A Hospital Stay Gone Bad

What is happening to the hospitals now a days? The reason I’m asking is because of what happened to me. I went for surgery Aug 22, 2008 it was on a Friday.

Here is my story. It all started the day I went into the hospital.

The first thing that happened was my husband asked were my room was. He waited and waited for me to come out of surgery. After and hour and half after I had my surgery. He still did not know where I was. When he did find out, the nurse told him I had been back for a couple of hours.

That was just the beginning. I ended up leaving the hospital early because for two nights they had problems with my pain control. The first night no one on the night shift knew how to work the machine with my pain killer. I needed it to be increased, I was not getting what I needed. They could not give me more pain killer. The machine was the type were I would push the button to get my pain killer. It would give me the pain killer every seven minutes, No matter how much you push the button you are only allowed the amount programmed. Here I had been getting my pain killer every seven minutes, Because no one knew how it worked they turned it off. For an hour I felt like I was being ripped apart. By morning the good nurse and I mean a really good nurse came in. She knew how to work the machine. The next night was even worse. My machine ran out of pain killer. The night nurse told me I would have to wait to get anything for the pain until 8:00 am when the pharmacy opened. This was at 1:00 am my pain killer had run out, an hour before. By 5:30 in the morning I had managed to get to a pay Phone and called my husband. I was crying so hard my husband could barely under stand me. The pain was so bad I could barely walk. Just as I got off the phone my doctor had just come on shift. She saw me and asked what was going on. I told her what happened. She was furious. She yelled at the nurse and asked what was going on. She said she had told the night nurse to make sure that if my machine ran out to make sure there was a needle ready.

After my husband had finished talked to me on the phone. he called up the hospital and told them he would be coming to get me. He could take better care of me.

When he arrived he asked to talk to my doctor. He told her he was taking me home so he needed her to sign the release. She did try to stop my husband. She understood why he was so mad. My doctor came to my room and we talked like good friends. She made sure I had my pain killer right away after she had finished with the nurses.

Once my husband got me home he called our family doctor. He told our doctor what was going on. I went into see him right away. He put me on two different pain killers to keep my pain under control. He knew there was no way I was going back to the hospital. When I arrived at his office I told him right off the bat there was no way I would go back.

My husband was the best nurse I ever had, he made sure that I had my pain killers every four hours. He did this even on the days he had to work. When he could not be with me he made sure someone was with me at all times. He did not go back to work until he made sure I was okay so for the first two weeks he did not work. Our daughter also took care of me for a day, and she is only 12 years old. Now I’m almost fully healed.

I would like to thank every one who helped take care of me when the Hospital could not.

thank you! and God bless Dr khan, for her expertise regarding my surgery for being so understanding and caring

Also Dr Entwistle for every thing he did to help me through the pain and for being there.I would like to also thank my family and friends for being there for me.

By J Fraser