I still have not slept.
Things I have to forgive myself for:
The house is a mess.
The grocery shopping hasn't been done and we have very, very little food.
I cannot heal my husband.
Things I can forgive the hospital for:
The fact that few people seem to know where they are going. The new ER opened less than a week ago, so everyone is still getting lost.
The fact that my husband isn't first in line. There are other people there who are just as sick, or sicker than he is. There are just as many panicked wives/husbands/significant others/parents/children etc. who are scared and feel that their loved one is more important than anyone else. The nurses and doctors are kept busy.
Things I cannot forgive the hospital for:
Sending my husband home from the ER twice in twenty four hours with prescriptions that failed, as he grew progressivly worse. You see his medical history? Do you really think he's going to miraculously get better?
Within two hours of being discharged a second time, I was calling 911 again.
I was crying with rage. I called my mother, who is great at pulling the Warrior Woman out in me and drove to the hospital ready with threats, demands. I was going to mention lawsuits, I was prepared to cause a scene and be arrested (they can't send him out with no one to take him home)!
Thankfully, I didn't have to use that. This third time in his doctors were women.
I hate to sound sexist (I have had wonderful male doctors), but (in my experience) women have a greater capacity for empathy. Maybe some scientist proved it somewhere, whatever. Women are also more likely (and this was proved somewhere) to use their common sense more, while a man reahces around his mind ofr something he learned in a textbook. Not knocking the textbooks...glad we have them. Very, very useful in certain times.
However, a frightened woman with a husband whose ass has been kicked by "The System" does not want to hear about the technical CT scan results. She does not want to hear the test based explanations for why her husband was not admitted.
She want someone to look at the howling, vomitting man who has swallowed a QUART of laxatives (yeah) and taken an enema and is STILL constipated, miserable and has just begun to throw up. She wants that person to say "Hey...that guy's pretty fucking sick!"
Dr. Murphy came up to me (as a nurse was helping my vomiting husband) and said, without my even having to ask "We're going to admit him." Then she hugged me and said "Oh, you haven't slept all night, you must be so drained. Don't worry. We're won't let go of him until we get this taken care of. Have you eaten?"
Thank you. THANK YOU! Thank you Dr. Lisa Murphy and Dr. Molly Bliss of Rhode Island Hospital for acknowledging that I was in pain, that I had done everything I knew how, and that, though nothing was showing up on the fucking CT scan, that something was obviously VERY VERY WRONG.
Thank you.
He's drugged out of his head right now, and hooked up to an IV. Still no change. But he is admitted and they are going to find out what is wrong.
And I am going to sleep.
The house is a mess.
The grocery shopping hasn't been done and we have very, very little food.
I cannot heal my husband.
Things I can forgive the hospital for:
The fact that few people seem to know where they are going. The new ER opened less than a week ago, so everyone is still getting lost.
The fact that my husband isn't first in line. There are other people there who are just as sick, or sicker than he is. There are just as many panicked wives/husbands/significant others/parents/children etc. who are scared and feel that their loved one is more important than anyone else. The nurses and doctors are kept busy.
Things I cannot forgive the hospital for:
Sending my husband home from the ER twice in twenty four hours with prescriptions that failed, as he grew progressivly worse. You see his medical history? Do you really think he's going to miraculously get better?
Within two hours of being discharged a second time, I was calling 911 again.
I was crying with rage. I called my mother, who is great at pulling the Warrior Woman out in me and drove to the hospital ready with threats, demands. I was going to mention lawsuits, I was prepared to cause a scene and be arrested (they can't send him out with no one to take him home)!
Thankfully, I didn't have to use that. This third time in his doctors were women.
I hate to sound sexist (I have had wonderful male doctors), but (in my experience) women have a greater capacity for empathy. Maybe some scientist proved it somewhere, whatever. Women are also more likely (and this was proved somewhere) to use their common sense more, while a man reahces around his mind ofr something he learned in a textbook. Not knocking the textbooks...glad we have them. Very, very useful in certain times.
However, a frightened woman with a husband whose ass has been kicked by "The System" does not want to hear about the technical CT scan results. She does not want to hear the test based explanations for why her husband was not admitted.
She want someone to look at the howling, vomitting man who has swallowed a QUART of laxatives (yeah) and taken an enema and is STILL constipated, miserable and has just begun to throw up. She wants that person to say "Hey...that guy's pretty fucking sick!"
Dr. Murphy came up to me (as a nurse was helping my vomiting husband) and said, without my even having to ask "We're going to admit him." Then she hugged me and said "Oh, you haven't slept all night, you must be so drained. Don't worry. We're won't let go of him until we get this taken care of. Have you eaten?"
Thank you. THANK YOU! Thank you Dr. Lisa Murphy and Dr. Molly Bliss of Rhode Island Hospital for acknowledging that I was in pain, that I had done everything I knew how, and that, though nothing was showing up on the fucking CT scan, that something was obviously VERY VERY WRONG.
Thank you.
He's drugged out of his head right now, and hooked up to an IV. Still no change. But he is admitted and they are going to find out what is wrong.
And I am going to sleep.
posted by Novice at 6:13 PM
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