I hate to do that. I'm very nonconfrontational by nature but, you know, if I've learned anything this year it's how to speak up and tell people what I think.
When Mom was taken by ambulance to the ER last Thursday they didn't even examine her. They said, "You have body aches? It's obviously H1N1." She had no other symptoms of influenza, mind, but they explained that they were pretty much diagnosing everything outside of broken legs and car accidents as swine flu. She mentioned to them that her legs were a particular pain spot but they gave her narcotics and sent her home with Lortab and Zofran. They told her to remain in isolation for 5-7 days. At least.
This advice might well have killed her.
My cousin (she's really like a sister) and I took her home and got her put into bed. I kept her on a steady dose of Lortab, as I'd been instructed to do, and went out and bought her popsicles and lots of 7-Up. She kept saying that she was getting worse but they'd told us at the hospital to expect this so, I'm ashamed to say, I kind of blew her off. "It's the flu, Mom," I told her. "The flu sucks."
Friday Anthony was feeling down so I figured that the flu was making its rounds. I took him to Mom's, put him in the spare bed, got both of them settled, and took the kids out for the day (an entirely other blog entry for an entirely other day but wow, I was tired).
Yesterday I decided to go buy a bunch of cleaning supplies (the heavy duty, Clorox filled kind) to power clean both houses. No sense taking any extra chances with the flu, right? While I was driving I called Mom to check on her. She could barely speak and asked if I would call L, my cousin, to go and check on her. Normally I have to bully my mom into being cared for so this was a tremendous red flag. I tried to call L and she didn't answer. I called several of Mom's brothers and sisters. I couldn't get ahold of anyone.
In tears, I brought home my new sponges and toilet cleaners and floor cleaner ('Kills the Flu Virus!' it stated triumphantly on the label) and heavy duty trash bags. I threw them on the couch and exclaimed, "Damn my family! Why does everyone have to go to church at the SAME TIME?!"
"Sasha, it's Saturday," Anthony said gently.
We hustled to do the milking and got on the road. While we were on our way L called and said that they were going to the ER, to meet them there. The triage nurse was terribly rude to her (I've known the security guard there since childhood and he confirmed that this guy is a dick). I dropped London off at dance class and everyone else at Mom's and headed to the hospital. She had been seen, very briefly, by a doctor. The doctor hadn't examined her and had literally been called away in mid-sentence. She would be back, she said, although we never saw her again. She did say that Mom would be admitted and had ordered an ultrasound to check for a blood clot in Mom's leg (by now it looked scalded all over and was swollen). They gave her a shot of narcotics and an antibiotic drip and then...
we never saw them again.
For over six hours we sat in the room in the ER. My mom was in torturous pain and L went out several times (I had been sent out to run errands) to the nurses station to get someone. She was always told that someone would be in momentarily and nobody ever came.
Finally, after I had finished all of my errands and snuck in some KFC to entice her to eat (she hadn't eaten in three days and they had offered her no food), someone came in to tell us that the floor doctor from upstairs wanted to see her in the ER before she was brought upstairs. Several minutes later someone else came to get her to take her upstairs. "The doctor wanted to see her down here," we said. "Oh, it's okay," was the reply, "the doctor will see her upstairs."
She was moved to a room (private, I always appreciate that) and the nurse made both L and I put on what seemed like HazMat outfits. Yellow surgical gowns and masks. "We've been around her for days," I mentioned, but it's policy because of the dreaded pig flu, which I was now doubting that she even had. The culture for the flu, they kept saying, was between 30-40% accurate so they weren't even giving it. As the nurse started the intake questions (promising my mom that, after the questions, she would get her some pain medicine as hers had long since worn off) someone peeked in the door holding a mask to her face and said that they were moving Mom--again--to a room on a floor with H1N1 patients. That way she wasn't contaminating their floor.
"Wait a minute," I said. "She has no symptoms of flu other than body aches. If she has DVT or a blood clot that can cause systemic infection with flu-like symptoms. Chances are she doesn't have H1N1. Why expose her to it if she doesn't have it when she's obviously immunocompromised?"
"Oh, they are very careful down there to keep patients separated."
Whatever. Just whatever. The surgical mask was itching me (I know where Holden gets some of his SPD tendencies from) and I was quickly moving from annoyed to Annoyed. It seemed ridiculous that they were more worried about making sure that all of these precautions were taken and procedure followed than making sure the patient was being treated.
(Like I told L later, I know that it's flu season. I know that if I'm going to a hospital that I am taking a calculated risk of running into some kind of nasty.)
So, promising Mom her long-awaited pain medicine when she'd gotten moved--again--she was moved to another floor. By now my blood pressure was rising. The nurse there came to ask the intake questions but cautioned that it was fifteen minutes to shift change so the new nurse would be giving her the medicines. By now Mom was really deteriorating and, as I watched her, it struck me for the first time that if something didn't improve I might not take her home. That didn't matter as the nurse wondered when she'd had her last bowel movement and whether or not she'd had a tetanus shot in the last few years.
Then she left and there we sat. I had planned, once we got Mom settled in her room, to take the kids trick or treating. The kids had picked out their costumes Very Carefully and were, needless to say, raring to go gather candy and Anthony was still not up to power. But as we sat and nobody came I called Anthony and convinced him to walk the kids around Mom's neighborhood.
I pushed her nurse call light and the voice from the wall promised to be right there. I watch the clock on the wall. Ten minutes later L pushed the call light. A half an hour later we were still waiting and Mom was in tears.
Furious, I called the other area hospital and talked to them about signing my mom out AMA and taking her to their hospital. If she had felt even a bit better I would have done it but it seemed insurmountable. Who else could I call? I mused as I gnashed my teeth in anger.
The patient advocate.
I called her and explained that I was absolutely disgusted with the level of care Mom had received (or rather, the care she had not received). I told her about our entire day and stressed that we are not unreasonable people. We don't have unreasonable demands. I'm not an ogre but was quickly becoming one and I was about to pop a vein in my forehead.
The patient advocate apologized profusely and promised to call the charge nurse immediately. Within five minutes there was a nurse! She had came to check Mom over (she gasped when she saw a raw spot on Mom's leg) and brought some heavy-duty medication to help manage her pain. While she was looking at Mom there was a knock at the door and it was the patient advocate, bringing Mom a tray of hot food and a lot of apologies. She said that it disturbed her when reasonable people were driven to such levels of frustration because, she said, that showed that the hospital was *really*dropping the ball.
She made me feel a lot better. It was nice to just be listened to (the nurse, who seemed wonderful, helped as well as she was gentle and attentive to Mom). L and I stayed until Mom got comfortable and ate some of her food, then we headed home.
It has been a Hell of a few days.
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