I was in a Tennessee Hospital at the time. It was during my hospital stay
April 20-May 6, 2000, which was to be only for a few days of bowel rest, but turned
into disaster.
My mom and grandma was planning to come from Pennsylvania sometime within the next
few days so they could be with me. I was all alone in the hospital. My grandma went
to her doctor to
get checked out before leaving for Tennessee. She had an irregular heartbeat so she
was put in the hospital. My mom then had to delay her trip to come to Tennessee.
My GI doctor
at the time ordered me demeral every 4 hours as needed for pain. I called my nurse
and told her that I needed my pain medicine, and some more ice. She said that she
would be right down with it. I sat in bed and waited for 30 minutes. Sometimes the
nurses get busy with something else and forget. I called back down to the nurses
station 20 minutes later. A few minutes later my nurse showed up and told me that she
had to order my pain medication from the pharmacy down stairs because she was all out
of it. I asked
her how long it would take for it to arrive and she told me about 20 more minutes, and
that she would bring it to when she got it. Then, for the second time, I asked her
if I could have more
ice chips. She said "You've been eating to many ice chips, and we don't even allow
our pre-op
patients to have any ice chips because it causes to much gas". I thought *I wasn't having surgery!!
What the heck is going on? I was allowed to have as many ice chips as I wanted!!*
She must be the ice chip godess or something. Then the nurse left my room.
I laid in bed for about another 45 minutes, thinking that she possibly forgot about me,
or the medicine wasn't here yet. I was getting upset and
I started crying because the pain was getting so bad. I was ordered pain medication so
that I wouldn't have to be in pain, and now I have a nurse that don't want to give it
to me! I called back down to the
nurses station and my nurse told me she was on her way to my room. *Finally!* I thought,
after almost 2 hours of waiting! By this time the pain was getting alot worse. My
nurse came into my room and pulled out a needle. I asked her how much pain medication
I was getting.
Then she said "Well, we have to try this Pepcid first to see if it works before I give
you any pain medicine". *PEPCID? Why am I getting Pepcid? I don't have heartburn!!*
By this time I was getting mad. I said to her "My stomach is fine! , I'm having
abdominal pain. Pepcid won't help it!" Then she said "Your blood work is looking alot
better, you don't need all this pain medication!!" Now I was REALLY angry. She don't
know my history, or who I am. Just because your bloodwork is looking better doesn't
mean that your pain is going away. I didn't know what to do, so I told her "I've had
a NORMAL SED rate before and had ACTIVE Crohns disease!". Which is true, I've had
flare ups where my blood was perfectly normal, but when I had a CT scan, or barium
test it showed up active Crohns disease.
Just because you have "RN" (Registered
Nurse) after your name on your name tag doesn't mean that you know EVERYTHING!!!
And I'm so glad that she kept a close eye on my bloodwork. What was she trying to
do to me ? She left my room with nothing else to say to me. I sat on my bed thinking
about what I could do. Then, it came to me. I realized it was after my GI doctors
office hours
and he was in the hospital making his rounds. I called to the main office in the
hospital where I was at and told them I was a patient in the hospital, and that I
needed my doctor paged to my room because my nurse was with holding my pain medication.
The receptionist repeated back to me what I told her, and asked my doctors name. A
few
minutes later I heard the announcement on the intercom for my doctor to report to my
room. It was less than 5 seconds
after the page for my doctor when **BOOOOM!** my nurse flew into my room with the most
astonishing look on her face and said "DID YOU JUST PAGE YOUR DOCTOR TO YOUR ROOM ?"
I answered with a firm 'yes'. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" she replied. I told her back
"you weren't going to give me my pain medication, and you wouldn't give me any
ice!!!". Her eyes got big, and she replied "Oh you know I was going to give you
demeral, and I was going to give you a little bit of ice, too!" Then she pulled a
empty needle and
a bottle of demeral out of her pocket. She had been lying to me the entire time about
being out of demeral and needing to get some from the pharmacy. She just didn't want
to give me any. Why I don't know! She drew the demeral up into the empty needle,
and started to give it to me. I tried to calm myself down. She had been so mean
to me. Then she said in a VERY VERY
mean voice "you know if you act like this your pain medication isn't going to work
and your doing it on purpose!" I just couldn't believe what she was saying to me!!!!
I was already extremly upset because earlier in the day my mom called me and told me
that my grandma had a massive stroke the night before and they didn't know if she was
going to live or
not. I told the nurse about it, and she didn't say anything about it.
I hated being all
alone at the hospital. The nurses weren't taking good care of me. and now they tried
to be my doctor!! This incidence was the straw that broke the camels back. I relayed
to my mom the whole story about the nurse not giving me my pain medicine. My mom
asked me if I wanted her to come to Tennessee. I told her yes. She left the next day
and arrived in Tennessee.