I hate being in the hospital. It’s somehow boring & scary at the same time, & I’m always cold & the blankets are too thin.
I had my daughter back when drive-by deliveries (out of the hospital 24 hours after an uncomplicated vaginal birth) were still the norm with most HMOs (including mine), but let me tell you, I was READY to leave. I’m glad they kicked me out that soon, cuz I was totally sick of being in there.
Thanks Cold!! i became the screamer of that ward lol… my guess is that they remembered me for a short time anyways. I think it almost became a challenge for the nurses to avoid me. In some ways. laughter is truly the best medicine
We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another
A year ago, my mom was having chest pain (big cardiac history with her and everyone else in the family) so she went to the hospital and had angioplasty and a stent done. The day after she got home, she went into anaphylactic shock from the Ticlid (a blood thinner, to prevent her stent from clotting off). She coded but survived. Her platelets were very low and she developed drug-induced lupus. All her hair fell out. So far, none of this was necessarily anyone’s fault- bad things happen- but it was awful.
When her platelets were finally high enough that the doctor wasn’t afraid she’d bleed to death, he sent her home…without prescribing another blood thinner. (I think this was pretty damn negligent, especially since he didn’t schedule any follow-up to check her blood count and her stent was still fresh.) Of course, the stent promptly clotted off and she suffered a major heart attack. They had to give her TPA, the clot-busting drug that can cause you to bleed to death pretty quickly but she managed to survive that.
She was so immunocompromised by all of this that two weeks later she developed a major case of pneumonia, was rehospitalized for several days, and took over 6 months to recover.
A year later, she has chronic congestive heart failure from the damage to her heart, but her hair has started to grow back.
I’m definitely with Coldfire here. If half the stuff on this thread were to happen to me or my family or my friends, I’d raise hell so fast, Satan would get a nosebleed. Once I got done screaming my head off at the staff, I’d get on the phone and call the hospital administrator, the newspapers, and all the local TV stations, plus the AMA, the ACLU, and the state governor.
Every time I think about the fact that these things actually happened, I get so upset I can barely type.
Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.
May I just say as a preface, if you are ever in the hospital and are not a very assertive person, get someone there to help you who is. You MUST stand up for yourself. Period. If the door is open, you have to say “shut that fucking door!”, end of story (just as an example)
Well, I was hospitalized when I had major spinal surgery done-http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003062.html
The one gripe I had was on Day 2- They had me on mega doses of Morphine (which makes me VERY sick to my stomach). I did tell them that. Right after a dose, they wanted to take me to Physical Therapy. There, they wanted to put me on what’s called a “tilt table”. Basically it’s an apparatus used to bring you upright after prolonged periods of being flat on your back. Suffice to say, two seconds on this thing and I feel like I’m going to throw up. Ever throw up after being sliced top to bottom? It hurts. Lots. I explain this nicely- I swear I was nice. And the therapist pulls this “Oh, come on! Tough it out” bullshit. WRONG ANSWER!!!
I YELLED as loud as I could (and believe you me, I can yell). “Get me off this thing or I’ll have your fucking job by the end of the day, get it?!!”.
Needless to say she wordlessly put me back on the stretcher and they brought me back to my room. The next day (after I was off my meds) I felt fine and did whatever the hell they wanted me to do.
A friend is someone who likes you even though you’re as ugly as a hat full of assholes.
Zettecity
By the way, I wasn’t at all a difficult patient- I know a lot of people just find reasons to complain. My nurses all liked me a lot and I never complained about anything except that therapists attitude.
This incident happened when my husband was in the Air Force and we lived on a base. On my 26th birthday at about 11:00 AM I stopped by my friend Daphne’s house to say “Hey” and talk about how her husband was coming home soon from his unaccompanied tour to Korea. She opened the door looking like Death warmed over - she had a screamer of a migraine and had been trying to get over it by herself. Daphne is one of the strongest women I know. At this time she was thirty-three years old and had a teenaged daughter. I asked she wanted to go to the emergency room. The poor woman started bawling and said “Oh yes, please…” She was in so much pain that she needed me to help her get dressed, get in and out of the car, and walk.
The base hospital’s emergency room had about six people waiting for treatment. They all had sniffles except for a guy holding gauze to a wound on his forehead. The next patient was a little kid with cold symptoms who was running up and down the hallway with a toy airplane.
I sat Daphne down, walked up to the nurse’s station and checked her in. The nurse said that they could give her a shot that would help, but they’d need a doctor’s permission to administer it and we’d have to wait. I asked if there was a dark room where Daphne could lie down to wait. They showed us to an exam room just off of the emergency room.
Every half hour I would try to reason with the nurses on duty. I felt like I was in a television show, “Can’t you see she’s in pain?”
Three hours later, Daphne got her shot. During those three hours she vomited four times from the pain and cried her eyes out.
Why can’t hospitals treat the people who are in the most pain first?
Why cant they just treat people with dignity and respect
We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another
My worst hospital experience is pretty mild. Okay, it’s incredibly mild. When I was recovering from broken-leg surgery, I found that morphine made it hard to sleep and hard to stay awake. So I spent the night in this nasty twilight state, with the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ “Prince Nez” playing over and over again in my head. After hearing it in my head for the hundredth time, it got pretty creepy.
My sympathy goes out to all of you that had terrible hospital experiences. I can’t believe any of the sweeties who took care of me would ever do that.
I’m thankful my father never experienced incompetence or mean-spiritedness insensitiveness on such levels as some have in these stories. My dad might disagree, but fortunately/unfortunately I couldn’t be by his side every moment to know everything that was going on. But just having Hepatitis C, and going through so many hospitalizations and emergency room visits and ambulance rides from 1991 when the disease was discovered to 1997 when he died was horrifying.
The only bad thing I recall happening to me in a hospital is pretty petty compared to most of these stories, but is still pretty galling (to me, anyway). I was hospitalized when I was about 7 years old for “raw milk disease.” I don’t know what that is, but since this was about 2 years before the E. Coli bacteria was identified, I wonder if that’s what it was, or if it was some kind of relative to E. Coli, or a forerunner. I don’t know how these things work. Anyway, I was suffering from dehydration, but I never wanted to drink anything while I was there (I remember my grandpa bribing me to drink a 7-up during one visit). One morning I ordered hot chocolate for breakfast and then didn’t finish it. That afternoon, a nurse came in to check on me, scolded me for not finishing my hot chocolate, and told me, “If you don’t finish that, I’m going to have to start an IV!” I’m terrified of needles, so I gulped that hot chocolate down as fast as I could. Of course, by then it was no longer “hot chocolate” but rather “room temperature nastiness.” The nurse looked aghast and said, “I didn’t think you’d do it!” But I didn’t get an IV, so I think I won…
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
I had a nightmare of an experience when I gave birth to my daughter in Japan. When I was about 8 months pregnant I asked the doctor about pain medications, just like the “Baby’s coming”-type book said to do. He laughed and said, “Women have had babies for millions of years without painkillers and you don’t need them either!” Yikes. And he was the most modern doctor in town! Anyway, I have blocked most of it out except for the following: having my feet strapped to the table, being completely shaved, getting an enema while having contractions, getting an episiotomy in the middle of a push, (Boys, that’s where they slice ya down there), screaming and lots and lots of blood. And to top it off, there were no showers in the whole place. When I said I wanted to take a shower and wash my hair I was told I couldn’t because “if you wash your hair right after having a baby, you’ll go crazy.” Huh?? To this day I have no idea what that meant. I finally had some shampoo snuck in and washed up in the sink and lived to tell about it.
Needless to say, I only have one kid.
SW
Zette wrote:
Zette, you are absolutely right! After all my bad experiences (and after reading these posts they don’t seem too bad, after all) I finally learned to stand up for myself, in my own meek sorta way.
And if any of ya’ll ever need to go to the hospital, be sure and take Zette with you, she’ll take care of things 
lol! You got that right…Ask my husband after he got into a motorcycle wreck…that place was HOPPIN’ once I started getting things rolling. When they didn’t bring a blanket for him that I asked for, I started rifling through the linens. That got some help. When he didn’t get his pain meds quick (remember, he got hit by a truck- he was in a lot of pain) I was hunting down the nurse myself. My husband said I was like a mad mother Rottweiller…
I might sound like a nightmare to deal with, but look at what happens when you just sit by! I’ve done it- never again…
Oh, and when I was hospitalized one nurse did give me the old “if you don’t move your bowels before tomorrow I’m giving you an enema”. It’s hospital policy. (In a very authoritative voice…like that would get me to poop…hmmmm). I just told her “you first”. Then “over my dead body”.
No enema
A friend is someone who likes you even though you’re as ugly as a hat full of assholes.
Zettecity
Actually, my husband signed away my rights when he filled out the paperwork, so apparently they could keep me there against my will.
When I gave birth to my son, it was during the drive-by delivery days too… I was so very, very not ready to go. I had just had a FIFTY TWO HOUR LABOR for god’s sakes. 90 minutes of hard pushing. I did not want to leave. Add to that the fact that my son was small (5.15) and refused to nurse, so they demanded to keep him for an extra 24 hours. So they kicked me out but kept my baby. Now, like hell I’m going home and leaving my newborn at the hospital. So UndeadDude and I stayed at the hospital, SLEPT IN THE WAITING ROOM with me toddling off to the bathroom every few hours to pass a chicken-egg sized clot or clean more dripping blood off my legs… Also, they gave my son a bottle even though I’d said I didn’t want him given a bottle. HE NEVER DID NURSE. They RUINED it for me.
>^,^<
“Cluemobile? You’ve got a pickup…”
OpalCat’s site: http://opalcat.com
The Teeming Millions Homepage: fathom.org/teemingmillions
[never meaning NEVER. After 3 months as “failure to thrive” and constant breast pumping to give him breast milk, trying every techno gadget known to man to help with nursing… my milk started to dry up and my pediatrician ordered me to put him on formula for his own health.]
>^,^<
“Cluemobile? You’ve got a pickup…”
OpalCat’s site: http://opalcat.com
The Teeming Millions Homepage: fathom.org/teemingmillions
When I was 12, I was a cheerleader. Being all of 5’3" and 70 pounds, I was the one who was thrown up into the air. One night there were polls going on in the gym, so we went to practice outside… They threw me into the air, and forgot to catch me. I hit the cement and couldn’t breathe, nor move. So an ambulance was called and I was taken to the ER.
Both my parents were at meetings, and since we live in a small town, the police were sent to retrieve them. Not only do my parents come, but so does everyone else who was there. The school principal shows up, along with all the retarded cheerleaders who didn’t catch me, their moms, the coach and a few people who just wanted to know what had happened. It was just hitting me that I was dropped, and I was hysterical, with 20 people watching me do that ugly cry thing. Feeling like an idiot only made me cry harder…
The doctor took two hours to show up, and then decided I needed X rays. Then, after they’d taken me to the room and back, they lost them, and I had to go get it done again. They kept jostling me, and the pain was horrible. They wouldn’t give me anything for it, either.
A half hour past midnight, they finally allowed me to go home, saying something about bone chips, a mild concussion and a bruised tailbone, but nothing they could do anything for.
Oh, and the doctor also copped a feel.
-Lanna
This falls under the “irritating” genre… I personally have not been a hospital patient but many of my family members have, both my parents passed due to cancer and my wifes delivery. The delivery story is the one I will share. For the most part, the hospital was kind and helpful and many of the nurses were very pleasant indeed, just two things were wrong. Not knowing much about medical ailments, bear with me if I get some facts incorrect. I believe my wife either had or has or by genetical inheiritance the hepatitis B, I know not what that is, other than I cannot get it from her and she is in no danger. One of the doctors told her it would not be good for her to breast feed because she might pass this on through her milk, needless to say she was crushed and cried while bottle-feeding. It wasn’t long after (couple weeks) that another doctor said with Bowens immunity shots the risk of passing it on to him was virtually nil, and that news was like throwing salt on the open wound for she was no longer able to produce milk, and I really felt for her.
The other side is more humorous, when I got the bill (they should call it a dildo because it screws you) I wondered how they arrived at the near ridiculous sum of $2301.98 for medical services performed on Bowen for ONE day. I could see it for Chris, but Bowen?? I asked for an itemized bill, and I suggest everyone do the same you do not think it jives quite right. Heres the lowdown:
Nursery - $1004.00 (yeah, ok.)
Pharmacy - $969.05 (say what??? 969 bucks worth of drugs?? I have the bill that says the going rate for a hepatitis B immune globulin shot is at the low low price of $831.90. Quick! Get 'em while they’re on sale!! I still cannot believe it. Oh, the other two were $106.00 and $31.15 respectivley.)
Labratory - $20.40 (sure.)
Lab - $41.65 (uh huh.)
PT Convenience - $20.00 (what the hell is that?? whatever…)
Circumcision - $246.88
Whats funny is the circumcision only cost $123.44, the bill says he received a quantity of (2). So I called them up and informed them that baby boys only have one penis, therefore requiring only one circumcision. They removed one of the charges. I got a good laugh and saved $123.
When I had my first baby, my husband was in the military so even though I saw civilian doctors, those doctors were chosen for me. When my water broke, I still didn’t go into labor so they started the Pitocin. (They had to stick me four times to get the IV, which is insane because I have veins like firehoses. Stick a needle into my hand at random, with your eyes closed, and you will hit a vein.) They also did that enema-and-shaving-pointless-humiliation ritual.
SO. I was only in labor for 10 hours, but it was hard labor the whole time- the kind where the contractions come on top of each other so you don’t have time to breathe. I begged the nurse to give me something for pain. She replied, “Your insurance doesn’t cover that”. When I insisted I would write her a check right that minute (or rather, have hubbie write her a check because I was in no condition to write anything) she simply laughed and left the room.
(Side note: being a nurse myself, I have more than the usual respect for this fine profession, but if I ever meet that woman on the street someday I will happily tear out her uterus with my bare hands.)
The pain was so horrible that I banged my head against the siderails in a desperate attempt to knock myself unconscious. I have a high pain tolerance but eventually I did begin to scream. I was out of my mind with pain. I begged the nurse and my husband to please, please kill me. Then I got the episiotomy treatment; imagine a doctor slicing your private parts with a scalpel while you are fully conscious. When I shrieked he said, “You can’t feel it”.
When the baby was finally born, they whisked him away and didn’t bother to tell me whether he was alive or dead; he didn’t cry so I just assumed he was dead. At that point, I didn’t even care if he was dead. (Turns out he was perfectly fine. I was surprised when they finally brought him to me an hour later because I’d already begun to accept the idea that he’d been stillborn.)
This is the most horrific thing that I have heard of from my best friend. At one time he was severely overweight (800+ lbs) and was having major problems with his legs. Well, one of them got infected and got gangrene so he went to the hospital. He was going into toxic shock and his white blood cell count was something like 50 times what it was supposed to be. (I am not exactly sure of the multiplicant.) Anyway, they put him in surgery right away and after he woke up, he had to go poop. Well, he asked the nurse to take him to a maternity toilet because they were the only ones that could support him, (btw, he paid for a special room with a toilet that could support him but did not get it) but the nurse refused. Well, he had to go so he sat on the toilet and broke it off of the wall, he was covered in shit, water, piss, everything. Well the nurse came in and told him he was completely worthless and that somebody would have to clean it. Well, she made him get up, walk to the maternity ward, completely covered in shit and naked, would not let him wipe off with a towel or anything, and then made sure everyone came out and looked at him saying that he was stupid. There is a lot more to this story, but I don’t want to post it. He later sued the hospital. He won of course. He had his entire medical bills paid for that procedure and received $20,000 in a settlement after the lawyer’s fee was taken out. The rest of the story is significantly more humiliating to him.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Move over Satan. 
Now there’s something meatier. http://smallwonder.simplenet.com/COC.html
That woman should be strung up by her toes and dipped in shit
We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another