Holy cow !!!

It’s been a long time since I posted. It’s not that I lost interest; I just haven’t had a moment of free time in the last 6 weeks.
My sister went in for what should have been “routine” surgery and it was anything but routine.

A couple of days stay in the hospital has turned into:
a week at the hospital (not the one in town, but the one 60 miles away of course)
then to a nursing home for some rehab (it lasted less than 6 hours)
back to the hospital for a week (staff infection)
the the nursing home for 5 days
back to the hospital ICU for a week (bleeding ulcer from the pain meds)
then the nursing home for 6 days
back to the hospital ICU for a week (TWO bleeding ulcers)
She’s now back in the nursing home, swelled up like a fricking blowfish and itching from some kind of rash. And no one knows why of course.

I knew before, but her experiences have reinforced my conviction that hospitals are not for the sick. If you need a biopsy, have a non-complicated baby delivery, or most outpatient procedures and you will probably do just fine. It’s when you have to get some actual care that they often fail. There is no communication between anyone, many of the nurses were down right mean, and no one seems to care about anything other than gossiping. It’s all about treating the symptoms and getting you out of there. And when I say symptoms, I mean the ones that caused the hospitalization, not the ones that crop up DURING the hospitalization, like for instance, the massive swelling over her entire body. I heard “Oh, is she more swollen than usual”? And “we’re giving her lasix, that should work, just give it time”. And “maybe she’s allergic to something, it will probably go away”. Should? Maybe? Probably? Well it sounds like MAYBE I could do your job without any specialized schooling.

She has just passed a week out of the hospital and we both hope she doesn’t ever have to return. I sure will feel better about it once the swelling is gone though.
So, that’s what I have been doing the last 7 weeks. The only positive point was that I did a lot of stair climbing during my hospital visits!