G'is your awful hospital stories.....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

A couple of years ago, I had surgery on a Meckle’s diverticulectomy and had to spend a night or two in the hospital. Shortly after midnight, they brought in some young kid around 18 or 19 who may have been having an appendicitis attack or something. Anyway, they had put him in for observation.

He spent the next two hours griping and moaning, not in pain, but that he wanted to go home. And he was very vocal about it. Insisted he didn’t need to be there. Was upset that he was going to be charged for the room. He kept going on and on, griping to his mother and sister who kept trying to calm him down.

Turned the light on, full blast.

Turned on the TV, loudly.

Pulled back the privacy curtain to look at me, and then didn’t close it all the way, giving me the pleasure of being able to have his light in my eyes for an hour.

I kept thinking, “Dude, once they put your butt in a room, you might as well lay back and enjoy it, because you’re going to be charged for 24 hours anyway.”

Finally, after about 2 hours, they finally released him, probably just to get him to STFU.

So, his family very noisily got him dressed, slammed open the door, helped him out, and then closed the door loudly.

And left the light on, my curtain pulled back, and the TV on.

I was tethered to the bed with tubes and wires and couldn’t get up, so I rang for the nurse. Apparently, they were so pissed with the whole room, that it took them nearly 30 minutes to find out what I wanted.

22

It almost seems unfair to mention a story from a mental ward, but it’s horrible enough not to.

While walking towards the kitchen to see if lunch had started, I heard an almighty crash. Temporarily forgetting I was a patient, I along with a staff member ran to see what was going on. We saw a panicked young woman running in the opposite direction, which confused me until we rounded the corner to see a man standing next to a shattered window. The man was completely naked. He had just thrown a large wooden chair through the window.

I believe he was moved to another ward later that day.

23

Strangely enough, mirroring the OP, when I had my sinus/nose surgery I was also kept awake by the breathing problems of a guy in the next bed. He was about 90 something. Efforts by the nurses and then doctors to help him breathe lasted most of the night. Some time in the early hours of the morning they wheeled him away. I took it from comments by the nurses the next morning that he didn’t survive.

How’s the schnozz anyway, Kam?

24

Remarkably good thanks Prinnie. There was no packing, the already minimal bruising (mainly on the sides of my face, I guess from clamps to pull the schnozzie bits apart) has gone, and whilst it’s still a bit tender, no other visible damage. Snot levels are down to manageable, and I can already breathe a bit better I think…although that might be wishful thinking and all.

However, the anaesthetic laid me low for a couple of days…just bludged on the couch watching dvd’s and doing absolutely nothing. The consequent lack of activity resulted in me putting my back out again this morning…so tonight, I’m dosed up on the painkillers that were prescribed for me’ nose just to keep from collapsing in a sobbing agonised heap!

Whoever invented narcotics ought to have gotten a Nobel Prize! Best invention ever!! :stuck_out_tongue:

25

When my son was born, he was in the hospital for three weeks following a cardiac surgery. Right after the surgery, they kept all the recovering babies in one big room, so they could more easily keep an eye on them. One of our son’s roommates in the first day was a baby with a soft trachea (not sure of the exact name for the condition) and Amish parents. They were discussing taking her off life support with the doctor, saying they couldn’t support her with the technology required to keep her alive (“and what kind of life would that be”) and remain in their community. I wished for them that they could have some privacy. It was very sad.

Then when our baby was getting better and had just one roommate in a room of his own, a 9-year-old (ish) girl moved in as his roommate. I don’t know what she was there for specifically, but the root cause was very clearly anorexia, and although they brought her meals a couple of times while I was there with my son, I never saw her eat. Also sad.

So no horror stories, just sad ones. But I know the constant checks and beeping and nurses in and out took their toll on our son. He started crying jags on the last few days in the hospital, probably because he was tired and kept being woken up. Finally, they let us take him home even though he wasn’t technically eating well enough yet. (He kept falling asleep while eating, which I think was in part in response to the surgery, because he was recovering, and in part because he just needed to sleep and was never allowed to.) He did SO much better at home and fattened up nicely, but it took a while for the crying jags to fade. It must have been so weird for him to live his whole life (all three weeks of it) in constant noise, only to come home to (try to) sleep in a quiet house.

26

Wow, what a timely thread. I just got home a few hours ago from a three-day hospital stay occasioned by a kidney stone that had become wedged in my right ureter. It was first noticed in a CT scan done about three weeks ago following my passing of an earlier stone. “Uh oh”, said the Nurse Practitioner reviewing the scan. “That’s gonna be a problem.” The hideous thing was estimated to be 6mm in diameter. Think, trying to pass a golf ball though a garden hose, for proportion.

After enduring ever–more-intense pain throughout most of last week, Friday night it began hurting so bad that I ended up calling 911 (din’t have anyone nearby who could drive me). On the way over the ambulance jockeys introduced me to the wonders of Dilaudid for pain control. I got a few more injections of the stuff at the hospital. It worked for exactly three hours each time, but man, did it work.

I was held overnight for examination by my urologist, who recommended something called Electrohydraulic lithotripsy, which basically consists of sending a tiny laser up your peehole and blasting the stone to bits, no doubt while the doctor makes little ‘Star Wars’ ‘peow peow’ sounds under his breath. Faced with the choice of a known, speedy outcome vs. further extreme pain of unknown duration, it didn’t take me long to make a decision. So, Sunday morning they put me under, did the blasty thing and…

…oh, jesus. The doctor insisted on putting in a temporary stent, to ensure there were no blockages if remaining fragments were to make their way out, so I’ve been almost totally incontinent during the past 24 hours; fluids have been coming out of me in a more or less unending stream that is more blood than urine; every time they do my insides burn like the fires of hell itself, and there is basically no position I can assume that is even remotely comfortable. I haven’t had more than two hours of sleep in a go in the past ten days, and like another poster mentioned, my mind is doing…odd things. Despite all this, both the admitting doctor and the urologist sent me home with bland assurances that this was all perfectly normal, and without even a parting shot of that lovely, lovely Dilaudid to take the edge off for a couple hours. Bastards.

The hospital itself is a fairly new complex of a major chain, with an attentive, caring staff, all-single-rooms, decent food, and in fact is the single finest such facility I’ve ever been in…and I still hope I never see the damn place again. 'Cause if I do, no matter how nice the surroundings I know it will be in the cause of immense pain and suffering.

27

Couldn’t have said that better myself. I’d have been one miserable SOB after my patellar tendon reattachment surgery a couple weeks ago without IV Dilaudid.

28

Most of my best hospital stories come from the era when I was fresh out of nursing school working in the Trauma Center on the IV Team. I got to roam around on my rounds and see all the happenings of the day while working.

One of the most memorable characters was a Chinese cardiothoracic surgeon who was so nearsighted he had to wear his loupes (surgical magnifying glasses) just to stir his coffee I swear. And he was LOUD and tactless.

•Passing one of his patients rooms while making his rounds with his entourage, he blared out, “No need see this one, he in the Lord’s hands now.” Loud enough for the family in the room to hear but hopefully not the patient himself.

•Another one of his famously tactless “consults” was a patient with gangrene in the leg. Dr Loud N. Crude yelled to him from the foot of the bed, “This leg doing you absolutely no good at all. We cut … HERE!”, indicating with a karate-like chop to the patient’s leg.

And his nurse was deaf. Poor girl, no wonder.

29

You would think ear plugs and an eye mask would be standard issue for anyone sharing a hospital room these days.