Hospital Adventures

I thought I’d start a new thread on hospital adventures, since I’m having such an exciting time in the local hospital. Not that I want to frighten anyone, but we all know that hospitals without any real spinal cord injury expertise can be a bit scary. It gets easier to ask for what you need once you’ve become more experienced with your condition, but I’m sure we all have good examples of why it’s so important to get top acute rehab in a specialized place immeditately following injury. It would be interesting to hear other hospital adventures – the comical as well as the horror. Anyway, here’s what I wrote last night. (Colonoscopy here later today. Wish me well!):


Today was a nightmare. I woke up at 4:30 with legs spazzing, only to realize I was sitting in a another puddle of pooh (the third that night). I drank another litre of go-lightly yesterday, not to mention the two previous days of drinking the dreadful stuff , and only allowed clear fluids since Wednesday. The night nurses tried to transfer me into my commode chair (I had to bring my own from home since the hospital ones are molded plastic with hard seats and backs and no way to flip up the arms for a transfer). I explained how my husband helps me transfer, and two nurses and I managed to clumsily get me into the chair. No one paid attention to my feet, so my toes were slammed down on the footplate curled under my feet. Finally got situated and spent a good hour leaking liquid s***. When they finally tried to transfer me back into bed they tried to slide my bum and my legs at the same time, instead of helping me just slide my bottom over and then move my feet. I thought they were going to break my hip. Once I was back in bed I was terrified of asking for help up again. It seemed much safer and more sensible (from my perspective) to just let them change the bedding. By the third time, though, I was so sore I was crying. Realized my BP was up. Got onto the commode again when my husband got here to help, and spent another hour on the commode peeing from my arse, but it still wasn't clear enough for a colonoscopy, scheduled for tomorrow. Spent this morning drinking another half litre of go-lightly, and with the help of some lidocaine ointment and a couple of motrin, did a water enema using the peristeen system. It's now almost 8 p.m. Pat, my husband, left about an hour ago to take care of the poor dog, and will be back in a while because he doesn't want to leave me alone here until he knows I won't have any more 'accidents'. The nurse thinks the fluid is probably clear enough to go ahead with the procedure tomorrow, so no more prep tonight, just residual evacuation. My pain is quite a lot better. I'm still on the Nitro patch and IV fluids, but a lot more settled than I was this morning. Yes, I need a place specializing in SCI, but this will have to do for now.

The afternoon was very exciting and left enough distraction for me to forget about my misery for a while. A new patient was admitted two doors down from me and we suddenly heard her this afternoon screaming down the corridor "I'm not taking anymore from that lippy f...ing b****!" Very southern Alabama accent. She was referring to my nurse, who's actually very nice, experienced, and competent (not one the night nurses). Apparently, Diane, the nurse, refused to give her anything to eat since she was there for abdominal pain and a fever. We sort of gathered from the story that the woman (in her mid/late twenties) is one in a large population of narcotic addicts in the area, who come to the hospital seeking pain meds when they can't find any on the street. Things calmed down for about an hour, when we suddenly heard loud bangs and crashes, and two male voices screaming at each other. My husband (who's a retired Navy Chief) went into military mode and strode out into the corridor with me saying, "You be careful and don't get too involved". I knew he'd get involved somehow. Next, I hear him saying, "Both of you, calm down. This is a hospital. Take it outside!" The white guy, who had been knocked to the ground and dragged by his feet out of the female patient's room and into the corridor by a black guy, was trying to get up from the floor, so Pat ordered the black guy back into the room and told the white guy to go and stand over by the nurses station. He protested saying, "That's my wife in there and that guy's trying to sell her drugs". Pat: "Stand over there and tell it to the cops when they arrive". "But I should be in there, that's my wife". Then the black guy says, "She's my wife and he's the drug dealer". Pat:"Listen. This is a hospital. My wife's in here and she's sick. So are all these other people. They don't need this. You get back in the room and save it for the cops." In the meantime, all the nurses are standing back around the nurse station waiting for security or behind closed doors in patient's rooms. Dianne was asked by the ward supervisor to remove the IV from the woman. Apparently, many of these addicts have friends come to the hospital with a syringe full of heroine for their buddies, and inject it through the IV (who knew!?). But Diane refused to go into the room. I don't blame her. Eventually, security and the cops arrived, and a little while later the woman discharged herself. We heard that the white couple got into a car together, and were followed by the cops and arrested at the end of the road. We don't know what happened to the black guy.

So, the end to another exciting day!