Hi Gloria and Tracy, thanks for caring and writing. I am home now but Mom stayed. I had to discharge myself to keep Mom alive. Tracy, you might understand this, I just got off the phoe with my brother in BC, he says it's been this way in BC for years, but no one ever explained it to us before so we always got frustrated and angry. This one Dr. finally explained to us that our family Dr. or even our specialist can't work in the hospital. You see a "hospitalist", who decides your disease and decides all your medicines, so if he doesn't see heart failure "today", then you don't have it, so he takes mom off all the heart failure medicine. This is why she was discharged after only 3 days last time, but we didn't understand that. It has taken mom many years to get the right combination of meds, and if she misses her heart meds, it's only 2 days before she's in serious trouble, so it seems like they could kill her very easily. If the "hospitalist" doesn't think my face pain is TN, he can take away all my meds while I'm in the hospital, and you are not allowed to bring in your own meds.
So after I discharged myself, I went to eat something at the hospital cafeteria, then went upstairs to help Mom get settled. I got food poisoning within an hour, and spent a while hugging Mom's toilet. The nurses kept saying "You should go down to the E.R.!" I said "I will when I can get away from the toilet, I can't really move now. Or if you want to take me in a wheelchair with a barf bucket, that would help." they didn't want to do that, and after a couple of hours I decided I'm not going to wait in the E.R . waiting room for 4 more hours, we had been there since morning already. So I just called a cab and practically held my breath, sweating all the way home. When I got home, I ran to the bathroom and continued being sick, but felt much better when I had finished. I called the cafeteria today to warn them about what I ate.
So I was supposed to be with Mom all day, but I had to deal with her insurance company, which was close to impossible on a weekend, then we had these incredible storms where the thunder rumbles shook the windows and lasted up to 12 seconds each. I passed out for a couple of hours due to pain and fatigue of not sleeping yet last night, and heart problems. The phone in my Mom's room is not working, so I can't talk to her to find out how she is, and she can't call me to tell me to come get her if she 's in trouble, and I can't tell her that I was not able to find other people or a hired nurse to come sit with her to protect her from the staff that are almost non existent on the weekends. So I'm going a bit nuts, trying to get enough strength to get up to the hospital even though it's evening now. Very frustrating. It just feels like the more we deal with the hospital, the faster they will kill us... but in emergencies, when the Dr. is not available, we know understand that there's not much chance. Very scary. No continuity of care. The care that her regular Dr, who knows her, has given her, is thrown out the window when you are admitted to the hospital. Seems to be a very dangerous place, in Canada anyway.
Gloria do you know if your hospital is using this procedure too, of no family Dr. in the hospital, just hospitalists?? This is nuts! There will be a time when we are too sick to watch every single detail, and they will make deadly mistakes. Very difficult time. Thanks for your care and prayers.
Blessings, Sheila