When life sends you into a tailspin, tell the tales.
At 12:30 on Monday afternoon they wheeled me through halls, an elevator, and more halls to interventional radiology.
“We’ll take him to holding until they are ready for him,” they explained to Sarah. “You can stay with him in holding until they are ready for him. Then you can wait in the waiting room and when they are finished the doctor will come out and tell you how it went.”
I started laughing. Lest they think I was going nuts,I explained. “I grew up on a farm,” I said, “Holding sounds like the place we put critters in before we shipped them.”
Earlier a nurse practitioner from interventional radiology had visited me in my room. She had explained the lysing procedure and had explained I would be awake during the procedure but that they would give me drugs that would put me in “la-la land.”
I asked about the drugs. One would relax me and the other would reduce my memory of the procedure.
La-la land. That was the best medical term I heard during my stay.
When I was wheeled on a gurney into an interventional radiology room the radiology staff told me that I would be lying on my stomach for the procedure.
I had a mild moment of panic. “My rheumatoid arthritis makes lying on my stomach hard to do and I can’t turn my neck to breathe,” I said. They may be experts in interventional radiology but I’m an expert on what my body will and will not do.
They listened to me and we worked together to figure out how to get me from the gurney onto the table. Soon I was lying face down with a pillow under my chest and a rolled up towel under my head that allowed me to breathe.
Once I was in position on the table the sweet nurse whose job it was to medicate me into “la-la land” (the best medical term I heard in the hospital) leaned over and said, “You don’t look very comfortable at all. I sure wouldn’t be comfortable in that position.”
I about cried.
“Thanks for the empathy,” I said. “Empathy is a great gift even when you can’t change the situation.”
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Hospital tales 5: Nurse blame residents, resident blames nurses
When life sends you into a tailspin, tell the tales.
At midnight on Saturday night I went NPO--an abbreviation for “nothing per oral” or maybe it’s an abbreviation for a Latin phrase. What ever it means, after midnight I could not eat or drink because I was going to have the lysing procedure on Sunday.
Medical people love Latin. In the early 70’s I began to lose small patches of pigment on my chest, arms, etc. Once a doctor and medical student were examining me when the student asked what caused the loss of pigment. “It’s idiopathic,” the doctor said.
“Does that mean ‘I don’t know’?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the doctor.
I woke up Sunday full of gratitude: “I’m alive.” Sarah was still sleeping on a cot beside me.
I pressed my call light and asked the nurse for a Bible. Eventually she came back and said they had searched the whole floor for a Bible and couldn’t find one. “I’ll call pastoral care.”
A sister showed up with a Good News Bible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We used to keep Bible’s in the room but they kept disappearing on us.” She handed me the Bible.
Now there’s a ministry opportunity, I thought. Keep hospitals supplied with Good News Bibles so that people can steal them.
After a good quiet time I asked the nurse when the lysing procedure was going to be done. She hadn’t been informed yet.
At 1:00 p.m. my nurse came in and said she had called my doctor to ask when the lysing procedure was scheduled for. That’s when she discovered that none of the five doctors I had seen the night before called interventional radiology and scheduled the procedure.
The doctor said it would be fine to do the procedure to morrow.
“Can he eat then?” asked the nurse. Kind nurse.
The next day a resident said that nursing should have arranged the lysing procedure. Hmmmm.
I didn’t get upset by the mix-up. My hope is not in medicine but in the Lord of the universe and I figured he’d make sure I got the lying procedure in the fullness of time.
That evening Rick and Lynn Reha, Heather Munn and Jim Fitz came from Plow Creek to visit Sarah and me. As they were about to leave, Jim said, “How about we pray?” I was so thankful. I was lying in the need of prayer.
At midnight I went NPO again.
At midnight on Saturday night I went NPO--an abbreviation for “nothing per oral” or maybe it’s an abbreviation for a Latin phrase. What ever it means, after midnight I could not eat or drink because I was going to have the lysing procedure on Sunday.
Medical people love Latin. In the early 70’s I began to lose small patches of pigment on my chest, arms, etc. Once a doctor and medical student were examining me when the student asked what caused the loss of pigment. “It’s idiopathic,” the doctor said.
“Does that mean ‘I don’t know’?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the doctor.
I woke up Sunday full of gratitude: “I’m alive.” Sarah was still sleeping on a cot beside me.
I pressed my call light and asked the nurse for a Bible. Eventually she came back and said they had searched the whole floor for a Bible and couldn’t find one. “I’ll call pastoral care.”
A sister showed up with a Good News Bible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We used to keep Bible’s in the room but they kept disappearing on us.” She handed me the Bible.
Now there’s a ministry opportunity, I thought. Keep hospitals supplied with Good News Bibles so that people can steal them.
After a good quiet time I asked the nurse when the lysing procedure was going to be done. She hadn’t been informed yet.
At 1:00 p.m. my nurse came in and said she had called my doctor to ask when the lysing procedure was scheduled for. That’s when she discovered that none of the five doctors I had seen the night before called interventional radiology and scheduled the procedure.
The doctor said it would be fine to do the procedure to morrow.
“Can he eat then?” asked the nurse. Kind nurse.
The next day a resident said that nursing should have arranged the lysing procedure. Hmmmm.
I didn’t get upset by the mix-up. My hope is not in medicine but in the Lord of the universe and I figured he’d make sure I got the lying procedure in the fullness of time.
That evening Rick and Lynn Reha, Heather Munn and Jim Fitz came from Plow Creek to visit Sarah and me. As they were about to leave, Jim said, “How about we pray?” I was so thankful. I was lying in the need of prayer.
At midnight I went NPO again.
Hospital tales 5: Nurses blame residents, resident blames nurses
When life sends you into a tailspin, tell the tales.
At midnight on Saturday night I went NPO--an abbreviation for “nothing per oral” or maybe it’s an abbreviation for a Latin phrase. What ever it means, after midnight I could not eat or drink because I was going to have the lysing procedure on Sunday.
Medical people love Latin. In the early 70’s I began to lose small patches of pigment on my chest, arms, etc. Once a doctor and medical student were examining me when the student asked what caused the loss of pigment. “It’s idiopathic,” the doctor said.
“Does that mean ‘I don’t know’?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the doctor.
I woke up Sunday full of gratitude: “I’m alive.” Sarah was still sleeping on a cot beside me.
I pressed my call light and asked the nurse for a Bible. Eventually she came back and said they had searched the whole floor for a Bible and couldn’t find one. “I’ll call pastoral care.”
A sister showed up with a Good News Bible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We used to keep Bible’s in the room but they kept disappearing on us.” She handed me the Bible.
Now there’s a ministry opportunity, I thought. Keep hospitals supplied with Good News Bibles so that people can steal them.
After a good quiet time I asked the nurse when the lysing procedure was going to be done. She hadn’t been informed yet.
At 1:00 p.m. my nurse came in and said she had called my doctor to ask when the lysing procedure was scheduled for. That’s when she discovered that none of the five doctors I had seen the night before called interventional radiology and scheduled the procedure.
The doctor said it would be fine to do the procedure to morrow.
“Can he eat then?” asked the nurse. Kind nurse.
The next day a resident said that nursing should have arranged the lysing procedure. Hmmmm.
I didn’t get upset by the mix-up. My hope is not in medicine but in the Lord of the universe and I figured he’d make sure I got the lying procedure in the fullness of time.
That evening Rick and Lynn Reha, Heather Munn and Jim Fitz came from Plow Creek to visit Sarah and me. As they were about to leave, Jim said, “How about we pray?” I was so thankful. I was lying in the need of prayer.
At midnight I went NPO again.
At midnight on Saturday night I went NPO--an abbreviation for “nothing per oral” or maybe it’s an abbreviation for a Latin phrase. What ever it means, after midnight I could not eat or drink because I was going to have the lysing procedure on Sunday.
Medical people love Latin. In the early 70’s I began to lose small patches of pigment on my chest, arms, etc. Once a doctor and medical student were examining me when the student asked what caused the loss of pigment. “It’s idiopathic,” the doctor said.
“Does that mean ‘I don’t know’?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the doctor.
I woke up Sunday full of gratitude: “I’m alive.” Sarah was still sleeping on a cot beside me.
I pressed my call light and asked the nurse for a Bible. Eventually she came back and said they had searched the whole floor for a Bible and couldn’t find one. “I’ll call pastoral care.”
A sister showed up with a Good News Bible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We used to keep Bible’s in the room but they kept disappearing on us.” She handed me the Bible.
Now there’s a ministry opportunity, I thought. Keep hospitals supplied with Good News Bibles so that people can steal them.
After a good quiet time I asked the nurse when the lysing procedure was going to be done. She hadn’t been informed yet.
At 1:00 p.m. my nurse came in and said she had called my doctor to ask when the lysing procedure was scheduled for. That’s when she discovered that none of the five doctors I had seen the night before called interventional radiology and scheduled the procedure.
The doctor said it would be fine to do the procedure to morrow.
“Can he eat then?” asked the nurse. Kind nurse.
The next day a resident said that nursing should have arranged the lysing procedure. Hmmmm.
I didn’t get upset by the mix-up. My hope is not in medicine but in the Lord of the universe and I figured he’d make sure I got the lying procedure in the fullness of time.
That evening Rick and Lynn Reha, Heather Munn and Jim Fitz came from Plow Creek to visit Sarah and me. As they were about to leave, Jim said, “How about we pray?” I was so thankful. I was lying in the need of prayer.
At midnight I went NPO again.
Hospital tales 4: The patient is in charge
When life sends you into a tailspin, tell the tales.
I remember vividly my moment of enlightenment in the early 1970s.
Between the ages of 17 and 23, 1968-1973, I spent many months in the hospital for eight orthopedic surgeries and much rehab for my rheumatoid arthritis.
After one of the surgeries I was transferred from an acute care hospital to the rehab. Sitting in a wheelchair physically and emotionally depleted from the surgery, an aide announced they were going to transfer me from the acute care hospital wheelchair to a rehab wheelchair. Dimly, as a couple of aides grabbed a hold of me, I thought they were going about it wrong. But they were medical people so I assumed they must know best.
They proceeded to inflict great pain on me while transferring me.
I didn’t blame the aides. Instead, I paid attention to the light bulb that went on in my brain. Medical people may be the experts but the patient is in charge. It’s his or her body. The patient always decides what gets done and what doesn’t. And when the patient is dimly aware of something amiss he’s responsible.
This pain-earned bit of wisdom helped me when I arrived at St. Francis on Saturday evening by ambulance. I saw five doctors, singly or in pairs. I think they were all residents and interns, none of whom was Dr. Debord.
I didn’t mind. I always consider it an honor to have medical people learn their trade by practicing on me. After all, we have three generations of nurses in our family and they all had to learn on patients.
I’ve heard that July is a poor time to be a patient in a teaching hospital because residents all rotate in, up, or out on July 1. But my blood clot didn’t ask me about timing.
One after another I answered the residents’ questions and watched while they took my pulse in both legs.
About the third or fourth resident began happily rattling on about how the they were going to do several blood tests and order a hematology work up to see why I had gotten the clot. I didn’t understand all he said but I did catch that he didn’t mention lysing.
A warning light went off in that part of my brain that fully embraces that I am in charge of my medical care.
I waited until he was finished and said, “Have you talked to Dr. Debord? I was transferred here because he said I was a candidate for lysing.”
The resident was kind of taken aback. “We’ll talk to Dr. Debord,” he said. Later I wondered if he was a hematology resident since he seemed to be so interested in a blood work up. I don’t recall seeing him again but they did wake me up at 5:00 Sunday morning to take five vials of blood. No one talked to me about the blood work but hopefully they had good practice.
I remember vividly my moment of enlightenment in the early 1970s.
Between the ages of 17 and 23, 1968-1973, I spent many months in the hospital for eight orthopedic surgeries and much rehab for my rheumatoid arthritis.
After one of the surgeries I was transferred from an acute care hospital to the rehab. Sitting in a wheelchair physically and emotionally depleted from the surgery, an aide announced they were going to transfer me from the acute care hospital wheelchair to a rehab wheelchair. Dimly, as a couple of aides grabbed a hold of me, I thought they were going about it wrong. But they were medical people so I assumed they must know best.
They proceeded to inflict great pain on me while transferring me.
I didn’t blame the aides. Instead, I paid attention to the light bulb that went on in my brain. Medical people may be the experts but the patient is in charge. It’s his or her body. The patient always decides what gets done and what doesn’t. And when the patient is dimly aware of something amiss he’s responsible.
This pain-earned bit of wisdom helped me when I arrived at St. Francis on Saturday evening by ambulance. I saw five doctors, singly or in pairs. I think they were all residents and interns, none of whom was Dr. Debord.
I didn’t mind. I always consider it an honor to have medical people learn their trade by practicing on me. After all, we have three generations of nurses in our family and they all had to learn on patients.
I’ve heard that July is a poor time to be a patient in a teaching hospital because residents all rotate in, up, or out on July 1. But my blood clot didn’t ask me about timing.
One after another I answered the residents’ questions and watched while they took my pulse in both legs.
About the third or fourth resident began happily rattling on about how the they were going to do several blood tests and order a hematology work up to see why I had gotten the clot. I didn’t understand all he said but I did catch that he didn’t mention lysing.
A warning light went off in that part of my brain that fully embraces that I am in charge of my medical care.
I waited until he was finished and said, “Have you talked to Dr. Debord? I was transferred here because he said I was a candidate for lysing.”
The resident was kind of taken aback. “We’ll talk to Dr. Debord,” he said. Later I wondered if he was a hematology resident since he seemed to be so interested in a blood work up. I don’t recall seeing him again but they did wake me up at 5:00 Sunday morning to take five vials of blood. No one talked to me about the blood work but hopefully they had good practice.
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