    I provoked another testy moment with yet another excellent nurse late into my mother's second night when I was trying to get more than a vague, "hours to days, maybe even weeks" regarding my mother's potential release. When I apologized the next morning (I don't remember saying "I'm sorry" during the apology and I'm not, really) I mentioned, with head bowed, my "French attitude", even though "I didn't actually speak French." I did some literal finger pointing, which wasn't appreciated. I do that when I get excited, good or bad. My outburst, though, thankfully led to what I think was an early release the next morning.

    A few days after the hospital stay I was processing it with yet another MCF who, with family, nursed her father for the last four years of his life and who is also a kidney dialysis technologist. "The reason they let her go is that they knew you knew her history and they probably figured you were right about her getting better care at home. It was probably you bringing in her blood test history that did it. Word about you spread like wild fire, girl!" She's probably right. It pays to be informed.
    I need to check on Mom. It's 1003.
    We should at least act like it's Monday, a business day.
    Later.