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Update on dad
13 February 2008 17:37Where to start ... I'm not angry any more. Had I gotten home from the hospital a few hours ago this post would have been filled with creative swearing. It may still, so you've been warned. ...
We get a call first thing this morning from dad. The hospital was discharging him. So we leave the house at 9:00, we fight traffic -- there was a storm last night and the roads are slick ... but stupid Ottawa drivers are another matter entirely. Anyway, we get to the hospital at about 10:30 and find dad dressed and ready in his room but he can't leave because the doctor hasn't come to see him yet to give him his presciption or to go over a few things.
So we wait ... and we wait ... and we wait. At about 11:30 a doctor arrives to tell us that, no, he is not in fact going home. He has to attend a heart health class at 1:00 and that since the proceedure was so iffy he'll have to stay until tomorrow and who told him he could go home anyways?
Apparently, under normal circumstances an angioplasty patient goes home the next day, but my dad's case isn't normal and no one has bothered to inform the nursing staff of this.
It was at this point that we learn that my father had a ... well they said it was a heart attack after saying that it wasn't a heart attack. So I'm confused. There was no damage to the heart so maybe that's the difference. We also learn from my father that he was complaining about chest pains last night and the nursing staff didn't do anything, that the nursing staff was apparently having a "party" last night until about 1 am and so my dad got nearly no sleep (lots of loud talking and laughing --- but dad's room was tucked in behind the nurses station). We also learn that he still hasn't been assigned a cardiologist and several doctors have come to see him and have given conflicting orders.
Through all this, my dad is getting more and more stressed until he starts having chest pains. So the nurses get him undressed and back into bed and all ready to be re-hooked to the monitors but there is no technician to be found. The desk nurse sent her to the wrong bloody room! Finally his chest pains subside and they finally get a cardiologist assigned to him (Dr. Chen, the guy we saw on the first night in the ER).
Barring any additional complications he will have his heart health course tomorrow and will go home afterwards ... though there is the possibility that he won't be home until Friday.
This has not been the best of experiences for us ... the nursing staff is uninformed, the doctors don't know who's doing what, one of the nurses is a complete bitch -- she told my dad that he didn't need to know the name of the blood thinner he was on because he wouldn't understand anyways and when he was brought food yesterday she got mad at him because she had told him he couldn't eat anything. She told him this right after his surgery. Like he was supposed to remember.
And of course, I'm getting mad at the wrong people. I am so fucking sick and tired of my mom telling people that she's "feeling very fragile right now". I know, I know. Wrong attitude to take, but it's more pressure on my shoulders because I have to keep it together because my mom is about to have a goddamned nervous breakdown thanks to the fucking idiots at the hospital! This may be the best cardiac place in the world but right now I think that these people wouldn't know their asses from a hole in the ground!
We get a call first thing this morning from dad. The hospital was discharging him. So we leave the house at 9:00, we fight traffic -- there was a storm last night and the roads are slick ... but stupid Ottawa drivers are another matter entirely. Anyway, we get to the hospital at about 10:30 and find dad dressed and ready in his room but he can't leave because the doctor hasn't come to see him yet to give him his presciption or to go over a few things.
So we wait ... and we wait ... and we wait. At about 11:30 a doctor arrives to tell us that, no, he is not in fact going home. He has to attend a heart health class at 1:00 and that since the proceedure was so iffy he'll have to stay until tomorrow and who told him he could go home anyways?
Apparently, under normal circumstances an angioplasty patient goes home the next day, but my dad's case isn't normal and no one has bothered to inform the nursing staff of this.
It was at this point that we learn that my father had a ... well they said it was a heart attack after saying that it wasn't a heart attack. So I'm confused. There was no damage to the heart so maybe that's the difference. We also learn from my father that he was complaining about chest pains last night and the nursing staff didn't do anything, that the nursing staff was apparently having a "party" last night until about 1 am and so my dad got nearly no sleep (lots of loud talking and laughing --- but dad's room was tucked in behind the nurses station). We also learn that he still hasn't been assigned a cardiologist and several doctors have come to see him and have given conflicting orders.
Through all this, my dad is getting more and more stressed until he starts having chest pains. So the nurses get him undressed and back into bed and all ready to be re-hooked to the monitors but there is no technician to be found. The desk nurse sent her to the wrong bloody room! Finally his chest pains subside and they finally get a cardiologist assigned to him (Dr. Chen, the guy we saw on the first night in the ER).
Barring any additional complications he will have his heart health course tomorrow and will go home afterwards ... though there is the possibility that he won't be home until Friday.
This has not been the best of experiences for us ... the nursing staff is uninformed, the doctors don't know who's doing what, one of the nurses is a complete bitch -- she told my dad that he didn't need to know the name of the blood thinner he was on because he wouldn't understand anyways and when he was brought food yesterday she got mad at him because she had told him he couldn't eat anything. She told him this right after his surgery. Like he was supposed to remember.
And of course, I'm getting mad at the wrong people. I am so fucking sick and tired of my mom telling people that she's "feeling very fragile right now". I know, I know. Wrong attitude to take, but it's more pressure on my shoulders because I have to keep it together because my mom is about to have a goddamned nervous breakdown thanks to the fucking idiots at the hospital! This may be the best cardiac place in the world but right now I think that these people wouldn't know their asses from a hole in the ground!
