As I mentioned in picunurse’s thread about her husband, my husband, Jim, is having a tough time right now. He had a serious gall bladder attack on Sunday that had him lying on the couch in incredible pain; after the ambulance got there and the EMTs got some morphine into him, things settled down very nicely, but he still spent 10 hours in the emergency room hallway that day, waiting for a doctor to see him because 10 out of 10 pain is not to be taken lightly (no food except for apple juice all day - apparently morphine makes you nauseous and vomiting).
After 10 hours in ER, he was sent home and told to come back to finish the testing the next day. The next day, he showed up bright and early, and wasn’t allowed to eat anything all day because it might screw up some tests (another eight hours in ER). The tests and doctor visits are finally finished, and they decided that while the pain has completely subsided, they don’t like the looks of his liver enzymes and his gall bladder has to come out. He gets a bed on the surgical ward 13 hours after he got to the hospital. He is allowed to eat until midnight, and has a sandwich and some milk and juice. He has been on call for surgery since then.
We are in about hour 36 of waiting for surgery now, during which time he has not been allowed to eat or drink anything. He’s on an IV so he doesn’t get dehydrated. No one at the hospital can tell him when his surgery will be, and no one will commit to telling us how long he will be kept without food (no glucose drip either, by the way - he has had no nutrition for 36 hours now). I know when I go four days with hardly any food, I’m in prime fighting shape to have surgery and work on recovery afterwards.
I understand that there are reasons for keeping people starved before they have surgery, but this is getting into torture territory. He’s not sick; he felt perfectly fine when he went up to the wards, except for a bad gall bladder. He’s just a healthy man who is being kept in a bed in a crowded, noisy, smelly room with no food and no idea when his psychological and physical torture will end. And he’s the “lucky” one - the guy whose bed is actually IN the hallway wasn’t as lucky. You know how welfare hospitals are depicted on tv, all overcrowded and awful? That’s what all of our hospitals in Calgary are like.
While I’m ranting, I also have to pay about $10 for parking every time I go to see him, and I have a cold that I caught in the stupid emergency room disease exchange. Bleah.
I’m very sorry to hear about your situation and I hope for everything to come to a satisfactory resolution soon, but often eating will trigger contraction of the gall-bladder and lead to another “gall bladder attack.”
Again, my best wishes for things improving in short order.
Raise up a ruckus, I’m pretty sure there are patient advocates. Go find them and complain.
At the least sneak him something small to eat (Mom did that for me while I was in labour… you aren’t supposed to eat while on a epidural but I was starving at that point. It was only pieces of muffin and some gingerale but I felt a lot better).
I wouldn’t do that. If he’s discovered to have eaten, it’ll likely delay the surgery further. Surgeons are surprisingly picky about that. Anaesthesiologists, too.
Happened to me in the states. The doctor said I should have plenty of liquids. Somehow the nurse heard liquids only. I was in with a bowel obstruction and appendicitis at the same time. They starved me until the doctor returned a few days later and was shocked at what they did to me.
I know they are, and I know they have good reason for it, but he hasn’t eaten or drank anything in awhile (per Featherlou) and they can’t give him even a ballpark for when he’ll be in surgery.
I had to take my son in for surgery a few months ago, it was booked in advance and yes he wasn’t allowed to eat beforehand but he was at least allowed to drink up until a couple hours before surgery.
I say give the guy a couple bites of a muffin or a couple sips of juice to take the edge off, not stuff him silly though I’d be searching out the advocate first to explain the situation and see what they could do (if anything). But no one has to take my advice, it’s JMO.
I don’t know if that’s a good idea. He’s having surgery on something that is part of the digestive process. That’s more of a reason, besides the anesthesia, to not have him eat anything.
I’ve been NPO (nothing by mouth) for a few days in the hospital and it’s absolute hell, so I know what he’s going through. I hope the surgery happens soon.
News at last - he’s going into surgery right away. He said they said he won’t be back in his room until 6:00 pm, and for me to not come to the hospital until then. If he has the same reaction to the anesthetic that I had, he’ll be barfing for hours after his abdominal surgery. Doesn’t matter that he’ll have nothing to barf up - he’ll just dry heave for hours then. And if the surgical staff is as sympathetic as mine was, they’ll tell him to quit being a baby and kick him out the door mid-heave.
I’ve figured out the idea behind Calgary’s healthcare system - if it doesn’t actually kill the patient, any kind of dis-respectful, de-humanizing, thoughtless, arrogant, callous, mean treatment is allowed. Patients are meat for the grinder here. And their support people - hoo boy. As bad as they treat patients, they treat family members even worse. You have one right in Calgary hospitals - the right to leave. That’s it.
No kidding.
I think it really depends on the staff members working, so I’ve got my fingers crossed the recovery folks are competent and having a good day.
(After I had the girl the night nurse was a wonderful, helpful angel. The day nurse? Not so much.)
What is it with some nurses? I had a horrid day nurse too when I had Velociraptor. I’m sure if he has a reaction like that they’d give him something though, precisely because of the nature of his surgery.
To paraphrase the Simpsons…“they’re a lot like people. Some of them are just jerks”
Even other nurses think so. My sister is an RN and she was definitely not fond of the behaviour of some of her coworkers. It got so bad she moved to a different hospital.
