Nurses who don't seem to get it....

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Recently I was hospitalized with a badly broken ankle w/compartment syndrome, along with ripping loose all the muscles/ligaments/tendons on the opposite side. I want to testify to one thing -- the books say compartment syndrome causes "pain out of proportion to the actual injury." No cr*p!!! I would rather birth six babies and have 1200 kidney stones than go through this again!!!!!! And yes I have had bad labors and a year's worth of kidney stones, so I know of what I speak!!!!

I was admitted to the hospital ER around 5:30pm. The ER staff, for the most part was very good. The OR staff the next day was very good. The floor staff, well.....I hate to say it, as this hospital was where my RN daughter worked (she has since left for non-related reasons), but they were lacking in good sense. Or at least one particular one of them.

The first night, they did not give me the call light. But wrote their names (RN and PCA) on the whiteboard and told me to call them on their hospital provided cell phones. I was very upset, freaked out, in a lot of freaking pain and alone. I couldn't find the call light. Couldn't get my brain clear enough to actually look in the right places for it!!! Took me forever to find my glasses to read the blasted board, and then when I called, their phones rang and rang and rang..........At no time during the night did they answer those phones. I was soooooooo relieved when the day shift aide came in and I could send her for the nurse to bring me some pain meds!!!!

The next night after I had over four hours of surgery to repair my ankle, I called out to tell the nurse my affected leg was having very painful muscle spasms. She came into the room and looked at me like I was a nut. She says, you just had pain medication an hour ago. Yes, I said, I know that. But this muscle is spasming and the pain medication is NOT helping that!!!!! I bet it took me at least five to ten minutes of crying and trying not to, :bluecry1: to make her realize that morphine an hour ago does NOT make a newly wildly spasming muscle stop spasming. She ended up calling the surgeon to get me something to make it stop. (Or maybe to make me stop, I don't know.) She seemed to think that little shot of morphine should have relieved all pain for hours and did NOT seem to realize that I had edema, plus two surgical sites and muscles in a severe contracting phase in the surgical area causing excruciating pain!!!!!!!!!!!:banghead: The leg was not and has not ever been casted, so it was possible to see and feel the spasm!!!

I'm sure she was thinking, oh they repaired her broken leg, she should be fine. But it wasn't "just" a broken leg. The compartment syndrome continues after the fracture is repaired, the localized edema continued and then my whole body became edematous for several days after it was repaired, making everything hurt, including the operative site. (And devil's advocate, I myself didn't know this til after I got out of the hospital and got access to a computer and looked it up.) However......

This was on an ortho floor, in a "magnet" hospital. Maybe that night shift nurse wasn't used to ortho, maybe they pulled her from GYN or something. But if I ever see her again when I'm a patient, I'm rolling my w/c the other way!!!!! I was so glad the third night when she wasn't there!!!!:yeah:

Ortho is not my thing, altho I have worked on ortho floors occasionally. But if my patient was honestly in pain, I think I would try to find them some relief instead of standing there arguing with them. :argue: And maybe just maybe look up the diagnosis online and get a quick clue of why they were in more pain than I "the nurse" seemed to think they should be.

Sorry, this was over five weeks ago and it still rattles my cage. :typing I am still w/c bound, non weight bearing for another three weeks at least. So this was NOT your average "broken leg".

Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

It really saddens me that nurses would treat their patients like this. I know that I use to say that I would never tell another nurse that was caring for me as a patient that I was a nurse myself. But the sad fact is, is that I shouldn't have to let my nurse know that I am a nurse so that I would get better care or be treated as a human being.

Specializes in Advanced Practice, surgery.

Caro I am so sorry that you have had to suffer poorly controlled pain. I was very fortunate when I had major ortho surgery a few months ago, I had excellent nurses who checked on my pain and gave good analgesia regualry. Knowing that I didn't have to worry about getting pain relief helped alleviate post op anxiety and allowed me to get plenty of rest, in the knowledge that should I need I had access to analgesia.

I never needed to use a call bell as everytime I moved or woke there was a nurse nearby to check if I needed anything. Bear in mind that the staffing levels on most NHS wards leaves much to be desired.

You have to inform the management responsible of problems you experienced in your care, it may be that the nurses involved need further education, better staffing more support. Without feedback from patients who have had experiences such as yours the remedial action needed may not happen. It's not about blame, it's about improving care for patients who may go through a similar experience to yours.

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

Compartment syndrome stays on my mind constantly when I think of orthopedics, because I remember reading that permanent damage can occur within 6 hours. That frightened me so badly that I really believe that is the first thing I would have thought of if morphine did not help a patient in a cast. I am sorry that happened, and hope you finally got the help you were entitled to.

Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

I take back what I said in a previous post.

I absolutely agree with Sharrie. You should call and speak with the management that is responsible for the unit you were on and make your concerns known. I would also write a letter to the manager and to nursing administration. Pain control is a very important outcome of any type of surgery.

Specializes in Hospice, Critical Care.

Next day I kept saying I'm getting too much fluid, my face and fingers are very swollen, please ask the doctor to slow or stop the fluids, BP was good with no morphine - oh, you're fine - I left weighing 12 lbs. more than I had 36 hours earlier, very near to AMA'ing.

What is it with some nurses?

I just wanted to thank you for affirming the weight gain after surgery. I wasn't even admitted -- had an oopherectomy as same-day outpatient surgery and I gained 10pounds when I weighed myself 2 days after surgery. 10 pounds! I have a small frame it was SOO noticeable! I was more ticked with the weight gain than the surgical pain, lol. It took about 10 days for that to drain off.

Specializes in orthopaedics.

so sorry about your experience. ask to speak to the nurse manager. if that doesn't work go to her manager. your complaints are valid and someone needs to know about the call light and hospital cell phone issue. both are a big big safety issue.

i hope you are feeling better. :redpinkhe:heartbeat

Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

Karo, there are SOOOO many things wrong with this, where do I begin?

A)first night no call light issue? YEAH, that's a huge safety issue! How much do you want to bet that the charting shows that your call light was within reach? Do you happen to remember those names, cause I would be calling the unit manager and they would be LUCKY to have jobs after that! "hospital-provided" cell-phones? Where do they work? I'd like to have one! and NOBODY checked in on you all night? I bet that would strike a nerve.....

Generally, with painful muscle spasms, most surgeons order some sort of muscle relaxer...however, depending on the type of anethesia, they may not have been able to give it. and, morphine is NOT a muscle relaxer....they should have least tried repositioning and ice....

Seriously, I would call that unit manager and request a telephone meeting or a face-to-face if you're up to it.....I would be advocating for future patients. See, this is what gives the profession a bad name. And I know I don't have the nurses' side of the story, but it isn't sounding good right now. and we all know the PG scores take time to get filtered down, and it might not get all the way there.

Angie- I don't see a lot of PCAs on the floor. They usually come up on backs who are SOOO intractable that they've tried Morphine, Dilaudid, Toradol, Visteril, etc in the PACU before putting em on it....or the surgeon knows that they have pain issues...so they might be on it for 6-12 hrs....

"hospital-provided" cell-phones? Where do they work? I'd like to have one!

No, you wouldn't. Our unit just got these and they are a total pain. We don't give the numbers to the patients, though (they are used for communication between us and we can page MD's using them, etc.) They're useful, but not fun when you are elbow deep in poo and the darn thing won't stop ringing...

Sorry for the off-topic. I'm sorry you had a terrible experience Karo.

Specializes in Pediatrics (Burn ICU, CVICU).
This type of thing happens largely because nurses are overworked, as you know.

I must disagree with this statement. Overworked or not, there is NO excuse for this kind of care (or lack thereof). I think we could all pretty much agree that we are/have been overworked at times and managed to provide better care than what has been described.

To the OP and others with similar situations: I hope you will consider reporting this to the powers-that-be. I would let anyone/everyone know and wouldn't stop until I received satisfactory feedback. Your pain can't be changed now, but you can prevent someone else from suffering the same way.

I wish you a speedy, painless recovery.

Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

I agree with Razor. Busy or not, it doesn't mean that you withhold pain meds from a patient nor does it mean that you neglect to notify the doctor when pain meds are not working.

Specializes in Telemetry, Case Management.

Wow, thanks for all the replies, guys. I have been feeling soooo bad since this happened, but also didn't want to stir up things while my DD was still employed there. She has officially started her new job now, so think I may get the NM name from her and write me a nice letter this weekend telling how it was and how it OUGHT to have been. And I definitely remember the offending nurse's name.

And one more thing, I'm fairly certain they WERE aware I"m a nurse, as my daughter was talking with another nurse on the floor that night, in that "I'm an RN, my mom is on this floor, she's a nurse, I want to be sure she is going to be ok with this leg thing" sort of thing. She wanted the other nurse she knew to be my RN. I wish that had been the case.

I must disagree with this statement. Overworked or not, there is NO excuse for this kind of care (or lack thereof). I think we could all pretty much agree that we are/have been overworked at times and managed to provide better care than what has been described.

To the OP and others with similar situations: I hope you will consider reporting this to the powers-that-be. I would let anyone/everyone know and wouldn't stop until I received satisfactory feedback. Your pain can't be changed now, but you can prevent someone else from suffering the same way.

I wish you a speedy, painless recovery.

You should have read and quoted the rest of my post.

+ Add a Comment