A moment of silence for a friend....

October 17, 2009

This was posted in another Forum.

The lady in question was a wonderful support to me during the cancer

stuff, and every thing else. Her husband had knee replacement surgery

this week... with the following results.

__________

This afternoon, Dale was supposed to be discharged, but he was showing

all the symptoms of developing another small bowel obstruction. I

badgered people all afternoon to get in touch with his doctor and get

something done about it. His orthopedic surgeon just brushed it

off, with " failure to have a BM isn't reason to keep him in the

hospital another day. " It was much more than that!

When the shift changed, the nurse for his room was on the ball and called

the doctor who is on call for our PCP. She ordered several things,

then came to the hospital. In the mean time, he was getting worse

and worse. The nurse had given him magnesium citrate, which he

refluxed up and then aspirated, making him extremely short of

breath. Everybody who came to do some diagnostic work on him had to

wait on someone else to do something, and it was a really confused

situation. Finally the EKG tech was getting an EKG, and Dale had a

cardiac arrest in the middle of it. They called a code and worked

over him for the longest, but to no avail. He died ... in my

opinion because no one would address the small bowel obstruction to begin

with. A Hypaque enema would have resolved the problem right

away. If they had done what I asked them to, there would have been

no reason for the magnesium citrate, no reflux, no aspiration, and IMO no

cardiac arrest. How absolutely needless!

I'm still numb. This hasn't sunk in yet. I can't even cry.

__________

Please send prayers and good thoughts to Dot.

—

Marilyn

New

Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund

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