I'm back and capable of posting without making an even bigger hate-filled rant against the "system" than I did before...though my FB page sure isn't pretty with all the ranting!
Not a rant (believe me), just tellin' the story as neutrally as possible.
Friend got home last week, which means she's now in week 2 of her 12 weeks unpaid FMLA leave (thankfully her sister-the-lawyer (married to a doctor, no less) is paying whatever bills friend's savings won't cover).
She seems to be doing as well as could be expected, though our last convo she mentioned that they aren't telling her the specifics of how she is doing. I guess it's so early, they don't want to mis-speak when things could change in a second.
I still haven't seen her, b/c on the first day of hubby's weekend (meaning after he got home on Saturday), when I might have been invited up since Eamon would be under Robert's care, the MIL got an ambulance ride to the hospital.
We got a call from the sister in law who had spoken to MIL, and MIL was "tummy sick" and hadn't eaten anything or had any water in 24-36 hours. She was in BAD shape. SIL was in Spokane so called Robert...we called her and R got concerned as well, so as we made our way up to her place, he decided we needed to call 911. As we got there (her apt complex is immediately across the street from the dispatch station, convenient!) they were bringing her down the stairs to get up on the gurney.
Around 1am Sunday morning she was admitted to the hospital, and she was finally sent home on Tuesday. It seems it was a fairly simple thing (though I still say that from the smell, she was one of very few adults who got a symptomatic case of rota, but they didn't test for it so we'll never know for sure) that wasn't contagious (unless of course it was rota, LOL, but none of us got that so I could easily be wrong, but I was in her apartment that night to get the medications she takes, and that smell is nearly diagnostic in and of itself!), and shouldn't have even required a doctor's visit, except for the blood sugar mess and the severe dehydration. She had 3 bags of fluid and was STILL thirsty and feeling horrid.
Then she got rapidly better and then the MD started wanting to play "House" (MD, that is) and was making a simple situation really really difficult and complicated. That's when I was called in by the family to communicate with the hospital staff, b/c that was the hospital that
started the situation that resulted in my FIL's death, by doing doing doing instead of letting the elderly person heal up a bit before continuing. So I came in, but luckily the gastroenterologist had entered the building by then, and first his nurse practitioner and then he slowed things down, telling the internist that the (first thing they wanted, after she'd already had a CT scan, many varied lab tests, some other weird scan) colonoscopy was not needed and could be done outpatient if it were needed, that it was this certain bug, most likely, and that since she wasn't sick anymore, she could go home.
The internist continued to insist on her staying, so she stayed, and then we asked a question about something she wanted to do in a certain way, and she basically called us stupid (jinkies! speciflcally "I was thinking that you and your husband were literary people, but I am not thinking that now"), and then started yelling at me in the hallway, then told us we had to go into the family room if we were going to make a scene. Note: I was quiet and getting quieter (which I hear is a little scary, LOL, but still, I was very very quiet). She was yelling. I wasn't the one making a scene. She needed a nap, I think.
So we had a meeting with her, the charge nurse, the nurse, hubby and son and me (b/c the tantrum-having MD refused to talk TO me or look AT me, and needed hubby in the room to talk "at", but because I was the one with more knowledge and the questions, I had to be there, and so Eamon had to be there as well, sigh). The nurse and charge nurse gave us sympathetic and understanding looks as the MD lost more and more control, simply because we questioned the way she wanted to give MIL something (she started at "the end" with fear-based statements, instead of starting at the beginning by describing side effect differences and
important info like that) and then we couldn't understand what she was saying b/c of her speech mannerisms, fast speech, and accent which was fine until she got riled up and then became incomprehensible. When we would ask her to repeat herself, she would get ANGRIER and spoke faster and her accent got thicker. Sigh.
Finally she left, and the charge nurse talked some more. The MD is going to be spoken to, b/c she was absolutely out of control. Not only that, but the charge nurse is having HER manager call us, to talk about our treatment, MIL's treatment, and even FIL's treatment in '06 as well as MY treatment in '04 at their sister hospital here in Tacoma. I found out that the hemoglobin level I was discharged with (7.9) should have gotten me platelets, if not actual blood...and even if I refused that, they should have TOLD me about the levels so I could make sure of taking iron (I never had to during my pregnancy, as I have always had rock solid and excellent iron levels thanks to my healthy vegetarian diet). She was astonished at my being booted 42 hours post-op. She was shocked that the nurses station refused to give me the office number of the OB even though they knew who we were. Sickened at the lie the OB told me about how the waterproof monitor would'nt work if I took a shower b/c it would get water on it (and he stood by that lie even when confronted with "but it's waterproof"), since that hospital is known for their jacuzzis, which is why they HAVE waterproof monitors.
Etc etc etc. Shocked and dismayed, and she nearly cried as well at one point about what was done with FIL (she didn't like hearing about the nurses not realizing he was supposed to be on antibiotics, for one thing).
It was so GOOD to be heard. Since my stepmom is a charge nurse, I know that it's a really high-up position, a position of power, and I was so happy that she was in the room!
The day MIL was discharged was bad, too. As the nurses said, the "fresh" internist was following up on all of the toddlertantrum-MD's patients from the last 2 days, and was playing cleanup from that. She didn't make it to MIL's room until 7pm. IMO, that's just unacceptable, though understandable considering who she was following! This MD was lovely and nice, warm yet clinical, and had the same basic speech patterns and accent as the other, but didn't get twitchy when asked to slow down or re-state something b/c I didn't understand. She instead simply slowed down and re-stated things. She was most excellent.
We didn't get MIL home until 9ish that night b/c we had to get a prescription of potassium for her and b/c it took SO long to get the paperwork for discharge done. MIL is writing a letter of complaint b/c that entire last day in the hospital was BEYOND unnecessary.
There was also the little matter of their very odd version of diabetic meals. Lasagna, breadsticks, huge sandwiches with fatty lunch meats (for those who don't know, diabetics need to watch their fat intake, as it can make things worse), desserts....MIL's roommate was admitted b/c she was sick, and kept there for a week b/c of her blood sugars being so out of control (despite taking insulin for it). Hubby was there when the woman found out that Vitamin Water had carbs in it...she thought it was JUST water and vitamins! Had never been taught to read the carb part of labels, I guess (which was the FIRST thing discussed at our "class", though we both know how to read the labels already so we got to skim over it). She found out that some other things weren't OK either. She had a level of 600 or so, and that stayed until MIL's last day there when she'd had some sort of drip of insulin(??!!) ALL night. But every meal...huge sandwich, one or two desserts (NOT sugar-free). One day they served her apple pie a la mode AND a slice of cake! What the??????
Since the lady and MIL were both on the same modified diet, and since she could be heard ordering, we know that she wasn't secretly getting sugar-free stuff...it was all full fat, full sugar junk. It was WEIRD.
In much more fun news, for anyone who never thought to highlight my signature for where I hid it, we bought into DVC. BLT to be specific.
So a certain person here should be getting something from DVC, as our shared guide told us he made SURE to put you down as the referral.
Thanks to a different certain person from here, I got a discount code on Virgin America, and we now have our tickets to get down to DLR for Eamon's birthday, where we are staying on our developer's points. OK people, you won't believe this.
Not only are we staying at DLH, but we're staying concierge.
But ya know, we couldn't really stay longer than 4 nights, and those points expire before another trip is planned, and we thought "use it or lose it", so we'll get waters and I'll get brewskie and/or wine in the evenings (right?) and it'll be good. Even if none of the other food can be eaten by us, the water will be nice. And now I'll know what DLH is like, but also concierge, and it's just so so so funny b/c I never ever wanted to stay concierge!
Now we just have to figure out what flight home we want....the flexibility of SW or the better flight times of Alaska??!!
So that's what has been going on with me. Nothing much, same old same old, right?
I'm sure anyone near by thought I was a little "off".
Well, ok, since you said so and your like all chefy, I'll try it. Course I'm gonna need to head to Costco for some Mickey nuggets first.
)
