Pitting the nurse who "cared" for me after my surgery...

The BBQ Pit
1

So, I had a minor surgery Wednesday. My first one, but no big deal. It was “same day”, and the doctor scheduled it for 12:30. When, I got there, I was lectured about how the only thing they’re concerned about is my safety and comfort. And, I wouldn’t be sent home until I was feeling able to leave. Oh, and in a few days I’ll recieve a report card to fill out and they’d really apreciate a good report from me. :dubious:
They really did go out of their way to make sure I was comfy, almost to the point of being annoying. Like insisting I have a breathing treatment, although I only have an asthma attack about once a year.

Then, after the surgery, they wheel me back down to my room. My husband is waiting for me, and looking kind of worried. I’m still kind of out of it, but I notice the clock. It’s 4:00p.m.! I ask my husband why I was in there so long. Apparantly, the surgery ended on schedule at 1:30, but it took me 2 and a half hours to wake up because they gave me a little too much anesthesia for my weight. THIS is where the trouble starts…

Since it’s a “same day” surgery clinic, they close at 5:00p.m.
I have one hour to be able to walk out of there. I’m the only patient still there, and the only staff are 2 nurses. Before they let me go home, they have to make sure I’m not in pain, and that I’m able to pee.
Since, I slept for so long after the surgery, they didn’t give me any morphine in my I.V. And the anesthesia was wearing off, so I was hurting. But, neither of the 2 nurses was qualified to put anything in my I.V. So instead I got some Tylenol 3 tablets. After I swallowed them the nurse said, “I hope that doesn’t make you sick, because it’s not supposed to be taken on an empty stomach.” Did I mention, that I hadn’t been allowed to eat in 16 hours?!?! :smack:
She brought me some crackers, but just one bite threatened to come back up. Then, she told me I needed to hurry up and drink my jug of sprite so I could pee. I drank a little, then started to lay back down, because the pain meds were kicking in. But she pulled me out of bed and said,“No! You have to pee.” And pulled me toward the bathroom. I was practicaly asleep, and couldn’t keep my eyes open. She plopped me down on the toilet and when I started to fall forward, she made me hold onto the rails beside the toilet. The last thing on my mind was peeing. I just wanted to sleep.
Meanwhile, the other nurse had swooped into the room and given my husband the dismissal papers to fill out. “My” nurse left me for a bit, and came back with a squirt bottle filled with warm water. I was supposed to squirt it on my “area” to stimulate the pee. She left and waited outside the door. I squirted, but the only thing it did was make me realise, that my nice trimmed “mohawk” had been completely shaved off! It was nowhere near my incision! That pissed me off, but it didn’t make me pee.
Finally, I let loose a couple of drops, and the she-devil was satisfied. When I came back into the room, by holding onto the walls to keep from falling, she was handing my husband, my clothes, so he could help me get dressed.
Before I was half dressed, she was waiting with a wheelchair. While my husband was getting the car, she was wheeling me so fast down the corridor, that I had to close my eyes to keep from getting dizzy. As soon as he pulled up, she, helped me out of the chair, then disappeared back into the building.

2

So, you are going to give them a really good grade on the report card, right? :smiley:

3

It’s a long time since I’ve worked in Day Surgery (and even longer since I nursed adults) but we were never allowed to send patients home until they’d been in the post-op ward for four full hours. One hour of obs after RTW isn’t enough.

4

Irrespective of that (sorry, hit the old ‘Post’ button a bit too quickly) - you certainly sound as if you didn’t receive adequate care, even in the short time you were in the ward.

5

If they can’t put anything in an IV, they are not Registered Nurses.

This is a sore spot for nurses- everyone in scrubs is considered a nurse, but, unfortunately, chances are they are not. They might be CNA’s (certified nurse assistants) or PCT’s (patient care technicians) or any of a slew of other alphabet soup aids.

Nurse-looking non- nurses are much cheaper than real nurses, but they tend to not clarify their positions to patients and all too often make nurses look bad by providing substandard care.

I hope you are feeling better today. Be sure to call your Doc if you have nay questions or problems. And just out of curiosity, check out your ‘nurses’ name tag and title when you go for your follow up.

6

Don’t feel bad about the mohawk.

When I was 16, I went in for exploratory ARTHROSCOPIC knee surgery. That’s right, 2-3 pencil-sized incisions in various places around my knee.

Know what they did? Apparently the doctor didn’t specify exactly where to shave, so the dumb-ass nurses shaved my leg from crotch to ankle.

Leg hair takes a surprisingly long time to grow out to where you don’t look(and feel) weird as a 16 year old boy who participates in lots of sports, I’ll tell you.

7

I’m not sure what’s being pitted.

I think the major cause of death when going under is from breathing problems, so if you’ve had ANY asthma, they need to guard against that.

Don’t know if you’re overweight, but trying to get the right amount of anathesia right is supposedly difficult, moreso for the heavier.

Don’t know if you were expecting everyone to overstay their shift.

Mad about the bush-shave? They just don’t want hair getting into the surgery. If that area was anywhere near your incision they’re going to shave it.

Or maybe you just don’t feel like the nurse treated you like you were her sick child.

It sounds to me like you just expect health care to work like it’s a Swiss Train station. Doesn’t work that way.

8

Some health care practitioners will overshave because they enjoy doing it to people and they can get away with it. Not saying that this is what happened here, but it does happen.

9

Sounds to me as if it’s the medical staff that expected health care to “work like it’s a swiss train station.” They weren’t prepared for a patient not responding as expected to anesthesia. The clinic should have been prepared for such an eventuality and had made provision for staff to be available beyond 5 pm in case of a patient taking longer than expected to recover.

10

hillbilly queen,

Your past respiratory problems were not the issue. Everyone who get general anesthesia has to reexpand their lungs, afterward. Its much easier for you to understand how to do the treatment when you’re awake, instead of after you’re a drooling lump.
As Ca3799 said, they weren’t nurses. They didn’t handle you well, but they should have had ths sense to speak to your doctor. He/she should have transfered you to the hospital for overnight, rather than risk a complication from not being properly recovered.
The two women who rushed you out were lazy and stupid. Some day they won’t be as lucky as they were on Wednesday. Be glad they are behind you. shread them when you get the “report card” but please, don’t call them nurses. Oh shread the doctor too, he endangered you just by leaving you with them.

11

Unless you’re actually a health care practitioner who will admit to overshaving because you enjoy doing it to people and you can get away with it, I’ll just assume you’re passing on an urban legend.

12

:wally

It shouldn’t be hillbilly queen’s concern about people’s shifts. If she’s just had surgery someone should stay still she’s truly ready to go home.

And expecting decent care is hardly the same as expecting to be treated as a sick child. Being given medication on an empty stomach that should not be taken on an empty stomach is not decent care. For that matter, being given an inappropriate amount of anesthesia is not decent care. Being given the bum’s rush is not decent care.

13

Hillbilly Queen, I think you should print out a copy of your OP and send it in with your report card. Tell them that this is what you posted on an internet message board about your experience with them. I’d love to see the managers’ faces.

14

Except for the Tylenol thing, all the rest of it is just medical care, as far as I’m concerned.

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but determining the “correct amount of anethesia” is about the most difficult, and riskiest, part of surgery. It depends on numerous factors.

Sure, we’d like a nice neat little formula that goes, “she weighs X, give her Y, and it will keep her under for exactly the duration of surgery and no longer.”

It just doesn’t work that way.

As for sending someone home. . .I’m glad health care workers don’t let people decide when they’re ready to go. We’re paying for it. You can be drugged out and sore and not peeing and feverish and nauseous on your couch. You don’t need a hospital bed for that (yes, that’s from multiple experiences).

15

They tried to send me home after what was supposed to be day surgery when I was still white as a sheet and couldn’t even keep a sip of water down. My mother raised all kinds of hell and I ended up in the hospital overnight.

I was fine after that, recovered beautifully, but I was in no shape to be going home.

I hope you’re feeling better, anesthesia is rough on anybody’s system.

16

Trunk, I know that there are two sides to every story, and we have only heard Hillbilly Queen’s side, but it certainly seems to me that the staff was trying to hustle her out the door so that they could close up shop.

I don’t think the blame should be placed fully on the staffers who were there. They probably had kids to pick up from daycare and other pressing engagements, but some kind of provision should have been made to properly assist the recovering patient.

My wife recently had outpatient surgery and was treated in a very professional manner. There were well qualified people to help out, and she was not allowed to leave until she had been in recovery for long enough to stabilize and be able to handle it.

If the true story is even half as bad as HQ is stating, I think it borders on criminal behavior.

17

You’re paying for her surgery? How thoughtful of you.
But in the real world, you are kept for a reasonable period of time to make sure you don’t suffer some sort of complication. You are given reasonable pain meds because you pay out the ass for health care and you shouldnt have to suffer needlessly at those rates. And you shouldnt but shoved around and rushed by people who you have payed to take of you. They are not doing you a favor by treating you, you are the customer.

In this case she got ripped off.

18

I don’t think they DIDN’T properly assist her.

I don’t care if they were trying to hustle her out the door.

She’s fine now, I presume. I can’t say anything except what I said already. . .there are some things that you can recover from just fine on the couch at home.

YES, of course there are risks involved. Everything that goes on when you go through durgery and recovery has risks involved. Health care professionals weigh those risks and make decisions. And anyone paying health care insurance should be glad they kick people out when they want to stay.

Just sounds to me like everyone in this thread has a different opinion on the risks than I or the nurses.

I was in for knee surgery a few years ago. When they wheeled me out, I was doped out of mind, my leg killed, I was white as a ghost, the wound was still bleeding and oozing pus, so I had to change the dressing twice a day. I couldn’t even sit right in the car.

They forced me out of bed that morning to go up and down stairs on crutches while I was still in a stupor.

I just think that’s just the way it is. People have some dream scenario of health care where everythign operates on time with precision to everyone’s happiness. It’s just not like that.

It’s guess work. It’s decisions that can go either way. It’s dealing with patient who THINK they know what’s best for them moreso than professional who deal with it every day.

You’re dealing with hospitals with limited numbers of beds and staff. A hospital is not your mom bringing you chicken soup and kissing your forehead. It’s a business with costs, shortages, revenues, and all the trappings that go along with that.

19

Yes, I am.

I’m paying $4000 a year in premiums that might be $5000 a year if everyone got to decide how long they stayed in the hospital.

20

Years ago I was the husband who took the patient home after “day surgery” on 2 seperate occasions. The tale shared here is pretty much SOP per my recollection.