Shout outs!

Now that I'm one month past my surgery, I'd like to give some shout outs to the hospital staff that made impressions on me during my stay.

A big shout out to Angela, the Physical Therapist on my floor. She insisted that I practice getting in and out of a car (they had half a fake one in the rehab room) even though my post-surgery instuctions say "absolutely no automobile travel until your follow up appointment." She also said I had to try steps. Again, the instructions warn against steps.

A shout out to my nurse the first day after my surgery. I still don't know her name (in my mind she is "Dumb Dora"), as she consistently refused to write it on the little whiteboard by my bed for that purpose. She never came to check on me that first morning, as if she had, she would have seen that I was laying (on my side, thankfully!) in my own puke. Instead this was discovered when Dr. Balderston and Theresa came in for rounds first thing. Someone must have gotten reamed a new one from Dr. B. and Theresa because as soon as they left there were about seven people in my room, including the Nurse Manager. Dumb Dora then stuck her face next to my ear and shouted, as though I was a deaf, mentally challenged 4-year-old that didn't speak English, "Do you want something for nausea?" I think I rolled my eyes and said "what do you think?" I had to really bite my tongue, as I'm sure you can imagine what I wanted to say.

A second well-deserved shout out to Dumb Dora, who, when I asked for something for pain after I had been taken off the IV Demerol, refused to read the second page of my chart where the previous nurse, Patrice, had noted that I was getting Darvon, not oral Demerol (which is ineffectual). It wasn't until I picked up the phone and started dialing Theresa that she miraculously summoned the energy to flip the page and find the most recent additions to my chart and get the correct pain meds.

A shout out to the Nurse Assistant (or whatever they are called) who was attending to my roommate the night of my surgery and who double dipped with her bare, ungloved, probably unwashed hand into my cup of ice chips.

A shout out to whoever the nurse was for my roommate who left her stuck on a (full) bed pan for 18 minutes (we timed it).

A shout out to the Physical Therapist who was on duty on Saturday and came right after I went through the horror of having the tube thrust up my nose and down into my stomach and then, ignoring my wishes to not get up right then (the tube was really, really uncomfortable plus I would have had to carry the cannister with the black, red and green slime in it around with us!), asked the nurse if it could be disconnected "for a few minutes" so I could walk around the floor with her and presumably practice getting into a car and going up and down steps.

A shout out to my nurse Barbara, who left the clear plastic container with the black, red and green slime in it hanging on the wall above my bed for three more days.

Yet another shout out to Dumb Dora, for standing over me with her arms folded across her chest not helping or offering any comfort whatsoever while I cried out in pain, unable to move myself from my bed over to the gurney that was waiting to take me to xray the day after surgery. Once I manoevered my way over without her help, she dashed back to her seat at the nurses station stating loudly to the other nurses, "She had her arm in the wrong position." Yes, that was it and it was all my fault, Dora.

And still another shout out to Dumb Dora for, when I asked for something for heartburn (my acid reflux was killing me as I had to lay flat to comfort my back), telling me that laying flat to comfort my back or propping myself up to relieve the heartburn was "a decision I would have to make." Again with her arms folded across her chest, like she was mad at me for having had heartburn.

A shout out to the entire nursing staff who ignored three calls from me for pain medication over a two hour period between a quarter to six and eight fifteen in the morning on Saturday. By the time someone came in (incidentally, NOT a member of the nursing staff, an NP with orthopedics who was doing weekend rounds) and summoned the nurse (and no, it wasn't Dumb Dora), I was in tears and incoherent with anger.

I'm really not a complainer but come on; some of this stuff is just beyond the pale. I do have some positive shout outs, unfortunately not very many. I'm researching an essay on the health careless situation in nursing, and wanted to get these out there first. Stay tuned for my take on the "nursing crisis."

Patients/Patience

Did you ever hear the old pun, "I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn't have any patience (patients)?"

I had just about given up on talking to anyone at Dr. B's office without exploding into an angry tirade, so I had Tyler call. Here I mentioned that it had been a week since I'd called right after the announcement came about the FDA approval and hadn't heard back. Just after that entry, I called again, this time asking to speak with someone in scheduling for Dr. Balderston intstead of his NP, (who really is handling all of this very poorly). I spoke to someone who we'll call "K" (no allusion to Kafka or Joseph K intended), who was very nice and understanding when I explained that the not calling patients back business was unacceptable. When I'd called the Thursday before, they said they would call back. Ok, so when someone, especially a doctor's office says that they will call you back, I sort of expected a call back within a few hours or at least by the next day. K explained that the reason no one called is because they were all waiting to meet with Dr. B. and his NP to decide who would be seen and in what order and that both Dr. B. and his NP had been and were still out on vacation and wouldn't even be back until the following Monday.

Well, OK! Why couldn't someone just have called and told me, and the other frantic patients, that? Do any of these "administrators" have any idea what it feels like to need an operation to be able to stand up straight and walk any distance and to be free of pain and then to have the doctor's office who is supposed to do the surgery NOT RETURN A CALL? It feels like you've fallen through the cracks, like maybe you need to start all over with another doctor after all this time, or like you are doomed to just get worse and worse till you are finally riding around in a wheelchair with really strong arms. I told K that she wasn't working for some five-star snooty New York restaurant that could have an attitude and not return calls if they didn't feel like it, this was my doctor. My doctor! To not have a return call from a doctor's office for 7 whole days is unconscionable. It's not like I call all the time and harrass them. K assured me that as soon as they all met and decided who would be getting appointments, they would be calling us all back.

OK.

A whole other week goes by and now I'm out of patience, thinking that I can't stand it, that I would be able to stand it if only someone would call me and tell me that I'd have to stand it another few months, another six months, another year, ok? But just freakin' call me back and tell me! I understand that they were probably swamped with calls, but as I said here, hire a freaking temp nurse! It's not like they weren't anticipating this kind of reaction from their patients. We're desparate, for crying out loud! We're all in pain, and in various states of disability, can anyone blame us for being impatient about when we might have surgery?

The end of this tale does have a sort of happy ending and here it is. When Tyler called on Thursday (a full two weeks after I called the first time: Shame on them!)K immediately said that Dr. B. wanted to see me and launched into a list of available appointments. When he asked what the delay was in calling back, she said that they'd just gotten the list together that morning. Whatever.

Ok, the windup is I go this coming Friday at 8AM. I don't know what he's going to tell me, but at least I'll get some face time and get some questions answered and even if he tells me it is going to be more of a wait, at least I'll be able to have patience.