This happened back when I had surgery a couple of years ago. Another patient’s family – let’s say at least 10 people, maybe more – set up camp in the walk-in-closet sized waiting room. My husband tipped off the nurses’ station in the “Isn’t that a fire hazard?” sense. He later told me that the hospital had a only-2-visitors-at-a-time rule in the waiting area because of that. How the entire family sneaked in is anyone’s guess.
On a general surgical floor, the patients with the “trickiest” issues are always put in the rooms opposite the nurses’ station.
As someone who’s been a family member when a loved one is having surgery or in ICU, let me tell you - we will be there. When your mother is having open heart surgery and they say there’s a good chance she’ll die or stroke out on the table, you’re all going to be there. For hours. Over night if necessary. You learn where in the hospitals they have waiting areas tucked away. Fortunately, most of the hospitals here have large main waiting rooms and are even willing to provide pillows and blankets for those families whose loved one is passing critical hours in the middle of the night.
People don’t find sitting in a waiting room fun. Our local hospitals have books to loan and jigsaw puzzles to while away the hours, but it’s not fun time. The chairs grow uncomfortable after a couple hours. In the back of your mind you have “What if she doesn’t make it. What if she doesn’t make it. What if she doesn’t make it.” on a continuous loop. If you spend days there, you get to know the other families holding on for hope and waiting for news - the one whose teenaged son was in the car accident and they’re waiting to see how much is left of their boy, or the one whose terminally ill parent might be making their last trip to the hospital.
We’re annoyances to you? You’re nothing but background noise to us. We can’t turn off the “what ifs” long enough to concentrate on what it is you’re saying.
StG
I’ve been a family member in the same situations as well. My inlaws elevate the “death watch” (when it’s nothing like that at all) to an art form. My husband has several siblings and were they allowed, all of them would have their spouses and kids and be in the room with the patient or in the waiting room until they were dropping from exhaustion. Meanwhile they bicker and bother the staff and generally should not all be there at the same time when it is not a Very Urgent Moment. When my mother-in-law was in the ICU a few months ago, the charge nurse had a “no, seriously” talk with family members where she told them they could designate two people (father-in-law and one of the daughters) only who would be the point of contact people for health updates, else they would be on the phone constantly just with that family.
You’re only annoyances if you’re annoying. My inlaws often are.
I was a kid, so didn’t go visit when this happened, but my dad had brain surgery about 15 years ago and while it was very serious surgery he did not die and as he was recovering he was obviously not going to die. But his parents insisted on being there 24/7 sitting in absolute silence as my mom visited with my dad’s friends, joked around with him, went home to take a shower, etc. They were unable to give any useful information about his medical history, but would frequently interrupt my mom when she would answer questions with, “but we’re his PARENTS.” Yeah maybe except you don’t know a damn thing about his medical history so being his parents is irrelevant in this case.
I understand that being his parents they were worried but this was at a point when it was clear he was going to be ok, he was conscious, and the doctor was telling everyone to take a break- my dad did not need non-medical people there 24/7.
I’m assuming the OP and various others who have referred to family members camping out and being nuisances are referring to people like that, not people who are waiting politely and are camping out for a legitimate reason.
Anyway, because of what happened with my dad I don’t want anyone camping out if I ever become hospitalized. My parents and my friends can come visit, but I would go insane if someone insisted on being with me 24/7 if I were lucid enough to object.
Missed the editing time frame, but these are the same grandparents who camped out with me when I was 6 and had pneumonia and apparently treated me like a baby, speaking to me in baby talk, telling me how to spell my name, etc. which seriously pissed my mom off because I was in first grade and had been reading and writing for over two years at this point and could speak normal English. I was sick, but not brain damaged.
As you can tell, my mom has/had serious problems with her in laws. My parents are now divorced.
Correct.
Not just loud, but looking at her. Otherwise she can’t lip-read and, if she does like my grandma and go from talking Way Too Loudly to speaking into her armpit, they can’t lip-read her, plus in any case a patient’s facial expression can say a lot about whether they’ve really understood the question or are answering because they know they have to say something.
Shrimp or mussels aren’t unheard of in the hospitals I’m familiar with.
There have also been a few cases similar to that in which visitors would gather around a bed and have parties. You could tell by the look on the patient’s face that it was annoying and wearying. …not to mention the effect it had on the roommate.
Most OB rooms these days are private, but even so, this can be a big problem, especially with teenage parents.:rolleyes:
And, y’know, at the same time, I had 16 people in my Maternity room minutes after I came out of Surgical Recovery. Six-fucking-teen. And yes, it was a private room, and they were all well behaved and polite and stuck to the perimeter like flies on a window screen and didn’t get in anyone’s way. Several times I and my husband asked each nurse if it was okay for them all to be here or if they should go away, and we were repeatedly told to make ourselves comfortable and kick them out if I got tired. Having them there, their love and support and jokes (and really good pain meds) got me through the scariest afternoon of my life.
It’s not the numbers, it’s the behavior.
(We kicked them out 6 hours later when the baby was stabilized enough for me to go see her in the NICU.)
Back when I broke my back, I was stuck in a body cast and about the only thing I could do was read.
They put me in a room with some damned old biddy who had control of the TV and would watch soap operas all day, so I couldn’t play my bedside radio because to hear it I had to compete with her cranking the volume on the TV so she could hear hers, which meant I needed to do concert hall level amplification. Then when 5 pm rolled around, and the soap operas went off, her friends would all come to visit, and I couldn’t play my radio then either because it bothered them, all that “nigger music”. When they left aaround 9 pm, I couldn’t play the radio either, because it bothered her.
After a week of this I told my doctor to get me the fuck out of that room or I would go insane. He didn’t believe me, and dropped in the next day several times to see that I was telling the truth. I got a private room after that.
I hated the 70s form of hospitalization. Inpatients are not prisoners and should be allowed to actually get up and move around the hospital without being treated like an escaping convict. Food should be palatable, and if you are healthy and not diabetic or hypertensive should actually use sugar and salt as appropriate [my mom smuggled me in a container of salt, and one of sugar] and you should within reason be allowed to set your own bedtime and wakeup time.
A few years ago I was hospitalized for 8 days for a heart attack. My son (who was 6 or 7 at the time) was permitted to visit me in the cardiac unit; but he had to wear a surgical mask when he entered or left the hospital, and when he got to my room we had to keep the door closed during his visit. He was also not allowed to walk around the unit, he had to stay in my room. They told me it was to minimize the spread of germs. I just checked the hospital website and it does not appear that they have an age restriction (NJ), but it does say that kids must be supervised at all times and, if they are disruptive, they will be asked to leave.
I recall the doctor telling me that it was important for my son to see me, so he would see that I was still “Mommy” and I was okay, and that it was important for me to see him for the sake of my own recovery/peace of mind. I can’t imagine what I would have done if my son knew I was in the hospital, but wasn’t allowed to see me and be reassured that I was okay.
And here is our #1 lamest excuse from a patient as to why he/she was incredibly late for surgery or a procedure:
…drum roll…
“I couldn’t find the hospital.”
Um…Google map, anyone? Thomas Guide? GPS? Dry run? Call said hospital and ask for exact location and cross streets? It’s not as if you’re searching for a spider hole.
Not even just that. I am not allergic to iodine but definitely to shellfish, and could not have the HSG test not that long ago. Sometimes it’s just straight up shellfish problems…they just don’t want to take the chance.
This happened to me. It really pissed me off. The particular hospital is 30 minutes away, so it was really out of my way. And my doctor was wonderful, but the admin staff was really fucking stupid.
Of course visitors can be annoying. Sure, your (generic you) family is all nice and accomodating, but for every nice family I see many more that all mill around in the doorway, shout down the hallway to each other, and mouth off to the nurses. And I too have seen people insist on coming to the hospital room and hanging around when it’s clear the patient just wants to rest and kind of wishes everyone would go away.
Perhaps - but the hospital’s already been built.
Even the hospital administration can’t unbuild it, or rearrange the internal layout whenever they want to. Until the next remodel or the hospital is replaced/rebuilt, someone has to let a group know that in safety and in fairness to others using the same space, they can’t overcrowd it.
And when the new twice-as-large family waiting room is built, someone will overcrowd that one too.
It’s tough to be the person who has to let a family know diplomatically that in their anxiety, fear, or tension, they still have to take actions (staggering people in the waiting room, changes in behavior, awareness of other groups of people in the same boat, awareness of possible safety hazards) based on the needs of and empathy for others. Most people take it quite well.
Good point, that’s another one that uses iodine based contrast dye (although not, I don’t think, via IV, I think it’s introduced directly into the fallopian tubes via a catheter). Yeah, they’re just not generally going to take the chance that this time will be your first anaphylactic reaction. The allergens in “shellfish” and “iodine” are just so similar, and there’s always a first time for any allergy. Documented shellfish (and beesting, which I didn’t know) allergies are contraindications for that test.
Hey Miss Nurse? Listen to this. I was pretty upset at this.
I went in for the consultation. Then they did the procedure. Then after like three months, they said “Come back and we’ll do the HSG”. Then when I got there, was disrobed, sitting in the room, the nurse comes inside and starts doing a checklist.
“Are you allergic to shellfish or iodine?”
That was the first anyone mentioned it to me. And yes, I did have “shellfish allergy” on my paperwork.
Then after that was when they scheduled me to have the procedure at a hospital - and then didn’t tell the doctor! GRRR!
ETA: Yes, it is not via an IV.
Arrrgh! Yes, I’d be pretty dang upset, too. What the hell is wrong with some people?!
I think sometimes I annoy the heck out of my patients, because once a month, at least, or whenever their medications change, and whenever any tests are ordered, I recheck ALL of their meds, and I ask AGAIN if they have any allergies. I don’t even trust *myself *to have gotten it right last time. Better to ask and annoy than run for an epi-pen or make someone take a day off work and arrange rides and babysitters and who knows what else for a test they can’t have. :smack:
I’ve only been in nursing for 20 months, and I’ve had to call SIX doctors to remind them that tests or meds they ordered conflict with another med or an allergy. And lemme tell ya, they don’t cotton to uppity nurses telling them they made a mistake. Fuck 'em.