I wish to bring to your attention my concerns regarding my care in ICU and surgical floor. First of all I have been a nurse for many years, nearly 20 in a hospital setting. Due to my internal sutures leaking and causing collaspe of my right lung, I ended up in intensive care. Some of the nursing staff were great to me and my family. But some were down right mean. No other word for it. I was doing well, up walking in hall till 5 days post op. Then I had c/o severe pain in my right back. Surgical site was on the left chest wall. I was not getting much pain relief, was feeling SOB, and became anxious. I did not know what was wrong with me. No one seemed to care that I was in distress, so I had to request the nursing supervisor to get help. For some reason, the doctor did not come to see me during this time. Three days later chest tubes are inserted, the CT cancelled, and I was back in surgery. Based on the smell and color of the chest tube drainage. My stomach/esophagus sutures had leaked. So I was back in surgery to repair this, as well as an eventual two surgerys to remove infection from my right lung, and a trach. What should have been 12 days in the hospital became almost a month, with over a month in rehab to get me off the vent. I was kept drugged pretty much most of the time. Not that my extreme pain was relieved, IT WASN'T. In my mind I was seeing demons, felt trapped inside the glass lava lamp.
Some of the nurses were kind to me, talking to me and just letting me know what was going on. Not that my poor brain could remember anything beyond a few minutes, but I want you to know that this was a help. One of my nurses had the smell of Ramen Noodles on her fingers. (this is hard to get off no matter how much you scrub)
She took time to talk to me. This helped with my fear. THANKYOU. I truely did not know where I was, who I was, or what was happening. Now for some of the others, one scrubbed my breasts so hard I felt like sandpaper was being used. Some of the nurses took away my call light. Some made fun of me when I would lose it. I pray that no one of you or your family would ever have to be in this position. I was not the easiest to car for with everything that could go wrong with me, doing so. But to be abused, and to have this witnessed by my family..... A few of the nurses were eleminated from my care. This put a huge load on those who did do their job. The drugs had my mind messed up. I could not help with my care or understand what was expected of me. This is not me. I am not one to put on the call light, or pull tubes out, etc. Under all of the confusion causing drugs, I still had pain at a level of 20 on the 1-10 scale. Like I have told my friends, I have been through hell on earth. This has been over a year now. I think that I am clear of the MRSA/osteomyelitis that attacked my left chest wall surgical site. I am disabled in regard to working as a RN, at least for now. Someday I hope to get my strength back. So please think about how you are treating those patients who rely on your care. Talk to them, even if you think they are in a coma. I know I could hear, and could understand through touch if there was care or "don't give a damn" when THINGS were done to me. I still need to go back and view where I was held captive and tortured.The ICU. I have my complete medical record which I review trying to understand what the hell happened. I still need to write the surgeon. " Thanks for saving your own butt," in that I lived thru this. But I want him to understand what I had to go through. My loss of self. I do not need a reply to this. Just think about how this could have been you.
