Why I HATE hospitals!

[Guest guest]

I never fail to face a calamity when I get to visit the Big House. I just wanted to share this one with you.

I was summoned to the BH on Tuesday. They did testing into the night and did a heart catherization on Wednesday a.m. This cath was a much better experience than the one at . They gave me lots of drugs and all went well....except the findings. On Thursday morning, they told me that I would have to be transferred to ICU to initiate the Flolan treatments. So they took me to an ICU unit (they have 3). My paperwork, however, went another direction. My girlfriend was with me. They rolled me in the room and stuck my bed in a small corner. The curtain was pulled, but I could tell that the rest of the room was the actual room and this was like a holding place for me until they found out who I was and where my papers were. They came in a took my friend outside into the waiting area. She could never get back in. It was around 10:00 a.m.

They closed the doors, there was no air flow in the room. I was having trouble breathing. At that point some respiratory girl came in to tell me that she would have to turn my 02 down to 5L, which she did. I can't remember why. So, I was in a panic. Then I heard the voice of my room mate. It was a MAN. Now, I had no underwear on due to the cath bandanges. I was in a room with a MAN and I had no underwear on. And they were cutting my air out. I began to protest and they ignored me. They told me that I could never get out of my bed during the week that I would be there. I refused to use a bedpan, so my bladder was about to burst. They told me that they had no bathrooms in that unit that all the people there were confined to thier bed. (turns out it was the place that they took the patients who were dying). They were surprised to have someone rolled in who could talk back to them. The nurses there were so angry that I was there. They were extremely rude to me. Hateful.

About 1:00 my friend and one of the elders from my church got back in. I told him right away that I was in a room with a man and that I had no panties on. I will never live that down. I was soaked in sweat. Soon after, my daughter and grandson got in. At 2:30 my husband came. had just called my doctor. Lucian in a not so soft voice asked to talk with someone with half a brain. A nurse management man came and he told him to unhook me that he was taking me home. About that time my doc came. He was furious. No one knew why I was there. Thank God, they didn't take me to the morgue.

There WAS a bathroom, right in the room where I was. The male nurse took me there. The poor man that was in the room was sitting in a chair down by the bathroom and was not covered up. He didn't have his panties on either. It was not pretty! Aaaargh!

They decided that they had taken me to the wrong ICU. I begged my doctor not to make me go to an ICU unit. They put me in the TMU in a private room. They had never initiated Flolan outside of ICU, but the docs did it a different way and I stayed in my nice private room...with no men roomates.

I filed reports while there, my doc filed a report, my friend who is a nurse on that floor filed a report and as soon as I am up to it, a letter will go out to everyone affiliated with that hospital. That is one of the worst days of my life. Every other person that worked there was super nice and caring. But that group of women in that one unit were really mean and hateful. I know for certain that I do not want to die in such a place. It was horrible. I did not get my meds, my nebs, my lunch or even water.

Were you all aware that they put men and women in rooms together in ICU areas? That is unaccecptable! What happened to dignity?

Maybe I am getting bettere, I am ranting!

Hugs, Joyce D.

Pulmonary Fibrosis 1997 Bronchiectasis 2004 Pulmonary Hypertension 2008 Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (Lupus, RA, Sjogren's, etc) Rejected for Transplant 2006

I will not forget you...Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Isaiah 49:15-16