the Ugly & the sweet (….was big brother)
Mary,
You need to have several forms filled out, BEFORE you goto a hospital. First and foremost you want to appoint somebody you trust 100% with the ability to make medical decisions in the case you were unable or rendered unable. They are your advocate and speak for you forcefully, when required! Make it clear, and fill out the forms.
I’ve had lots of dangerously bad experiences in hospitals, but they’ve also saved my butt I am confidant far more times than I have fingers and toes (20) combined! You want back-up to the back-up.
A trauma center-teaching hospital which will remain nameless in Philadelphia (not Penn, Mercy, U of Penn…) the idiots gave me 70/30 and my sugar was never below 500 for at least a solid week until I called the Diabetes Nurse on duty and make it very clear I was going to sign myself out AMA, if they did not attend to my specific diabetic instructions and protocols.
I still got no results until I “accidentally” used some Humalog one evening per the Senior Night Duty Nurse’s suggestion aloud ~you know if I were you… hypothetically of course…. I’d get some Humalog and I might accidentally use some, and then TELL me about it, after the fact….~
Golly gee, my sugars came down, FINALLY….
There are good people in a hospital as well as the dangerous morons.
Jeff
February 26th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Jeff,
I agree with you completely. I ask something of all of you in the group. If I EVER start to sound like I don’t care about my patients, PLEASE call me on the carpet.
In the file of ‘bad’ nurses, I had one right after I had my daughter…. C-section. I was post op by about 3 hours, still not allowed to eat or drink anything. My sugar dropped, and I told my nurse I could not take anything PO. She insisted I drink, not one, but TWO glasses of OJ. I argued with her initially, but the sugar got so low, I could not remember the reasoning behind my objection. So, I drank the TWO of them. And proceeded to have such an upset stomach (immediately), she had a bit of a mess to clean up. From there, my husband got another nurse who know what she was doing with a diabetic patient, and gave a little IV glucose. I am a vomiting phobic, but that time I was glad I did!
It is my biggest fear to have even a brief moment of being a really stupid nurse.
Joan