My father had a radical prostatectomy yesterday morning. The surgery went great! The doc said there didnt appear to be any mets and he was able to save the 2 nerves. wonderful news!
The surgical experience was a positive one for my dad and us as well. You couldn't have asked for any better.
then daddy was transferred to the floor...
As we walk into his room, we hear a lady talking down to him like he has dementia. When we got in the room, she immediately said in a horribly rude tone "you need to go outside until i am done!".
um okey dokey...so out in the hall we go, with my sister and i (both nurses) looking at each other like "wth?".
The surgery was a traumatic event for us all, as you can imagine. My mom kind of lost it in the hall and cried to me "i just want to see your daddy and know that he's ok. why wont she let me even see him? whats wrong?". (we hadnt seen him since he went in to surgery)
I told her that she was his wife and she could go in the room if she wanted but that my sis and i would stay out in the hall to give the staff space and time to get him admitted. So I walk my mom to the door of the room and the nurse is coming out of the room at the exact same time. She again tells us we "cant" go in there. I tell her that my mom is very upset and needs to see him to know he's ok and that she will sit out of the way but that she needs to be in there with him. At this point, the nurse puts her arm on the door and physically blocks my mother from going in the room!
I'm not saying she just told her not to go in there...she literally blocked the door with her body and arm and told my mother that she would NOT be going in that room. my mom tried to open the door and the nurse grabbed the door telling her "i told you to stay in the hall, you are not going in that room!".
at that point i told her "look, my mother is his wife AND his POA. if she wants to go in the room, she can. she will NOT get in your way but she is going to sit in there".
the nurse literally rolled her eyes, huffed a big sigh and stomped off.
o m g
As she is coming back down the hall, I am standing there looking at her and she stops and says (and i quote) "do you have a problem??". (in a total confrontational way!)
if i didnt before, i darn sure did now!
I told her "yes, i do. I dont appreciate how you spoke to my mother". and she tells me "well thats the way we do things here, get used to it". OMG!
By this time, he'd been on the floor for over half an hour. When the RN brought him up from surgery, she told us that daddy was in a lot of pain and that she'd just told the RN that he would need pain medicine.
So I ask her why he hasn't had pain medicine yet. She tells me "he will have to wait until i get his paperwork finished".
At this point, i'd had it! I asked to see the supervisor. Again, this nurse rolled her eyes, huffed a big sigh and stomped off!
so now she's physically kept my mother from going in the room, told me thats how they do it there and to get used to it and now says daddy cant have pain medicine until she does his admission charting even though the nurse from surgery told her he needed pain meds right away and even though my daddy was laying there crying from the pain.
I waited for 45 minutes before the supervisor came to the floor to speak with me. Another nurse was the one trying to get the supervisor for me because daddy's nurse refused. The supervisor was doing "rounds" where you ask the patient how their food and service is. ok..your nurse is getting physical and you don't think it's important. gotcha! so after 30 minutes of waiting and 3 pages to the supervisor I had had it and asked her to call the House supervisor. The house supervisor refused to come up and told me to wait for the supervisor!
at this point i feel like i'm either in the Twilight Zone or I'm being punked.
She eventually comes and assigns another nurse to daddy. ok great. problem solved. thank you.
Well, the pain meds they were giving daddy were NOT working. Finally, around midnight the 11-7 nurse comes on. by this time my sister was crying (she stayed with him) because daddy was in so much pain. So he tells my sister that he is going to give dad the "whole" dose of morphine. Within one hour, daddy was out of pain, relaxed and his UOP increased to 150cc. (he had only put out 50cc since surgery)
He tells my sis that the order is 4-10mg, titrate as needed.
The other nurses had been giving daddy 4mg but then never came back in to assess pain control!! If they had, they would have known that dose was not working. So my dad suffered for 9 hours until this guy came on shift on nightshift.
Then they had a fire drill at 3:30am. Ok...training is important. but in the middle of the night? but even that I could see. except the fire alarm malfunctioned and went off for 30 minutes.
This afternoon the doc decided to let daddy go home. 4 hours later, not one soul had been in his room except the lady that brought his lunch. My sister finally asked the nurse at the desk if he would be discharged soon.
they didnt even know he'd been discharged! his chart hadnt been touched since the doc put it in the rack!
I absolutely could NOT believe how bad his care was! If it had only been that first, rude nurse then I could have just chalked that up to her being a rude person. Instead, most of his care was horrible!
It's unbelievable that the care was exemplary in the surgical dept and then horrible on the floor.
I am totally disgusted tonight.
