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Friday, December 24, 2010
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Life and such...
Naturally since Nana has been in hospital it has caused much reflection about many many things. Family, love,and our 'health care' system. I think we should shorten that to 'health system' because there is very little 'caring' left in it.
When people do something wrong my first response is always to make excuses for them and give them the benefit of the doubt... may be they're just having a bad day... may be it was really busy before I walked in and they have been run off their feet, whatever.
After living in Nova Scotia I do believe that Albertan's have better access to services then our friends in Atlantic Canada. However what we have access to is nothing to brag about. When people are in health 'care' (again I use this term loosely) roles they need to be professional and they sure as hell should be following protocols.
People in my family seem to have the misconception that because my Grandmother is wearing a DNR (do not resuscitate) bracelet that it is acceptable the service she is receiving. I believe that they are grievously wrong. Nana is doing well. She has had a stroke, had a 4 cm bleed in her brain when scanned. She had collapsed on the loo at home and was there for give or take 30 hours. The outside temperatures were in the high twenties and even hit 30 degrees. Her oven was on at the time that she collapsed. Her house was a sauna while she sat slumped over with her head at an eerie angle against the bathroom sink cabinet that her head had struck when she had the stroke. She is also a diabetic and 86 years old.
When my uncle broke in and found her she was non-responsive & horribly dehydrated. Once on an IV she began to talk very softly. Sometimes it didn't come out right but part of the difficulty was that her mouth was so dry. Within hours she was much more alert and coherent. The DNR order is there in case she continues to bleed into her brain and it causes her to code. They are supposed to treat her to stop 'that' from happening as best they can. That's where things on the medical 'team' (again loosely implied) and the family thoughts have not meshed with mine.
She needs to be kept hydrated, they couldn't take blood because she was so dehydrated. They could not treat her extremely high BP because they needed to find out what her clotting factors were. So without treating the excessively high BP the bleeding in her brain will continue. Here's where things, for me at least, get very disturbing.
They are unable to draw any real amount of blood for the tests. They then let her IV run dry even though for 30 minutes before it was actually empty I tired several times to have someone come and change the bag. (also at this time I knew that a shift change would occur within a half an hour and wanted it seen to before that) One resident told me not to worry because the alarm on the IV would go off. I told him it would not because she was on a pole without an alarm, probably from the medics. So I watched it run dry and then I watched as some of her blood trickled up the IV tubing and clotted. Finally a resident changed the bag but could not get it to run into the arm. She thought it perhaps was going interstitially, but the blood was still in the tubing. Finally an hour and half later a nurse came and changed the IV to a new vein.
Her catheter bag had been left on the bed between her legs for hours, and so was not draining. Dehydrated or not, it needs to drain. I can just imagine the amount of toxins and such that have built up in her kidneys by this time and you would want that flushing away not just sitting there. Catheter bags only drain what's in your bladder if they are sitting below the level that your bladder is at. That's just simple physics.
The nurse that had attempted several tries to take blood did not wear gloves. She swabbed the arm and then proceeded to touch it and feel for a vein with her bare hands. Another nurse that appeared and put gloves on promptly ran her now gloved hands through her hair and then continued to treat my Grandmother. There is really little wonder why people that go into hospital pick up these damned infections. This is all just within one visit to the ER.
Her left eye will not close, no one treated it they just left it open and did not even put anything in it. It was the neurosurgery resident that said it needed to be treated and taped shut, if it wasn't too late already. He said that he was worried it had already started to ulcerate and that could lead to big concerns down the line, infections etc.
The next morning, now on her 'ward' there had apparently been no attempt to redraw any more blood. They did not check her blood sugar. They did however give her a pill for her blood pressure. A pill. She's not supposed to be swallowing more then a tiny sip of water or an itty bitty ice chip at a time because they do not know if the stroke has affected her throat or esophagus. If she was to aspirated any fluid into her lungs then it is quite likely that she would come down with pneumonia. This is also often fatal in someone in her condition, so best to avoid. It will be two more days before a swallowing assessment is done.
My Aunt says this lack of care is because of her DNR bracelet. That's bullshit. The 'Team' is supposed to be stopping the bleeding in her brain so that she doesn't code if we can avoid it. DNR does not mean just let her die. They are supposed to be aggressively avoiding the event of her 'coding' in the first place.
I'm getting too grumpy to continue you this so this is.... To Be Continued.... when I am able to do it. I will also polish this up and submit a complaint to the Royal Alexandra Hospital ASAP.
When people do something wrong my first response is always to make excuses for them and give them the benefit of the doubt... may be they're just having a bad day... may be it was really busy before I walked in and they have been run off their feet, whatever.
After living in Nova Scotia I do believe that Albertan's have better access to services then our friends in Atlantic Canada. However what we have access to is nothing to brag about. When people are in health 'care' (again I use this term loosely) roles they need to be professional and they sure as hell should be following protocols.
People in my family seem to have the misconception that because my Grandmother is wearing a DNR (do not resuscitate) bracelet that it is acceptable the service she is receiving. I believe that they are grievously wrong. Nana is doing well. She has had a stroke, had a 4 cm bleed in her brain when scanned. She had collapsed on the loo at home and was there for give or take 30 hours. The outside temperatures were in the high twenties and even hit 30 degrees. Her oven was on at the time that she collapsed. Her house was a sauna while she sat slumped over with her head at an eerie angle against the bathroom sink cabinet that her head had struck when she had the stroke. She is also a diabetic and 86 years old.
When my uncle broke in and found her she was non-responsive & horribly dehydrated. Once on an IV she began to talk very softly. Sometimes it didn't come out right but part of the difficulty was that her mouth was so dry. Within hours she was much more alert and coherent. The DNR order is there in case she continues to bleed into her brain and it causes her to code. They are supposed to treat her to stop 'that' from happening as best they can. That's where things on the medical 'team' (again loosely implied) and the family thoughts have not meshed with mine.
She needs to be kept hydrated, they couldn't take blood because she was so dehydrated. They could not treat her extremely high BP because they needed to find out what her clotting factors were. So without treating the excessively high BP the bleeding in her brain will continue. Here's where things, for me at least, get very disturbing.
They are unable to draw any real amount of blood for the tests. They then let her IV run dry even though for 30 minutes before it was actually empty I tired several times to have someone come and change the bag. (also at this time I knew that a shift change would occur within a half an hour and wanted it seen to before that) One resident told me not to worry because the alarm on the IV would go off. I told him it would not because she was on a pole without an alarm, probably from the medics. So I watched it run dry and then I watched as some of her blood trickled up the IV tubing and clotted. Finally a resident changed the bag but could not get it to run into the arm. She thought it perhaps was going interstitially, but the blood was still in the tubing. Finally an hour and half later a nurse came and changed the IV to a new vein.
Her catheter bag had been left on the bed between her legs for hours, and so was not draining. Dehydrated or not, it needs to drain. I can just imagine the amount of toxins and such that have built up in her kidneys by this time and you would want that flushing away not just sitting there. Catheter bags only drain what's in your bladder if they are sitting below the level that your bladder is at. That's just simple physics.
The nurse that had attempted several tries to take blood did not wear gloves. She swabbed the arm and then proceeded to touch it and feel for a vein with her bare hands. Another nurse that appeared and put gloves on promptly ran her now gloved hands through her hair and then continued to treat my Grandmother. There is really little wonder why people that go into hospital pick up these damned infections. This is all just within one visit to the ER.
Her left eye will not close, no one treated it they just left it open and did not even put anything in it. It was the neurosurgery resident that said it needed to be treated and taped shut, if it wasn't too late already. He said that he was worried it had already started to ulcerate and that could lead to big concerns down the line, infections etc.
The next morning, now on her 'ward' there had apparently been no attempt to redraw any more blood. They did not check her blood sugar. They did however give her a pill for her blood pressure. A pill. She's not supposed to be swallowing more then a tiny sip of water or an itty bitty ice chip at a time because they do not know if the stroke has affected her throat or esophagus. If she was to aspirated any fluid into her lungs then it is quite likely that she would come down with pneumonia. This is also often fatal in someone in her condition, so best to avoid. It will be two more days before a swallowing assessment is done.
My Aunt says this lack of care is because of her DNR bracelet. That's bullshit. The 'Team' is supposed to be stopping the bleeding in her brain so that she doesn't code if we can avoid it. DNR does not mean just let her die. They are supposed to be aggressively avoiding the event of her 'coding' in the first place.
I'm getting too grumpy to continue you this so this is.... To Be Continued.... when I am able to do it. I will also polish this up and submit a complaint to the Royal Alexandra Hospital ASAP.
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- Lynda
- Dog's, Dog's, DAWGS! They show us how to be honest with ourselves, non-judgmental and to forgive quickly !
