surveys...

i really didnt care one way or the other about surveys in the past. nowadays most stores, restaurants, etc have surveys on their receipts to find out how they were doing. a few i fill out or enter regardless because of the chance to win a large sum of money or shopping spree. but most of the time, i usually dont UNLESS the service or CUSTOMER SERVICE is terrible!

luckily these days, after a hospital visit, the hospitals send a nice little 4 page survey asking about your visit and the people involved etc. i personally cant wait for this next one to come in the mail...

one of the questions, would you recommend this hospital to your friends and family? not NO but HELL NO!

i have never been so disgusted with care and treatment at an establishment before until this hospital in sulphur springs. :/ all because people want to make ASSUMPTIONS without knowing facts!

my dad has had underlying health problems for several years while he lived in ark. my uncle tried to take him to the dr to find out why he was severely losing weight even tho he was eating. altho they ran tests, nothing conclusive was found.
he also had 3 decades of schizophrenia meds that were given via injection once a month which caused alot of parkinson like symptoms.

april of 2011 he developed a UTI and was in pretty bad shape. after he recovered he was moved from ark to texas so we could take care of him. no one asked us to or appointed us as legal guardians. he is very competent and capable of communicating and expressing his wishes.

once he got down here, i made sure he had home health come out to visit frequently. it was better than him going to the dr ofc physically because of his paranoia. i also filed for VA benefits to get him aide and attendance since he was a vietnam vet. i also arranged for him to have meals on wheels come out. and outfitted his home with necessary aides to help him. ( "I" did!)

his meals were prepared for him. healthy nutritious meals. he ate everything we put in front of him. he also walked, even as frail as he was, he was ambulatory. he was unsteady because of his gait which was fast and stooped over. but he walked. we encouraged a walker but he rarely used it.

every once in a while he wouldnt feel good or would have a random headache or pain, like most people. but when questioned about things, he never wanted meds or never wanted to go the the dr!

he had a previous wound on his bottom because he just sits or lays in one spot MOST of the time because of his meds. home health has tended to this would and it healed and came back and healed again. they advised him to get up and move around frequently. altho he never would.

but on july 5th of this year, he wasnt able to get up and did look dehydrated, even tho he had been eating and drinking plenty. ems was called and he was transported to the er at the local hospital.

altho once at the er, it took FOREVER for the first nurse to even come in to evaluate him. i could understand that if we were in a bigger town and this hospital had numerous patients. ive worked in an er, i get it. but its a tiny hospital and there was only 1 other patient and the nurses (yes nurseS) were just hanging out at the desk, along with the dr, and the techs.

ok, i can over look the LONG wait for even an evaluation...again i get it. the nurse we had and the dr in the er that we had this time, were pretty good. nice, and very informative. (which ive had rude ones at this hospital before). so i dont really have much complaint about the er this time, other than the ridiculous waiting!

he did have a severe wound on his bottom that had appeared and gotten very nasty immediately. his bath aide was out the day before and that wound was NOT open. (but it is due to him just sitting and his immune system being weakened) but they came back after several tests and said that he was dehydrated and had a "slight infection in his lung that could be pneumonia". they wanted to admit him overnight and give him antibiotics. ok, cool.

so the next day comes and they say that the chest xray shows a pleural effusion and they want to put in a chest tube to drain the infection. ok, no problem.

i talk to several people about him and they start asking me about what hes been eating, to which i tell them. but they shake their heads and tell me that he couldnt be eating. of course i also tell them that he was ambulatory and he was feeding himself that morning, and again i am told "no way!" so numerous times i am being told that im a liar. im also being told that he has not been getting proper nutrition at home. this has now put me on the defensive. because not only can i vouch for his proper nutrition, but so can his sitters, and home health and so many more!! but yet again im being called a liar.

then social services calls met that second day and is asking me questions about his nutrition and his background. once i give her the WHOLE story, she is more understanding.

BUT...the next day she calls and tells me that dr baucom is INSISTING that he "go into a nursing home as he is NOT BEING PROPERLY TAKEN CARE OF AT HOME!" EXCUSE ME?!?! o i am LIVID at this point! because he HAS been properly taken care of. social services tried to explain to this dr why a nursing home would not be a good environment with his paranoid schizophrenia and this dr wanted to hear NOTHING of it!

i was informed by social services and by home health that he indeed can refuse services, which he has done all this time.

again ive got more nurses and techs that are making insinuations about him being starved and neglected at home. omg i am boiling mad!

i have tried for days to catch the dr or surgeon and can never seem to catch either. after i became so disgusted with this dr (which is not my dads regular dr, but he can not admit pts to the hospital), i requested another dr. luckily that quack was going on vacation for a couple days and another lady dr who was supposed to be very compassionate and understanding was taking over for a while. i left word with her to call me so i could get reports. because a week and a half into his stay and i have not gotten ONE update from nurses, or drs after several requests for call backs. i was finally able to nail down a time when the quack would be back and i was going to be there!

so at 6am monday morning i was at the hospital waiting. he finally showed up around 8 am. he came in talking about how hes had poor nutrition and hes not doing well. i did discuss with the dr about social services telling me that he insisted that my dad go into a nursing home because he wasnt being properly taken care of. he proceeded to tell me again that he wasnt getting proper nutrition at home. (all the while, my dad just refuses to say a word because he wants me to handle everything :/  ) i kept assuring him that indeed he WAS getting proper nutrition and i had plenty of people that could back it up!

after arguing about it several times, he final proceeded and told me that he believes that part of my dads lung is necrotic and may have to come out.

i had to deal with several snotty nurses on several occasions and several that still made accusations that he wasnt getting taken care of. everyday i go up there, i get more mad.

the charge nurse called me that day and told me that the dr wanted to put in a peg tube in addition to his meals to give him extra nutrition to build him up for surgery. ok got it. she told me to be there at 6pm to talk to the dr about the surgery etc. i agreed.

i came up there and explained the procedure and why they wanted to do it to my dad. i told him basically that if he didnt have it done that he would keep going downhill until there was no more going downhill. but that if he did surgery, as with any surgery there are risks but it was his only hope of getting better. so he agreed to the peg tube.

the nurse came in and asked me to sign the consent. so i said ok. she read the consent about the peg tube and the central line and the reason which was "malnutrition due to inadequate intake". well i refused to sign the paper! im sorry but i wont sign it. that is incorrect. he did have adequate intake. and with this idiot insisting he go to a nursing home, i wasnt going to sign something where i am "admitting" that he didnt. its FALSE! again, i have plenty of witnesses to that.

so the nurse says she will talk to the dr about taking it off or rewording it. i told her if they could reword it then id sign it. even home health and several others agreed that i shouldnt sign it while those words were on there.

so an hour later, that arrogant dr came back and the first words rather LOUDLY and snotty outta his mouth were "SO the nurse says you refuse to consent to the peg tube.." NO!! that is NOT what i said!!!

then this JERK proceeds to literally YELL at me telling me that my dad will die if he doesnt get this tube and i am trying to keep him from getting better. WHAT THE HELL?!?! im saying put the tube in, but dont say he wasnt getting adequate intake because that is FALSE!

he continues to yell at me and talk to me in a condescending tone. as i tell him why i dont like what was written on the paper and why. he proceeds to tell me "i am going to tell you again, because i guess you are not getting it...he was not getting proper nutrition before he came in". again altho i told him YES he was indeed. he yelled at me more and told me "this is not about you, again im telling you his numbers are poor and since hes been here his numbers are better, not much better but better, which tells me he wasnt getting what he needed where he was!"

i never made it about me, everyone up there did when they insinuated that he was being starved and neglected. :/ so then he tells me that i am on the defensive. well hell yeah im on the defensive. everydamnbody and their dog has accused us of neglecting this man which is NOT true.

we went head to head for quite sometime longer. he still yelled at me and still accused me to not taking care of him. until i finally said whatever. he agreed hesitantly to talk to the surgeon and request that that line be reworded or taken off.

i had also asked the previous nurse about giving him his schizophrenia med which is a once a month injection that he has been getting for 3 decades and he is several days past due on. they gave me the run around and kept telling me, um im not sure if we can do that. ill ask the dr but i dont know if he will want to give him those while hes got the other stuff going on. even after i explained to her that he HAD to have them and that he had already been hallucinating more since he had been in the hospital because new places and people freak him out.

that evening a new nurse came in. i hadnt seen her in this time hed been there. but this woman was more understanding and learned his story and said that she doesnt judge because each case is different. she did agree with me that she wouldnt have signed it either. just talking to this woman was a whole different attitude than the one i had gotten from the others. a breath of fresh air actually.

but i still lef the hospital that night in tears because i was so infuriated over the drs behavior!

but i talked to the nurse evaluating him for long term acute care to try to get him ready for surgery, she asked me about his story. i started telling her. she very apologetically told me that she couldnt believe how i had been treated that as a nurse for 23 years they have been taught not to judge a situation and make assumptions because they dont know whats going on on the other side of that case. she also told me by looking at his chart within 2 minutes she could tell where all his calories have gone! she told me that because his lung was dead or dying that his body was working overtime to compensate and we could feed him 3x the calories and he would burn them all up and that we had no idea that he had anything going on since HE refused services which he has a right to do. IMMEDIATELY i gotta better feel about this place that he is being transferred to in mesquite!

i even asked her about giving him his schizophrenia meds and she assured me that would be no problem! i am SO thankful to be done with this hospital after all this BS! i am thankful that he is going to a place where he will get more compassionate and understanding care.

and i will be so willing to take that survey when it comes in the mail to let them know exactly what i think of their hospital and their staff! altho my survey will not be only 4 pages long! (well except for helen rn and amber in social services! they were exceptionallly great!)

would i recommend the hospital to my friends and family? NO! :/

dreams?

nope! still nightmares! :(

she went to the dr. they upped her meds that are supposed to help the nightmares. still no change with that.

I did have the general md do a regular workup on her because of the person saying there might be a link to autoimmune disorders. altho when i told her about that, like i knew she would, she looked at me like i was crazy and wrote it off. just focused on the cutting or urge to cut. (which she has no current conscious urge to cut)
but she finally said she would do labs. ughhh
anyways, labs came back mostly clear. altho it is showing some kind of inflammation but shes telling me at this point we dont know what is inflamed. :/

Update on the nightmares

Ok well it has been 4 days on the new meds for the nightmares and they are still not helping.

We are still at a loss about this. However i did find out she is not alone. There are alot of people that have the same problem. Altho that was sort of a relief, it wasnt because none of them had posted any solutions. :/
So i am goin to have them do a sleep study and test for auto immune disorders. They said that they can be linked.
So we will see and ill let u know in case anyone is experiencing anything similar.