Jadednurse inspired me to start this thread. I don't know if it's been done already-if so I'm sure someone will inform me. She recently had been hospitalized for gallstones and said it was interesting being on the other side.
On the 26th of this month will be 1 yr. since the car wreck that put me and my husband in the hospital for months. We are still recovering but my point is that after being in the field of nursing for 16-ish yrs. and a new grad (CNA, phlebotomist, unit sec., etc.) it was a difficult experience for me.
I would not let let anyone bathe me but my mother(had broken limbs), got on bedpans on my own (cleaned up and changed chux myself with 2 broken legs and a broken arm), demanded to see my husbands med sheets and lab reports when they kept changing his meds, not to mention checked people who walked into our room without knocking or identifying themselves and proceeding to do perform tasks without explaining to my paranoid, head trauma husband what they were about to do. There were meds about to be given to him at the wrong time had I not spoken up and asked nurses to identify what they were giving him. A few could not-so I told them to come back to me with the drug book and MAR so "we could learn it together". Meds handed to me in a male nurse's hand when the med cup was right there on the table (I asked him,"should I assume you washed your hands after your last bathroom trip?"), CNA's walking into our room laughing and talking to each other as if we weren't there. Some of this hospital stay was at a military hospital. They tried to order him out of bed 1 day after a bone graft from his hip to his tib/fib and he had not walked in 2 months. He was in great pain and no med relief. So I had to step in on that too. I was trying to pay our bills and keep us out of debt all the while being out of state(lived in Florida but wreck and hospitalized in Louisiana and Texas from May to August). There is too much more to tell but you get my drift.
My question is: Has anyone else had the tables turn on them? Being a medical person and then being the one in the bed? What was your experience like? I can honestly say that between the pain, disruption of my life, and watching my confused husband suffer I ALMOST wanted to literally die. Almost. Things are so much better now, BTW.
