Update on Carolyn

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone:

Well I am still alive and made it through the biopsy. I must say it was pretty awful but not because of the biopsy itself, but because of an error, they only had me on one tenth of the pain meds I was supposed to be on and I was in agony for the first two days till they got the orders straightened out. Evidently the orders for the major pain meds was several pages under the top order sheet and they didnt see it. It was not until the next day after surgery they could get in touch with the surgeon and he showed them where my med order was in the chart. Boy, was I hurting bad.

Once they got me on the right pain meds I did ok. They did three incisions but had to leave two chest tubes in instead of one due to problems with my lung not wanting to re-inflate. The whole stay in the hospital was a comedy of errors and I am thankful I am a nurse so I knew what to watch for otherwise they could have caused me serious harm with all the screw-ups that went on. I was in the hospital 4 days and dont have the results yet from the biopsy. I got home late Sunday evening and today is the first day I have felt like I could sit at the computer.

Right out of recovery when they were transferring me from one bed to another I was abused by one of the nurses. I couldnt help but yell out in pain, after all they didnt have me on pain meds yet, and this one RN told me to be quiet. I just couldnt as they were being very rough with me and without pain medication I was in agony. I was so hoarse as they had to put a double size trach tube down my throat that I couldnt yell loud anyway, but I did yell out, "Oh God, it hurts". Well when I yelled it the second time she grabbed the back of my head and turned my face toward her and buried my face into her abdomen to muffle my yelling. I was so mad, that if I could have gotten my mouth open I would have bitten her belly. I did report her to the supervisor but told them they could not tell anyone who was involved with my care until I was out of the hospital as I didnt want to be retaliated against for reporting a nurse for abuse. I am sure glad this is over and I definitely will not go through it again.

I want to thank all of you for prayers and good wishes and hope all of you have been doing ok. You were in my thoughts often.

Hugs,

Carolyn