More about this past week.

Yesterday, I told you that there was more to tell about the last few days. Tuesday on the way to the doctor’s office Frank had to stop and wait for a mother and two young deer moved out of the road. It was wonderful to just sit there for a moment and watch them. They finally turned and turned back the way they had come and ran back into the woods. The smaller deer did not have any spots, and the bottoms of their tails were bright white.  I didn’t notice the signs on any antlers on either of them. In fact I almost didn’t see the 2^nd young deer because of how far back in the woods it was, the other two were out on the road. This happened around 9 am, which I thought was very late in the day time to see them.

Now to update you on my G-tube, the doctor that put in says there are only three reasons to replace it. 1) it gets pulled out, 2) it gets clogged and can’t be cleared out, or 3) It becomes dried and brittle. None of those things have happened she says that I am doing a very good job of keeping the site nice and clean. I only need to go back to see her have gotten into a problem. She cleaned the area and tightens the G-tube down.

 It was after I she had done the exam that she saw my backside has I got off her exam table. Then she became alarmed at the size of the swelling she saw. She said for it to be that size than my hip had to be broken, dislocated or a very large hematoma.  She called the ER and told that she was sending me directly over to be examined. She hoped that would speed things up things for us at the ER but it didn’t help. After all the new ER department had only been open for a day. Some equipment didn’t work and it turned out that it just hadn’t been plugged in. The new ER has close to twice has many patient treatment area’s but they don’t have any more staff to care for the patients, so I ended up waiting an awful long time to go upstairs to my hospital room. I registered into the ER at 10:30 am on Tuesday, but did not get admitted to my room until 4:30 am on Wednesday.  That was well over 12 hours after they made the discussion to admit me.

One of the good things that happened to me was that they listened to me about my night feedings and how they needed to be done in two parts. I told them in them in the ER    that I would fight them if they didn’t do it my way. I know what works in my crazy sick ole body. I did not get the feeding that night because they did not have the information before noon on Tuesday.

I think that it was on Wednesday that a technician that wanted to draw blood from my port sight. He was told that it was in use but he didn’t care about that. That could be stopped; he could draw the blood and then started up all over again.  My nurses would not allow him to do this. They had to get the doctor to write orders in my chart to stop this technician. It was hours later when a different technician came and drew the blood from my arm the way that we needed it to be done.

The most interesting thing that happened was that three people from management came in to ask me a lot of questions about my care. They spent over 30 minutes talking with me. They asked all types of questions, the only thing that they didn’t ask about was the food.  Although they wanted to know about this hospital stay; but I did not hesitate to tell them that twice this year I had bad experiences in this hospital.  They took notes and listened carefully to everything I had to say.

No one wants to be a patient in a hospital, I can only think of one good reason to be in the hospital that is to have a baby. But the staff made this visit a good one.

Now to get to today’s events. My nurse Cookie came to see how I was doing. On Wednesday, while in the hospital an IV Nurse said the wrong port needle had been used in my port. They had not used a blue disk which somehow is supposed prevent infection.  This needle comes with a blue tubing attached to it. I told Cookie all about it. She explained to me that the hospital and the VNA get their supplies from different suppliers. She is going to ask her supervisors to look into what the IV Nurse said to try to make the patients care is contestant. Now I want EVERYONE to know that I get great care from the VNA.  Cookie and the other VNA nurses that have treated me are great people.

A couple of hours after Cookie left I started feeling sick. I have a sore throat, upset stomach, and a headache. I have gone to bed and taken a couple hour naps. But I am not running a temperature. I will keep myself  quiet and stay home from Church tomorrow. I know that I need that rest.