Monday, March 3, 2008

No Mark, the Nurses are not Waitresses

On a list of my favorite things, visiting someone in the hospital is near the bottom. Lets face it, you aren't going there to have a glass of wine and spend quality time with a good friend. You visit someone in the hospital just to show that you care enough to be around them when they are at their worst. To me a hospital is a germ filled hell hole.

On Thursday, the doctor put Mark back in the hospital. It turns out that he was released too soon the last time, and has only got worse over the last week. It also turns out that he doesn't have pneumonia, and at this point after x-rays, cat scans, and heart tests, the doctors have no idea why he can't breathe. I am sure it is a horrible experience for Mark, but what about me? Sure, Mark being in the hospital means I can sleep through an entire night without being woke up by his hacking cough, that's a plus. The problem is that he calls on the phone at least ten times a day. The first call comes at nine in the morning, with the question of when am I coming to see him. Then in a flurry of calls during the next two hours, I get a list, a long list, of things that I need to bring him. Magazines, newspapers, socks, underwear, food, DVD's, are all on the request list. After assembling everything, I then have to schlep all this crap up to Mark's hospital room.

A patients room is not built for comfort, for either the patient or the visitor. In the middle of the room is the patient, on display like the turkey on a Thanksgiving table. Around him are the machines and tubes pumping him full of mysterious fluids. In one corner of the room is a chair, the visitors chair. A cheap, uncomfortable chair, manufactured specifically for use in a hospital, probably by the same company that makes electric chairs for the prison system. This is the chair that I will have to sit in for a couple of hours and make small talk with a man who is constantly hacking up phlegm balls and spitting them into a bucket. I actually look forward to Mark’s trips to the bathroom. It’s a break in the routine, even if it requires moving Mark and all his tubes, machines, and IV’s en masse into the bathroom and then back. There is a television in the room, yet it offers no relief from the tedium of a hospital visit, because Mark has the remote, and besides, the tiny speaker is on the bed next to Mark. I know it sounds like I’m a real prick, but I put on a good face for Mark. He has no idea how much I hate the visit.

I wonder if hospitals make visiting a patient difficult on purpose? I mean if they wanted to encourage it, wouldn’t they put in a recliner chair, a big screen television, and surround sound? Oh, yeah, and serve liquor.

6 comments:

  1. I think they make it uncomfortable on purpose, that way you won't stay too long and be in the way. That and you won't catch them doing something they shouldn't be doing and provide a witness. With today's insurance plans, I'm sure they will push him out as soon as they can...healthy or not. Maybe Mark can get the Home Shopping Network on the TV, I'm sure that and a credit card would make him happy as a clam.

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  2. They obviously should not have let him go home last time and would have this time if it wasn't for Mark insisting on staying. I'm glad he decided to stay regardless of them saying he could go home again. I can't believe they have no idea what is causing the problem, yet tell him it's OK to go home. What the f*@k is wrong with these doctors????

    I hope they can find something and fix it. Get well Mark.

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  3. Thank you for the title of this entry! The first hospital I ever worked in was a horrible wake-up call for me...I had trained at Cook County Hospital, where the sickest of patients were the most appreciative of every little thing a nursing student did for them. (they LOVED having a student,it was like a private duty nurse to them!) At Skokie Valley Hospital, adult patients expected the nurse to wash their hair and in Pediatrics we did a lot of babysitting for mild illnesses that could have been treated at home...except that the folks were on a trip! Now the pendulum has swung the other way. Only the very sickest are hospitalized, the staffing has been down-sized, and patients are sent home too early. Everyone who walks into your room is called a "nurse", but they usually aren't. The educated nurses are saddled with paper-work and being in charge of trying to get the aides to actually DO the work. When I talk to MB, who works in a hospital now, I realize that nothing has really changed since I stopped hospital work 32 years ago! Except that now the insurance companies dictate everything that is done, from tests to discharge. It is a nightmare, but no politician has the experience or "cahunas" to straighten it out. They have excellent coverage (paid for by us!) and receive first class treatment, unlike the masses!

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  4. If the doctors don't know why he can't breathe maybe he should go to another hospital where the doctors are there for the patients and not for the paycheck.

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  5. Oh Geese, tell me you didn't take Mark to Holy Cross Hosital! That is the same hosital that, in my opinion and from what I was told by Bill, botched his surgery by, I believe, nicking his intestines with a scalpel thus spreading his cancer. I believe they also were suppose to put him completely under for his bone marrow operation and instead he told me they didn't and he was in excruciating pain during the procedure. Take him out of there, now.

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  6. No, it's not that Catholic hell hole. It's a different hell hole, and I just brought Mark home an hour ago.

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