Today will be Day #3 of hanging out in the Intensive Care Unit at one of the larger hospitals here in Cowlumbus. For what it lacks in some venues, excellent health care is not lacking here in Cowtown. Access to decent and affordable health care is another rant entirely, but I'm not interested in going there right now.
My dad nearly bled to death, from an as yet unlocated GI bleed, before he got to the hospital on Thursday around 3pm. He was transferred here from one of the smaller hospitals near where my parents live.
In talking to my mom and to my siblings who live near to my parents, my dad has been having serious problems for the last two or three weeks but has been too stubborn to go to the hospital. My mother had even called the squad at one point, and my asshole father (Consensus arrived at by my siblings and myself while hanging out in the ICU waiting room. Yes, we did know he was an asshole before this current situation but determined that this was a classic example of it manifesting itself.) refused to go. As I commented yesterday to my family in the waiting room, idiocy and stubbornness run deep in the gene pool. Yes, we're a rather dysfunctional bunch when you put us all together. We've managed to have a few good and a few off-color laughs while hanging out together these last couple of days. Sort of like the holiday get-togethers only with no dishes to wash.
I'm probably going to end up losing my job due to calling off of work to be at the hospital. We just went to a revised attendance point system. Between the problems with my rheumatoid arthritis that caused me to miss two weeks of work and my dad's hospitalization, I'm probably going to point out. We have a "no fault" point policy. Doesn't matter why you have to be off, you get the points. Even though my status was placed as "medical leave" for my RA, I still got the points. I sort of figure it this way... I can get another job; I can't get another Dad. So, being there for him is my priority at this point.
It's hard to be the nurse and to be the family of the patient. Luckily, I do have my older daughter who is a nurse as well to help with some of the explanations and rationale for what is going on. When I talked to my mom early yesterday morning, the nurse had called her at 6am to give her a report on Dad's condition. They'd had to put him on a CPAP overnight and a vent was the next step. My mom had been adamant that my dad didn't want to be on a vent. I had to explain to her what the medical rationale was for him needing to be on the vent, and that a vent isn't necessarily a permanent thing. Then, I had to reassure her that if his prognosis was terminal (No, I'm not insensitive and detatched enough to use the politically correct medical lingo with my mom.), and we needed to take him off of the vent, that there are medications he could be given so that he wouldn't be in pain or suffering in removing the vent to allow him to die.
It took the medical team two attempts yesterday to get a central IV line in. When I was in the room at 6pm after they'd finally gotten the line in, the nurse went to draw the next set of arterial blood gases, and she drew from the IV port. I commented, "Oh, you put in an arterial line." (For the benefit of you non-medical personnel, that was a serious DUH moment.) The nurse just looked at me and smiled, and replied, "He's got the arterial line because he's on the vent." Me, "Oh, Duh!" She, "It's hard to be the family too."
She was a very nice nurse. A Fellow. For the benefit of you non-medical folks, it means she's in an on the job training situation to become an ICU nurse, in quick layman's terms. My dad's nurse had told me that the Fellow nurse was new to the unit and had never been given a case as complicated or where the patient was as gravely ill as my dad is. Had the day supervisor been aware yesterday morning of just how ill my dad was when she made out the assignments, she probably would not have assigned the Fellow nurse to my dad.
The Fellow did an awesome job yesterday. (There were other things going on yesterday from the "nursing aspect" as well that made it a long, hard, stressful day for this Fellow.) And, I commented to her at the end of the day yesterday that it had probably been a very long day for her. She smiled and said that yes, it had been. I thanked her for giving such good care to my dad. They have forms available where you can give "kudos" to the nurses for good care. All of my dad's nurses have given him great care, but I'm going to make sure to write one out specifically for this Fellow nurse. In eighteen years of being a nurse, I've had my share of those overwhelming days, and it's nice to know that you are appreciated for what you do when you have had one of those days. To us, it's just a matter of "this is what we do" and it often goes by unnoticed by anyone. We don't complain (except to our significant other maybe, that it was a long day because sometimes even they don't get it), and we don't get bummed-out that no one cared just how rough it was because the rough days always seem to manage to out-number the easy days. But, we still come to work every day with a good attitude, work our asses off while we're there, juggle more things than a circus clown, deal with all of the "outside stuff" that nurses get to deal with (and that's generally harder and more annoying than any "nursing stuff" that we do), go home to our "real lives" and come back to work the next day and do it all again.
Because we're nurses.
Yes, that statement deserves its own paragraph. You'd have to be a nurse to understand exactly why, but trust me, it does! LOL Just FYI, National Nurses Day is May 6th. So, even if you don't "get it" do something nice for a nurse that you know. He/She will really appreciate it and probably be very surprised. Nursing is a very visable profession, but the practice of nursing is an unnoticed art.
I talked to Mom this morning before she left home to make the drive down here to see what the overnight report was. He hasn't turned the corner yet, which I knew and expected. She said the nurse had told her about a couple of lab reports but that she had no idea as to what it meant. I told Mom she should have asked the nurse to explain what that meant; the nurse would have been willing to answer questions.
I told Mom I'm going to come up later today and then stay for part of the overnight shift. I want to meet the night shift nurses, too.
So, I need to get on some things before I roll out of my neglected house again today. The cat box needs cleaned. Trash needs taken out. The shower needs cleaned. I need to make a gauge swatch for the sweater that I'm going to start knitting while I'm hanging out tonight.
Life goes on.
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