Hospital Day #3

This day started poorly. The nurse last night didn't tell Courtney that she wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything after midnight(or Courtney doesn't remember being told that). They came to get us for her surgery at 10:20 or so. We didn't find out that she was going to be in surgery this morning until about 10:10. Once we got down to pre-op, the nurses started flipping out because Courtney had something to eat at 7am.

She had one chicken finger.

The anesthesiologist wouldn't put her under for surgery with food in her stomach, because he was afraid she would vomit while under, and aspirate the vomitus. Doc Edwards got on the phone with Courtney and was incredibly rude, telling her that she had screwed up the whole day's schedule with her chicken finger. He was like the fourth person to tell her that, and she started crying and freaking out about it.

We came back to the room, since the surgery was cancelled, and Courtney suffered through another day of pain. Courtney's nurse during the day was wonderful. She was younger, about our age, and a lot of fun to chat with. She was the most pleasant nurse I have ever dealt with. Her name is Skyler. We are considering that name if we have another daughter in the future. Skyler has a boyfriend, and his name is Colin. How cool is that? She definitely seems like the kind of person that Courtney and I could hang out with on a friend-type basis.

When the night nurses came on duty, the nurse from the night before got chewed out. Her name is Pat. On day #2, she was real nice and took good care of Courtney. Tonight, she had an attitude every time she came in the room.

When they changed shifts, Pat came in the room and started berating Courtney for eating that morning, and said she had told Courtney not to eat after midnight. A little while later, Courtney told the acp that her IV was coming out. The catheter was visible, and had come out of Courtney's arm by about 1/2". 25 minutes later, Courtney got on the intercom to the nurse's station, to ask her nurse to come into the room. Pat answered, but took great pains to make it seem like it was someone else that answered. It took Pat about 20 more minutes to come into the room to fix the IV. She walked into the room, looked at Courtney's arm, and said 'I'll be right back'. It was another 15 minutes before she came back into the room. She left to get some gloves. The gloves are stored about 25 steps from Re's room. It was clear that Pat was taking her time because she knew Courtney was in pain, and wanted her to suffer, since Pat got chewed out.

Once Pat got to the room with her gloves, she started ripping off the tape that Courtney had on her IV. That caused Re quite a bit of discomfort, since the catheter was loose and moving every time Pat pulled a piece of tape. Courtney reached over and held the cath with her finger, to keep it from moving. Pat told her to move her hand, and Courtney and I thought she was going to pull the cath. Instead, Pat just continued ripping tape off. She kept asking Courtney what she wanted her to do. Courtney told Pat she wanted her to take care of the IV. Then Re asked if Sandy was still on duty. Sandy had put that IV in, and it didn't hurt at all, despite Sandy's need to dig around for the vein. Pat took that request really personally, and got even snippier(even though I didn't think that was possible). She made a smart-ass comment about how Courtney could have another nurse if she wanted one. Courtney told her she didn't need another nurse, she just wanted Pat to treat her the same way she had the night before. Pat told us she wasn't going to get in an argument, and that she was going to go talk to the charge nurse.

I went out of the room a few minutes later looking for the charge nurse. I explained the whole situation to her, and she told us she would look after Courtney for the night. She spent a few minutes getting an IV started again, and told us she'd be back soon. She checked on Re several times during the night, and gave nearly perfect care. My only complaint about her is that she gave Re undiluted Finergan, which ended up closing the vein.

The contrast between the day nurse and night nurse was particularly blaring today. Skyler's wonderfulness made Pat's bitchiness seem much worse.