9 Tips Before THEY Amputate Your Legs Below the Knee!
By Dan Wimer, RN, MPLC
I am a RN with 22 years of IV knowledge and I have been in the hospital 3 times in the past year. Two of the times I was on the receiving end of poor nursing care. The first stay, in May of 2009, the nurses managed to infect me with Staphylococcus aureus. The nurses at the hospital did not follow established protocols for the maintenance of an IV site. As the result of their neglecting basic IV protocols I spent 11 days in the hospital, twice; plus 3 weeks of home IV therapy, twice.
If poor care can happen to a RN it can happen to you. My wife and I are both RN’s, she in the area of surgical nursing and I in home health, IV’s, and Psychiatric nursing. We had problems, and we are supposed to be in the know; just imagine the lay person who does not know? I have put together a few tips for you to help survive poor care.
1. Take care of your Spiritual needs first!
Studies have shown that people that have a strong Spiritual background do better in stressful situations, like hospital stays, than the people that do not have strong Spiritual ties.
If you do not have a minister, talk with the Chaplin at your facility.
Now is a good time to take out and dust off your Bible.
Be prayed up, that’s a good thing to do in any case.
2. Good Records Keeping IS A Must!
Keep a list of your medicines in your wallet or your purse. Over the years, as a RN, I found people often forget what medicines they are on. Stress helps to you to be confused and forgetful. Often those who are with you are no help, even though they want help, because they do not know where that valuable information is or know how to get it.
Your Doctors, Primary or Specialists and ER need updated records/medicines lists in order to fully understand what is going on with you and how this new problem is different from before.
When I had my third stroke my wife had my medicine list. I keep it in my wallet. By the time EMT arrived I could not talk coherently; she had all the vital information they needed. 20 years of being a RN did not help; my wife had to deal with the EMT’s. Thank God for wives. (The last was for my wife, Christmas is only a few weeks away.)
3. 9-1-1 Call Now rather later!
The time to call is now, the “Golden Hour” starts when the first symptoms show up, not when EMS is called. 50% of first time heart attacks are fatal despite there being no prior problem or bad history about the patient.
Being a diabetic you have 5-7 times chance of having a cardiac incident.
When I worked as a Telephone Triage Nurse for a large insurance company, I was astonished by the lack of knowledge by my clients about the signs of a heart attack.
The most frequently occurring sign is heartburn that is NOT relived by antacids.
The most common symptom or feeling is that feeling of general discomfort or pressure on the chest, not pain. Usually, you get the response from the patient is that they are “just uncomfortable and if they burp they will feel better.”
Chest pain or pressure is the second most common sign of a cardiac event, and arm, jaw or leg numbness is the third. Often one has multiple symptoms.
Pain is not a good indicator of how bad the heart attack is. Many people report that they had little or no pain with their attack.
When in doubt call 911 and have the person chew 1 aspirin. Chewing ensures quick absorption of the medication.
Time is not on your side!
4. Now, for our sponsor, Mr. Stroke.
Like a cardiac incident, time is essential and I would give the victim an aspirin (ASA). There are two positions about giving ASA. I side on using ASA. The reason is that if it is a TIA (more about TIA later) the ASA helps thin the blood and reducing effects of the blood clot in the vein. If the stroke is a hemorrhagic stroke there is a better than 50% chance it is fixable.
There are 3 types stroke: Silent, Hemorrhagic, and Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA). Silent strokes are usually only detectable by brain test unless they are observed; but for our purpose there are 2 types; Hemorrhagic and TIA’s.
Hemorrhagic strokes are usually fatal with only a 20-30% survival rate, the blood vessels the brain burst causing rapid bleeding in the skull. The pressure built up by the bleeding vessels squeezes the brain which leads to death.
My mother died from this type stroke. She appeared to get better but the doctors were not able to balance the need for reducing the high pressure and stopping the bleeding. The area of the injury was inoperable. She died after three days.
TIA’s on the other hand the survival rate is 70-80%. My three strokes were TIAs. Of course the next stroke could be my last. Repeat TIAs increase the chance of getting dementia.
Again, diabetes increases the chances of having a stroke.
5. ER and/or the hospital-what a choice.
Take out your list now.
Well, after a long wait in ER you are now in your room in the hospital. Now the interrogation by the nurse begins. Remember, that you have brought your list with you.
It is scary that most married couples do not know what their spouses take for medicine. “He takes a blue pill for his high blood pressure. Or is it white?” Another killer is that men, more often than not, do not tell anyone that they have stopped taking a medicine. “I feel good so I don’t need it,” he says as he dies from his heart attack.
More women die from being cheap. They cut in half a pill to save money. However, they live longer than men, go figure.
6. Ask and Ask Again “What IS IT That YOU ARE Giving ME?”
Try to stick to a schedule that you use at home. The hospital is run for the convenience of the staff, not for you.
Timing of certain meds, such as Insulin, is very, very important. This is very important to diabetics since our bodies need food at regular times. In my case I take my insulin at supper time every 24 hours. Timing with my food is essential. The hospital staff thought at it was all right to give me my insulin at 9 PM, or when the pharmacy finally got the medication to the floor. I demanded that my insulin was to be given with my meals like I normally took it. The doctor agreed to write new orders.
In my case I take my blood pressure (BP) and my antidepressant meds at night. The reason that I take these meds like this is that they have a side effect of making one sleepy, drowsy, or tired so I use the side effect to help me to sleep at night.
The last time that I was in the hospital the pharmacy insisted that I take my BP meds in the morning; the B/P meds tends to make me very sleepy.
I was proactive and you need to be proactive also.
7. Ask: “What is that medicine and what is its purpose?”
Staffs are often tired and make mistakes. They should tell you what is the thingy (tech nurse talk) that your taking or the procedure your about to have. Question everything.
Do you see some trend in my line of questions?
8. You are allowed to sleep at night!
Unless you have a raging fever, a fever over 101.6F that is not resolved by meds, you need to sleep. The “little dirty secret” of medicine is that over 50% of healing is by the body’s own immune system. The heating up the body to over 101.0F burns up viruses and bacteria in our bodies. This is the major way we get healed.
By taking meds, such as ASA and Tylenol to keep fevers below 101.6F we wipe out better than 50% of our bodies’ own ability to get rid of infection. Sleeping also gives the body a chance to heal itself. We as a nation have forgotten the healing power of “good sleep.”
Unfortunately, hospitals are run as well oiled machine and we as patients are a necessary evil.
There is little reason to wake up a person after 10PM.
Each time I go into a hospital as a patient I have my Primary Admitting Doctor write orders that state that I should not be awakened for vital signs or routine labs between 10PM and 6AM.
Our bodies require at least 6 hours of sleep. More recent studies make a big case for 8 hours of sleep.
9. Question Everything!
All doctors and healthcare workers make mistakes from time to time. They/we do not make a habit of making mistakes but they do happen.
The most common mistake is medication error; either the doctor prescribes the wrong med or the wrong dose of a medicine. The second problem is the nurse gives the wrong medication and/or dose.
The problem is that the nursing staff is overworked and/or short staffed. Doctors, especially Family Practice (FP) practitioners, are overworked. Many FPs cannot do hospital rounds anymore because their workload is too great.
What is happening is that we find our healthcare workers are tired, frazzled, and pooped out.
The remedy is that you or your healthcare advocate must be always alert to the patient’s condition.
Bonus Round- Question Everything and Everyone!
If you have questions ask!
If the answers do not make sense to you have them rephrase the explanation.
It is your life not theirs that hangs out in the breeze.
Finally, I hope that if you, or someone you know, need to go into a hospital, you have a good result from that stay.
God bless you and yours.
Merry Hanukah, Happy Christmas, and a Joyful New Year!
Dan
