Off The Cuff

The Hospital: More Adventures

Posted by: From Arkansas in Are You Kidding Me?, Family stuff on May 31 2008

Welcome back!

If you read the post yesterday concerning the hospital trip, you are up to speed until I tell you the rest of the story. If not, you can get to the first part of the story on The Hospital by clicking on the link here. Now for the newest stay on Thursday and Friday.

My husband woke up with a pain in his chest very near the collar bone. Because of his stent, we did not want to mess around with it and went to our family doctor. He sent us back to the hospital with an admittance already worked out with the cardiologist. When we got there, we were taken directly to his room….guess where. No? The same double room that we fought so hard to get out of the last time. Did we get the first bed? Nope. Got the same bed next to the window where there was nothing. This time, however, he did not have to stay in bed or lie flat. We were thankful. But what about the snoring and the complete moronic way the room was laid out? I suspected that this is where they sent anyone that they could palm off.

We talked with the nurses who found us a single room. It was being cleaned. Several hours later, we asked about said room. It had been given away. We were told about another room. I didn’t have much hope there either. Getting nearly supper time again (We had been there since around 12:30pm), we were told that the doctor did not deem it medically necessary for him to be in a private room. I was about to show a big fireworks display when they said that we could have it but pay $40 a day for that. At this point, even though we certainly do not have that much money to play with, agreed to it to get that room. Sigh. I thought things would be okay after that. Yeah right.

Actually, again, the staff was good. They were very helpful to both my husband and myself, at least to the extent they could. They were constantly asking if they could help in any way. I did feel good about that. The night was pretty usual. They got us up at 3am for stats check and almost 5am for an ECG. All things I would expect to happen. That was why he was there. No complaints there.

We knew early on that he would be going home because there was actually nothing wrong now. It seems that a muscle was giving him pain, not the stent, not a heart attack or anything related to the heart. What a relief!!! The one really great thing about this hospital is their visitor breakfasts. The patient ones, not so much. But because my husband was allowed to leave the floor to go with me to the cafeteria, we both went for the visitor breakfast. Nope. Not going to say what because of people, like me, who need to lose weight. I ain’t gonna be told how I shouldn’t eat that. We loved the breakfast.

But, I had to get dressed first. So, I stepped into the bathroom. My husband was right outside in the bed. And by the way, the room looked very much like two people in it with a pulled out bed next to his bed in the room. The cleaning lady came in about that time and made a beeline for the bathroom door and opened it without a knock, asking my husband if there was anyone in there or what. When my husband stopped her, she said a small sorry and went back to her cleaning. I got a tiny “I’m sorry” which I took to mean that she might have been embarrassed. I know I was since I was in the middle of dressing when she entered.

Actually, we both gave her the benefit of the doubt. I really do not want to think badly of people but she acted like it wasn’t that big a deal. My privacy is a very big deal to me. But…I shrugged it off. We were just about to go on down to the cafeteria for that breakfast I mentioned when she came back into the room. My husband was standing right at the window across from the door. Now remember, he is the patient and she knew that. She started to mop, you know…with water and soap…and mopped right up to his feet and all the way across to the door. When she was done, she left. Not a word. She put up a sign that said the floor was wet outside the door to the room. GROWL!!! We had a choice….risk falling and walk out anyway or stay until it dried. We walked out on the floor that she just HAD to mop while we were still there. It is possible that she didn’t know we were leaving but she did know he needed to go back to bed. COME ON!!!! Talk about incompetent.

Oh yes, I did mention that we knew we were going to be going home early, right? The nurses knew it, the doctor’s nurse came in and told us that. After we went to the cafeteria, we came back up to wait. No, we did not miss the doctor. Our nurse said that if we were gone, she would just tell the doc who would see everyone else first. Not a biggie. No doc. By the time we figured out that the doc wasn’t coming anytime soon, the lunch trays came out. We napped after that. We watched the semi-finals of the national spelling bee which, by the way, is very interesting. Awesome kids….ages about 10-14 years old spelling very obscure words that I really didn’t know at all.

Still waiting at 2:30pm, when to our wondering eyes should appear…Santa? Nope, the doctor FINALLY. She said there was really nothing wrong with him, he could go home. She actually signed him out, something the last doc didn’t do. I did forget to mention that. We got home after 6pm and our new puppy had been having a ball….a paper, a pencil, waste paper and lots of other stuff too numerous to mention. And we were glad to be home again. Sigh.

Now, if you add up the original room that was constructed by a MORON (did I mention that this is a brand new room built last year???), the cleaning lady who mopped the floor in front of my husband plus the invasion of privacy and the rest, it was not the best moment for that hospital. I am so glad we won’t have to go there again anytime soon. Well, I pray we don’t, how about that?

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