keikei

Yes, you're probably right. My experiences aren't important, OP, I am very sorry to have hijacked your post & if I have made it more difficult for you to get the answers you were looking for. When I shared, I was thinking it might help if you knew you weren't alone and that what you experienced happens to other people as well and that there are others that are confused. I'm a chatty person sometimes and I apologize for sharing too much or annoying anyone. I will say one last thing: Many patients are sent to the ER by their PCP. So we are there because they told us to go. We're not trained medical professionals so we don't know what is serious and what isn't. So we call our doctors, describe our symptoms over the phone & they tell us to go to the ER. We are just trying to get care for a health issue & are following "orders". It's frustrating for the patient as well. With one exception, I've never been made to feel that I should have waited to see my PCP or that I didn't need to be there, they have instead said things like "it's a good thing you got here when you did". So I guess they felt it was the right reason to be there. What a doctor might feel is an emergency (for whatever reason) a nurse might feel it could have waited until office hours. We're caught in the middle. It's very frustrating. PS: maybe you're not familiar with the care involved with renal patients. There isn't a lot that is done at office visits, most treatment require hospital care. So there really is no need for her to be available more than once a week to see patients to do the routine things like lab tests, medication refills, weight check and to discuss the results of lab tests. Everything else requires clinic care so I don't really get what you mean by that. I don't know anyone else with my disease who gets treated any differently, we hope to stay healthy as long as possible between hospital stays for sudden issues that crop up, but there really isn't anything else to be done. If you know something different, please share.

very true - most people wouldn't dream of assaulting a flight attendant (whose job IS to bring you things to eat/drink and keep you comfortable) or swearing at a TSA for fear of being charged with a federal crime. Everyone knows the consequences are quick & severe. Why shouldn't there be some sort of protection in place for nurses, PCA's, etc? I don't know what the solution is but I do know that nurses & other caregivers shouldn't have to worry about their personal safety on top of all of the other job stresses.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't lectured anyone or asked anyone to make anything about me. I didn't comment on a post you wrote or were participating in and yell at you for anything you wrote or felt, I don't even know you. I responded to the OP because I am dealing with similar issues, that's all. And like you, I was venting about some not-so-nice people (who sometimes are providing health care to me) that I come across in my life and it had nothing to do with you either. I honestly have no idea why you're so angry with me, but if I bother you that much, please just ignore what I write. My intent here was to discuss something with other people who are experiencing similar issues I am experiencing, to learn from those who have experience as a nurse to give me some insight into what I as a patient can do to make things better for both myself & the person caring for me and from those who are willing to be frank & honest with me about their job because I was recently accepted into nursing school and have gotten mixed responses on whether or not it's a good career choice or not. I've read a lot of things on here that have shocked me but as I said before, not because I'm judging anyone, but because I had no idea those things even happened since I'm new to all of this. The same as you probably felt when you were new at all of it. Really, just ignore my posts if they upset you so much, you're obviously stressed out & angry over something and I don't want to add to it.

Oh, I don't doubt that at all! My neighbor is a cardiac nurse. She works LONG hours and the stories she tells me are eye openers sometimes! When I said I was shocked about what I read on here, it wasn't mean in a judgmental way, I meant it as in "I had no idea things like that even happened, that people even act that way" sort of thing. I have a friend who is an ER doc so her stories are from a physician point of view, much different from nursing. She isn't much help when trying to decide if this would be a good career choice :) My neighbor offers a much different picture, but again, she's in cardiac care and most of her patients are very old people, so they die a lot. She has a very unique outlook on life and she says it's all because of what she does for a living, sort of like anyone who deals with things that most people never see. It's not bad or wrong, just different. I just like knowing as much as possible (yes, even the gross & nasty, the ugly & messy) which is why I ask a lot of weird questions and read a lot. I respect honesty and certainly don't judge anyone when I can tell that they've just been having a rough time of it and need to get it all out with people who can relate. It's helpful to those of us who haven't experienced those things yet too.

Because the "walls" and "doors" in the ER are curtains? Everyone can hear everything, there is no privacy at all and when you're lying in bed for 17 hours waiting for an IV to finish, you hear a lot of things. I am having a conversation on here with other people, what I was explaining made sense to me. Sorry it didn't to you. I can imagine it would be annoying if I were a nurse and someone tried to tell me that their issue was more important than other patient. But I hear it all the time. I imagine those are the same people out in public who think everything pertaining to them is more important than anyone else and their needs.

I agree - it's not my PCP, it's my nephrologist that does this. She only sees patients once a week because she is with a teaching facility which is also the same place as the ER where she sends me. They know I have a lot of kidney stones that are sort of lodged in there so they cause a lot of issues. Most of the time, I just deal with it. I told her I can live with 5 out of 10 pain and still function so that's sort of the agreement we have. But, there really is no option if I'm having severe pain from one of the stones & it happens to be a weekend, after hours or during a day when she is not in the office seeing patients, that's why she sends me to the ER to manage it. Sometimes, she just has me directly admitted & I don't go to the ER at all, but when it's for low potassium, she tries to have them manage it in the long-term ER department first, instead of admitting me. I don't know why, no-one in the ER seems to think it's weird so maybe they're used to it. Thankfully, it's not too often anymore, I've finally gotten in to a pain specialist, switched some meds around, I swim a lot more and that seems to help. I wish there were a way to just knock all of the stones out at once and be done with it, but it's not an option for me. I would completely agree with you if it were my PCP doing that!

....Oh, just venting in general... Even though I'm just starting this journey (and later in life at that), I feel that I've learned a lot just being a patient. I've gotten a unique view of what is going on in a hospital because I am usually there for a long period of time & once the nurses realize that I'm not "needy", they tend to let their guard down a bit and chat with me as a person, not a patient. When it gets quiet, I tend to be the patient the nurses come to check on and just sit & talk with, I listen to their concerns (without the violating another patients privacy), they tell me about their families or dogs or how long they've been there & how tired they are, etc. So even though I've never done your job and couldn't really ever know what it is like for you until I do, I am trying to understand and learn as I go along. I'm a very "thoughtful" person, meaning I like to consider all points of view when I'm making a decision and that's why I visit this site. I'll admit, sometimes I'm shocked at what I read, but I've also learned a lot as well. Thank you for you well wishes, transplant is scary, waiting is scary and all that goes along with being sick a lot is scary & frustrating but it's always nice to hear someone wish me well :redpinkhe

This is my reason for reading the posts on here, though I don't post much since I don't have any real nursing experience. I want to get a feel for what I'll be doing before I invest a lot of time/money into schooling for it. I want to make sure I have the right personality and that I would do a good job. But right now, my only experience with hospitals is from the view of a patient. I am in pre-nursing now (just finished up the STNA course, waiting to take the exam so I guess I did get a few hours of "clinic" time in). I am also a very compliant patient and it's interesting to me to see how you all think of us "chronic pain" patients. I'm actually the patient in room 35 who was called on her cell-phone while grocery shopping urged to IMMEDIATELY head to the ER because my nephrologist had just gotten my blood test back & my potassium was 1.7. I had no idea this was a big deal until I had arrived (I had been complaining of feeling very weak & exhausted to the point where I couldn't get up from the floor sometimes, but as it usually is, doctors tell you to just drink more fluids, get more rest, etc). So that's me in there, quietly writhing in pain because IV potassium is one of the most painful experiences I've ever had. And I had to have it for 17 hours while also being given Potassium pills and even bags of potato chips. Meanwhile, all around me I hear patients come in with gunshot wounds, stabbings, an old lady having chest pains, a 20 something girl crying very loudly because her stomach hurt (turns out she had gas, they sent her home after they gave her simethecone). But the most fun was the drug OD in the stall next to mine. She was ranting all crazy, calling the nurses, docs & anyone else in there horrible names and then when they'd leave the room, she'd get on her cell phone & chat away like she was at ClubMed. She was asking for some sort of pain med, they told her no so she fake fainted by lying carefully on the floor when they walked in (by now the gunshot had gone to surgery, stabbing person wasn't as bad as it seemed, he was stitched up and sent back to jail, fart girl had gone home so it was old lady chest pains, OD girl and me, potassium IV person. I never asked for pain meds or even a drink of water because I knew they were busy and didn't want to bother them. I was dying of thirst but I couldn't get up to get my own drink due to being tied to the IV pole and the heart monitor. At one point, the pain from the IV potassium got so bad it must have showed up on the monitor because someone came in to make sure I wasn't dead or something. So I'm sorry that patients like us, the chronically ill who sometimes have medical emergencies, are making you want to leave nursing. It's bad enough being relatively young and living with such a crappy disease that I have from no fault of my own. I'm a non-smoker, non-drinker, never taken street drugs, only take what is prescribed and exactly how it is prescribed, I'm the rare one who prefers NOT to take narcotics if something else will work. I'm pleasant, I try to be understanding, I don't complain, I DO fill out the Press-Gainey but with one exception, it's always been all positive as I made it a point to find the good rather than focus on anything that was bad. I know patients like me bring you down but what else can we do? I don't know where else I could have gotten this care but at an ER? Where else should I go for pain control when I'm passing one of the 15 kidney stones they've counted in my kidneys? When my potassium goes to low, where should I be treated, is that not an emergency too? From the way the drs and nurses acted it was. When I asked to go home, the brought in four different doctors to convince me to be admitted because they said I could walk out of the hospital & have a heart attack. What about the fact that I'm slowly bleeding 24/7 internally from one cyst or another on my kidneys or liver and that causes severe anemia (that isn't noticed until it shows up on a blood test. The only treatment for that is IV iron and the last time I had that, I went in to anaphylactic shock. (or maybe something else, I'm getting blood taken tomorrow & I have a feeling that anemia is back, I don't know how they'll treat it this time *nervous* So I come here and I read about what you all experience at your jobs and try to decided if and how I could fit in somewhere. I've had some excellent nursing care. To the point where I STILL remember their names and every once in awhile, I send over a treat of some sort just to let them know how much it meant to me that they cared that much. I have had nurses who have taken the time to put a cold cloth on my forehead (when I was in a lot of pain & they could see how much it must have been hurting) even when the place was being slammed and tell me "please let me know if there is anything at all I can do for you, ok? Just press the button and I will be here" That made me feel like it was all going to turn out OK. And that's they type of nurse I'd like to be for someone. Not that creepy one who tells me how nice my private parts look while she's putting a cath in me. So see, just as we need to understand what you are going through as nurses, sometimes the patient point of view is valuable too. And I hope while I'm on this journey from pre-nursing, to nursing student to finally becoming a nurse, I am able to find those good nurses that I know are out there who are willing to share the good, the bad & the ugly with me to help me be a better nurse one day too.

My doctor does call the ED and does have a pain management plan in place. It's all in my chart and she always calls in advance, tells them why she is sending me in, what she would like done, etc. And they are waiting for me when I arrive. This particular hospital has a separate unit in the ER for longer term patients - people who are sick and need immediate medical care for whatever reason, but avoiding admitting them if possible. The patient is allowed to stay for 17 hours and either be discharged or admitted. It's quiet, each room is private (with a curtain for a door, the nurse is sitting right outside of the door at her station) and the nurse/patient ratio is low. None of the nurses in this department have been cruel or made me feel like it is my fault I am in pain and that since I already take painkillers on a very carefully regimented basis at home, throwing a percocet at me isn't going to help in any way. Kidney stones are very painful and there are those of us who don't have any control over when they are going to form, when they will lodge & cause pain or how long before they pass (IF they pass). And it's not my PCP that handles this issue, it's my nephrologist who depends on her co-workers in the ED to take care of her patients when she isn't able.

I just wanted you to know that I do understand. I have huge kidney stones too, but they don't know how to treat them because I have PKD. So sometimes the pain from the stones flares up and it's seriously the worst pain ever. Or if a cyst starts bleeding. Like you, I have pain meds at home and like you, I am tolerant. I've also never drank, smoked or taken a street drug. It is very difficult the few times I've been sent to the ER (my dr sends me as she only sees patients once a week and that's the only place for me to get care outside of those times for my kidney issues) to tell the drs. it is NOT my gallbladder, but my kidneys and that normal painkillers won't work for me (and in fact, I'd rather not have them at all unless necessary). Patients like you (and myself) are what still draws me towards nursing. I want to be that one nurse that you meet that you know is really listening and really wants to see you feel a little better. They are out there, I've met them. Sometimes it's something as simple as them just bringing you a hot pad for your side or placing their hand on your head & smoothing your hair that makes ALL the difference in the world. Sometimes the painkillers don't work that well, but feeling a connection to another human being who you know has really listened to you & sees the "real" you behind the pain makes all the difference in the world.

I have a friend who is a nurse in that ER. She was at a wedding last weekend. She was not there. What is so odd about that? I also have a friend who is an ER doctor. She does not work at the ER. What is so strange about that? Why would I even mention that, neither has anything to do with what happened. I add things on because I am answering questions that you ask me. If I don't answer immediately, you all jump all over that too. I can't win. I was bleeding profusely when I arrived, that's why I was there in the first place. I wanted to stay home and wrap it up but my husband pointed out the amount of blood all over the kitchen, my clothes and the hallway. This all happened in under a minute. I kept pressure on it the entire way to the ER. When I arrived, they took the cloth off of my hand to see what was wrong and of course, it started bleeding again. Then I soaked through the pad, the tech came it and pulled it OFF of my hand to put another one on, it started bleeding again. Then the ER doctor came in, took the pad off so HE could look at it, it started bleeding again. The xray tech did the same thing telling me she couldn't take "the pictures" with the pad on. I didn't state every single thing that happened every single second I was there because I thought this is a nurses forum and that you would know what things generally happen. I wasn't the one that said I was practically in shock, I said that I was bleeding a lot and they took my vitals when I arrived, then I calmed down and the bad tech came in a took them again and they were low. I felt dizzy, clammy skin, felt like I was going to throw up. All of these things you are accusing me of is exactly my point - you keep pointing out all of these things that couldn't have happened or never would have happend because maybe in YOUR ER they would never happen. That was why I was asking if what they did was typical or not and if that is how you're supposed to treat someone with my injury. Is it how you would have wanted to be treated or how you would have treated a patient, that's all I'm asking. I can see that no matter what I say, most of you have decided I made this all up for whatever reason. I've answered every question the best I can. I'm not a medical professional, I haven't even started nursing school, I'm just a regular person who maybe doesn't know the technical &medical terms for things. That doesn't mean I'm lying or anything else. I had general anesthesia with my surgery on Tuesday & strong pain meds, I might not get every single detail exactly perfect. I'm just glad some of you are able to never be wrong about anything, it's pointless for me to even answer or clarify because you just call me a liar, crazy or some other insult and it's not making me feel any better or helping, which is what I was hoping for and that's all. I am a real person with feelings. I hope you all feel good about yourselves for the things you have said to someone just asking for help

There was nothing mysterious about it. The shift changed at 9pm and that was when this nurse came on duty. From what I could understand, the shifts were 4 or 12 hours, I could be wrong. The nurse that was supposed to be taking care of me said she had been there since "this morning" and she was not there when I was discharged which was close to 11pm. Or at least, a different person was sitting in the seat she had been sitting in. The one who filed the report was a supervisor. She told me that when she was talking to me about how long I had been there, discharge info, making sure that I didn't want to stay and be moved to a room, making sure I understood what the surgeon had said, etc. I don't know how she knew the info she knew, don't you know? Don't nurses, drs etc talk to each other and tell what patients they are looking after and why when the new person comes into work to take over? That is how I guessed she knew. And she specifically said she was the supervisor and it was her that was yelling at the others when she came into work. I don't know the exact time, I just heard her yelling about triage and that they didn't do it right and that you don't take care of a sore throat before a bleeding laceration. I know she talked to the er DR and the PA who sewed me up but I don't WORK in an ER, I was the patient so I don't KNOW how information is gathered. I just know what she told me and that was later confirmed when I picked up my records. If a Dinamap is a little machine on wheels that takes the temp & the BP and displays them on a screen, then yes, that is what I mean and yes, that is what my husband took a photo of. He got into the habit of doing that when I was hospitalized before and maybe someone didn't write down the info like they were supposed to and would ask me if I remembered what my BP was. Also, my kidney doctor asked me to keep a chart of my BP's (I take them at home with a wrist thing) because I have kidney disease and mine has gotten very low before because of a medication I take and I didn't know it was that low or how often it happened. The tech wasn't "sitting there", he was standing and had a folded paper in his pocket. He wrote down the BP & temp on the paper. And he didn't "let" him take a photo, my husband just took it when it popped up. Just like the new, good tech let him take a photo of my sutures before he wrapped them up and the PA let him take a photo of her suturing. Neither of them acted like it was unusual or weird and tech new tech even said that he himself had cut his finger the week before and took photos in the ER too. Who cares why someone does that? It helps me to remember and it was helpful to see that she put in 11 black sutures for the temp and when I came out of surgery, I have about 20 bright blue ones.

Thank you very much for saying this. My biggest concern was that it was something I did or didn't do that caused this to happen. I understand that ER's are busy, crazy places and that it must be very frustrating to have people come in who should have gone to urgent care or their family doctor. I've never had this happen to me before, but I've heard stories like this over the years. I'll even admit that sometimes I wondered if what they reported was as bad as they said it was. Until it happened to me. I've never said all nurses are bad, all ER's are bad or anything to that nature. I was just telling what happened to me and how upsetting it was. I considered leaving to go to another hospital (and heard another patient threatening to do so but she was upset because she wanted pain meds and they wouldn't give her what she wanted). I didn't know (nor did my husband) who to ask for or how to escalate it, even if it meant that they thought I was being obnoxious. I suffered in silence and I have already spoken to the admins of that hospital (they approached me) so I hope that means that how they decide which people to treat first will be changed or at least looked at. But thank you for your kindness.

I can't respond to all of the questions about every little detail. You can believe me or not, at this point it doesn't even matter. My only reason for posting here was that I arrived at this site from a google search about was this normal care. I only wanted to know was what I experienced the norm for my injury. Yes, I have been in the ER a few times but never for an injury. I am a renal patient awaiting transplant and have had one instance where my potassium dropped very low, I was admitted through the ER, kidney stones & cysts bleeding, both of which are very painful. I went to the ER because my kidney doctor sent me there to get checked after routine blood tests, she thought the lab may have made a mistake, so she was being careful. The lab didn't make a mistake & she was right in sending me as I was admitted each time. I only have this thread because I just found the site & joined. It was my first posting, I was just accepted to nursing school before I cut my finger so when I googled & found a nursing site & read through some of the posts of other people asking questions, I thought I was doing the right thing. The nurse who reported the other nurse was the one who discharged me from the ER. She had only been there an hour and was the supervisor & was the one who was yelling at the others for not triaging correctly. I wish she had been there when I arrived, I wouldn't have suffered for so long. I received a phone call from her today checking on me and she apologized again for what happened. My goal has nothing to do with "getting money" or "malpractice" or anything else I've been accused of. I was just trying to find out if it what I experienced was the typical treatment because I feel really upset about it and I know that personally I could not have left a patient like that so I am questioning my decision to even become a nurse. I never said I was a specialist in anything - when I filled out the profile, I thought the question was asking what I would like to specialize in and what I was familiar with. Sorry I filled it out wrong. I was discharged me on the advice of the surgeon who said that arteries in the finger will clot & stop bleeding if the cut is sutured shut. The PA did the suturing because the surgeon was still working on the other person. From what I've been told, both by the surgeon who did repair my injury & a friend who is an ER dr, this was all that could be done in the ER. The ER dr paged a surgeon because he felt my injury was too severe for him to repair. They did not repair the artery because it was "mangled" (the words of the surgeon who fixed my finger by repairing the tendons and nerves). Yes, I know I could hold pressure on it myself, that is what I was doing. For 5 hours. That is a VERY long time when you are in pain, scared, feeling dizzy & terrified that the injury was so bad that they had to call a surgeon. I was I was concerned about the amount of blood lost because of the same reason. I am already waiting for transplant, stupid me thought that losing blood was as big of a concern as vomiting, sweating, diarrhea as far as my electrolyte balance. I was hospitalized for three weeks in october partly because of anemia so severe I had to have iron pumped back into me through an IV because I have cysts in my kidneys and liver that bleed a lot - I didn't even KNOW that I was losing blood or bleeding at that time so can't you see why I was so worried about seeing that much blood come out of me in a short period of time and feeling like maybe I didn't make it clear? It was after that stay that I was convinced that applying to nursing school was the perfect job for me. The nurses & PCA's that cared for me then were the difference between life and death at one point. They constantly told my husband how much they enjoyed having me as a patient, how patients like me made them feel good about what they do, etc. Whenever I have to go to that hospital to see my doctor, I always make a point to go up to their floor to say hello & to make sure they knew how much I appreciated what they did for me. THAT is why what happened to me on Sunday (at a different hospital) has been so upsetting and confusing. However, like I said, the only times before I had been in an ER was due to kidney issues, never an injury so I didn't know if what happened was normal or not. What is it that you want photos of? My bloody hand? The puddle of blood by the ER door (because we came in the wrong door and I had to stand there for 30 seconds while someone opened it and let us in? My stitches? My damaged finger? How would any of that change what I've told you? I never said I was hooked up to a monitor. I said they took my blood pressure and temp and those both show up on a monitor that the assistant wheels around. I'm not a nurse so I don't know what it's called. Instead of jumping all over me about little details, why can't anyone show any compassion and understand I might not know all of the technical terms or methods? I don't know why everyone keeps asking me if I am going to sue the hospital or why legal stuff keeps being brought up. I never said that, I've only said that I want to make sure that what happened doesn't go un-reported. I would NEVER want anyone treated that way. You may not realize what it is like being on the other side, but it is very scary. After posting here and reading the responses I've gotten from people who are supposed to be in a helping & healing field, I can't even tell you how terrified I am of any upcoming medical procedures I have scheduled. I've never smoked, I don't drink, I've never taken street drugs & only taken drugs as prescribed. I am very careful with ALL of my medications and both my husband and I carry the list & doses of what I take for my health issues with us and on this occasion, I happened to have my medical folder with me because it was in the car. I don't know why so many of you are being so cruel, calling me a troll and other names, picking apart every little detail and acting like I'm not even a person with feelings on the other side of this screen. I don't understand what you have to gain from that or what you think I have to gain by making up a story. Some say my "story" keeps changing, I don't know what you mean by that, I haven't changed anything, just tried to answer the questions you've asked in hopes that I might be able to understand why things happened the way that they did. To those few of you who have experienced this type of situation & who greeted me with compassion & well-wishes, I thank you from the bottom of my heart - even if you don't know me, it matters a lot to me that you took the time to do that. There really ARE emergency rooms that make mistakes. It DOES happen and it's not always the fault of the "stupid patient" that comes in daring to bleed all over "your" clean sheets, mess up "your" exam room and interrupt your quiet Sunday afternoon shift and to dare "complain" because you told them to hold their hand over their head & keep pressure on it for five hours while blood dripped into their hair and all over their clothes, whose husband annoyed you by checking in every 45 mins or so just trying to make sure you understood how much blood there was and that it was STILL bleeding despite pressure and wanting to make sure you knew that the patient in that room was a renal patient who seems to be feeling sicker and sicker and shouldn't she be drinking water or something to replace the blood she is losing? None of this was out of malice, revenge or anything else. I am not only in pain because of my injury, I keep asking myself over and over again what I did wrong to make them attend to a sore throat and someone who was only screaming for IV pain meds before attending to me, someone who was bleeding. Apparently I asked the wrong people in the wrong place and possibly chose the wrong career path for me.

That's all pretty accurate. Except I was not oozing, it was squirting out with each heart beat unless I kept pressure on it. Had it only been oozing, I would have waited and gone to my regular PCP or something the next morning. The five hours part wasn't so bad. It was the five hours bleeding heavily (not oozing) that was bad. The surgeon (well, the resident that left surgery to come see me & report back) asked if I'd stay the night so I would be ready for surgery in the morning IF they could get me on the schedule and I asked him if there was a temp solution so I could go home & just come back, that's when he told the PA what to do. The squirting of the blood is what distressed me. I am not a freak-out person by nature. But when it kept going on for 2, 3, 4 and then 5 hours, I was worried because it didn't clot, that I was feeling faint (clammy, cold, teeth chattering, BP and temp dropping) - I didn't even consider shock, I was more worried that it would put stress on my kidneys and I didn't want anything to jeopardize them. That was the only reason I started getting anxious, especially before the new shift came in (they all seemed to like each other, work together well, felt like a team, etc.). I don't know how else to explain it....I am just usuallly an easy going person and this just threw me for a loop. Sorry to bring all of this to your nursing website and cause any problems.

Names and times are not ever included in any records routinely given to pts, such as discharge papers. They would be included in whatever parts of the chart that were requested by the pt. However those requests are made through medical records and can take a day or two. Not sure why you've posted here, but you are correct in one regard. My posts were mean and sarcastic. For that I apologize. I have no excuse. Please forgive me. Yes, it is the chart that I have, not the discharge papers and I did get them from medical records, I picked them up today so it has been a few days. I'm not sure why I posted here either - I originally just wanted to find out if what happened to me was normal and typical and standard because it felt very wrong. And I've just been accepted into a nursing program, after that experience it made me really think hard about if I want to do that, everyone seemed so disconnected & like they were all separate from one another, not a team and that isn't what I'd like to do either. I suffer from a chronic and painful illness, I thought maybe I could bring a different type of care to patients from my own experience, maybe I could relate to them or something. But I don't know, maybe not because I didn't fit in here very well. I accept your apology.

yes, exactly - I've learned my lesson for sure :) I was always taught to hand the knife by the blade, handle towards the person so they're not grabbing the blade either but it didn't work out so well this time. And it was a new knife. The timeline for the unbeliever: The injury happened Sunday evening. I finally got home late Sunday/early Monday (around 11:30 or midnight). I was given 16 sutures in the hospital & told that I needed surgery because the cut was too deep & needed a hand or plastic surgeon because of the nerves, arteries, veins, tendons, etc. Monday -went for the consult with different surgeon that our insurance company suggested because the surgeon who consulted with me via the surgical resident was not covered on our plan. He would have been had I gotten surgery that night because it was an emergency, but since he was already tied up with the other person, I would have had to wait. They said I could stay overnight if I'd like, I declined. Tuesday - arrived at other hospital, had surgery on my rt index finger. He was able to repair the tendon, the nerves but not the arteries, he said they were too mangled (his words). I had general anesthesia and it lasted 4 hours. So forgive me if I've gottne the days confused, I was thinking today is Wednesday. This is really disheartening to be attacked this way over minor details when I was just asking a question and was hoping for some answers from some professionals in the field.

Ok - confused here,,,,,where did I bash anyone other than being REALLY upset with the nurse assigned to me and the others that I could see/hear before the shift changed who weren't working? I know I wasn't the only patient there but I also wasn't the patient who was screaming at everyone either. When my doctor said that, he said it to me and my husband knowing that we are not the type of people to sue over something like this. It was understood by all of us in the room that he was blowing off steam. I've had lots of drs/nurses say things like that if they think someone isn't doing their job. He wasn't telling me to sue them nor did I ever even bring it up. The names of the workers I gave you are to keep it simple, there are no last names or the hospital. And by community hospital, I meant hospital in my community....I didn't realize we are arguing semantics here. It is a large hospital and as a matter of fact, they DO have hand/microsurgery specialists on call 24/7, it says it on their website & on the billboards around the city. I'm not sure what that all has to do with anything though - the surgeon was there, doing surgery on another person that arrived when I did but they took him first because he had a different nurse & was processed quicker. As for the IV - I only mentioned it because I have never been to an ER where that wasn't the first thing they did - and whenever I've asked, they said it was so if they had to give fluids, pain meds, etc. it was already started. I'm not a medical professional so I don't know what is standard or not. I just know what I've experienced. If it were just a finger laceration, I would have put a bandage over it and gone to see my regular doctor the next day. This was a cut so deep I sliced the arteries and I was bleeding everywhere for the ENTIRE time I was there. It wasn't my perception, it was reality. My husband took photos of it for me just for that reason - in case a dr or nurse came in and wanted to kinow how much I was bleeding, he could show them the photo and also the bin full of sopping bloody towels. You can believe or not believe, I know what happened, I just lived through it. Once again, my reason for asking about all of this was to learn if what I experienced was standard procedure or out of the norm, that's all.

ok - fair enough...I made a mistake by saying I was typing it one handed, which was how I had started out until one of my sons told me that I could just use voice to text and it would be easier. So it's a mixture of the two, sometimes voice to text doesn't write the correct word and you have to type it in, which I do with my left hand for now anyway. Any other mistakes I've made that you all would like to point out? I did have general anesthesia & have pain meds in my system so I'm sure this isn't exactly perfect. I had my husband (who was there with me the entire time) and a friend (who works in this ER but was at a wedding last weekend) read over it to make sure I had things right I do have the names & times. They're on the records they gave me this morning. How is that unusual? I'm also one of those patients that fills out the comment cards that because a nurse friend told me that when those get read at the end of the month, they get rewards & sometimes gift cards or some special thing and I want the people who take good care of me know that I appreciate them. So whatever, if that's weird, troll-like, unbelievable, etc I guess I don't know what to say.

Wow. You are a lovely human being. I'm glad you are able to have so much fun with my suffering.

Thank you Ohio Nurse - I feel pretty crappy right now but at least the finger is starting to heal a little. They checked my iron and creatinine levels yesterday so we'll see how much stress all of this caused healthwise not including the finger. I have a friend who is an ER doc in this same city, she is on vacation right now, but you can bet I will show her all of this & see what she has to say.

Sorry if it sounded dramatic....it just was what it was. I don't go looking for drama. I was at home making dinner for my family on a nice Sunday afternoon, looking forward to relaxing. One slip of a knife and I get to live the "drama". But instead of the people involved making sure I was taken care of when they could see I was drenched in my own blood & scared to death (as was my husband), I was treated like the most insignificant annoying interruption. Even when I arrived & was scared & freaking out, I was not screaming, acting crazy, being rude or anything. I tried to stay as calm as possible, answer their questions while still trying to get someone to do more than glance at my finger - at that point we weren't even sure it was still attached. I'm just reporting exactly what happened. It was a dramatic (traumatic) experience I never care to go through again. If you choose not to believe me, well, that's your choice. I have no reason to lie about it. I only posted on here because I wanted to see if other people in this profession thought this sounded normal or if it sounded wrong. Yes, I realize that there is malpractice insurance out there and that most medical professionals are terrified of it. I don't know what that has to do with any of this though - that is exactly why it is so confusing and shocking to me. Thats why I asked the questions here - to find out if that is how ALL ER's would handle a patient like me under those circumstances or if someone dropped the ball. The fact that two hospital adm. approached me and a nurse filed a report basically tattling on her co-workers shows me that something is not right. The fact that there are those of you calling me a liar (someone you don't even know) because it all sounds too unbelievable makes me even more convinced that something wrong happened. About the surgeon walking out of surgery to come see me? Yes, he did. He still had on his scrubs. He told me that he was a resident and that the other surgeon was still working on the other patient and asked him to come down and examine me then to call him IN the OR. He told me they routinely "break scrub" to consult on ER cases because hand surgery is very specialized and that there is always a team ( the main surgeon, residents, etc). I don't know how ER veterans wouldn't know that? So the resident surgeon came down, put the nerve block in, poked around in my cut, told me what he saw (mangled the artery but luckily we have two in each finger, cut the nerves, tendon, it was repairable but didn't know how much longer they would be with the surgery & that my bleeding had to be stopped immediately so that was what he suggested and said he was going to go call the other surgeon. It was then they felt that it would be OK to stitch me up loosely & come in to be seen at 8:30 a.m. the next day. It doesn't matter to me if you believe me, I was there and have nothing to gain by making this up. It's all formally documented & written down and I have it right here in front of me. How did I leave the ER with that much blood lost & no transfusion? You tell me. They never even TOOK blood, no IV, etc. It's the ONLY time I've been in an ER and didn't have an IV started immediately. I questioned that several times & got no response. -Nurse & PCA did: got gauze pads, 3 xrays, 2 vital signs checked, 1 percocet, 1 tetorifice shot - those all done by the nurse and the PCA who cut my thigh when he leaned over me to put the BP cuff on my arm. -ER Doctor: I was checked once by the ER doctor, an older man who poured a bunch of water from a bottle over my finger and said "Oh no, this is way too deep, I'm not comfortable doing this, we need to have a hand surgeon down here to check her". He told me they would be moving me to a different room down the hall so the surgeon could examine me better (they never did). -The PA sewed my finger up with black thread and talked to me about why she was doing it instead of the MD or the surgeon. She did a nerve block that she said would last about 2-4 hours. She told me it was just temporary to see if we could stop the bleeding long enough for me to get to the surgeon in the morning. She was also the one who requested my vitals be checked AGAIN because she said my skin felt cold/clammy to her and I told her I felt so dizzy and sick. (this happened AFTER the shift change and AFTER the staff had gotten yelled at by head nurse supervisor) -The surgeon resident came down, did another nerve block (this time he shot the back of my hand around the knuckles & told me it should keep me pain free for about 8 hours, hopefully long enough for me to be seen in their office in the morning. He looked around, told me that I had cut the arteries & veins on the outer part of my right index finger and then the flexor tendon sheath and some nerves. He said he would be right back and went to call his boss, who was still in the OR with the other guy. He came back & said the surgeon wanted me to come in at 8am and for me to call the office and tell them I had been seen in the ER that night, they would make room and then he would schedule surgery. He then left. -The PA returned, talked with resident surgeon, he told her the same thing and to just sew me up well enough to stop the bleeding. She came in, did the sewing. -The PCA came in and cleaned up my cut with water & tried to wipe as much blood as possible. He then wrapped it in gauze and that tan stretchy stuff. -Nursing supervisor came in last to discharge me. She was the one I heard yelling that the staff during changeover time about them not triaging properly & leaving someone bleeding that long. She came in to give me discharge instructions, apologized for the long wait. -the next morning, my husband scheduled a consult with a different surgeon at a different hospital, I went in at 8, he already had the hospital records & was ranting and raving about them allowing me to bleed that long, not putting in an IV, no antibiotics, etc. HE was the one who spoke the words "I hope they have good malpractice insurance, this is criminal" as he was going over my labs that HE took. I was scheduled for surgery, he fixed what he could and told me the arteries were too big of a mess and that he just had to leave them that way. I only found out how much blood I had lost the next day when I went to see the surgeon who did the repair. Which was NOT the one I saw in the ER. I have NO idea how they calculate blood loss, but he took a look at the CBC I had done at the end of April and compared it to the one he did that morning and that's what he told me. He told me that was why I was feeling dizzy, cold and why my iron level was so low. It made sense to me. Maybe it doesn't to you, I don't know what to say about that. Believe it or not....it's helping me to get this all written down & the fact that there are so many of you caring people telling me that it's just not right (and even those of you calling me a liar when you don't even know me and can't give me a good reason why I'd be lying) shows me that there IS something wrong here & I need to pursue it. A few bad workers shouldn't be allowed to get by with this, what about all of the good people who work at that hospital & would be horrified to hear this ?

Really? Do you mean walk out of that one, when I've been bleeding for hours and I'm so dizzy I can barely stand?

Well, I've never heard of such poor care and never want to experience it again. Luckily, my husband had the sense to take photos of my hand, the BP monitor, etc once he realized they weren't doing the right thing. The administrators were very interested in seeing them too, just more backing up my story. They seemed most shocked by the long cut on my leg.

For the person who wanted to know how i typed this: it's called voice to text, lots of computers have it. For the person who says it sounds like a story I made up from Scrubs. I've never watched that show. What purpose would there be for me to make up a story & post it here? I asked here because most of you are ER nurses & I want to know if this is the typical standard of care for people and what would make a nurse treat a bleeding patient like this because I do NOT want to choose ER nursing if that's how it is. I felt like I was in a nightmare, I remember saying over and over to my husband "I just can't believe this, I can't believe all of this blood and that it's normal & OK to bleed this much for this long & that they're treating a sore throat ahead of me" For the person who said it isn't my business why other patients are being seen. Um, yeah - I know that. But the thing is, when the exam rooms are separated by a CURTAIN, you hear EVERYTHING that is said. The nurses, PCA's etc also talk very loudly across the room about what they are doing. That is how I knew who else was there and why. I was trying to be polite, wait my turn & be respectful for as long as possible but everyone has their limits. Try holding your hand over your head for 5 hours while keeping direct pressure on it and still have blood running down your arm and pooling in your lap as you feel colder, sleepier, more confused & like you are going to throw up and knowing that your nurse is sitting right outside your curtain area talking about her Facebook with a co-worker and acting annoyed when your husband questions the amt of blood and length of time we've been there and shouldn't maybe I have an IV to put the fluids back in. They made us feel like I was being very overdramatic about the blood loss despite the puddles, racing heart & low BP & low temp. For the person who said that I said the nurse laughed at my low BP -what I actually said was the PCA (not a nurse) SHRUGGED (not laughed) and when the nurse called across to him "did you get 14's vitals" he yelled back "Normal, I will write paper". So normal BP is in the 80s? The last time that happened to me, my kidney specialist hospitalized me for a week. And a normal temp is 96.6 (when I arrived it was 99.9). I had no idea BP and temp could fluctuate so much & be considered normal. Later, when the PA (physician assistant) came in to sew me up, SHE asked me "I heard you asking that Christopher not be allowed to come in your room, did something upset you?" and I showed her the 16cm cut in my thigh. Her eyes got really big & she said "I' will be right back" and returned with the doctor, another PCA and a camera. She asked if it was OK to take a photo of the cut on my leg. I don't know what that was all about, I just wanted to be done, Today, i had to go have the surgical area checked again today for infection (the surgeon office is across from ThisHospital. After my check, we went across the street where I requested my medical records, including all that happened that night in that ER. While we were waiting for them to print, two people approached me and asked my name and wanted to know if I was a patient in ThisHospital ER on Sunday May 15th. I told them that I was, showed them my bandaged hand & they asked if I had a few minutes to talk with them about what had happened. (I had not complained or anything at this point, I had just called this morning to find out where to go to pick up my records for my visit on 15 May). They asked me into a conference room and introduced themselves as Chief Nursing Officer & Medical Director of Patient services. They told me that an employee on duty while I was there filed a complaint regarding the care I received on my behalf. They were planning on calling me but had also put a tag in my records to be paged if I came back in, They wanted to know if I was planning on contacting the media or a lawyer and if I was willing to talk with them about what had happened that night. They seemed very concerned, very apologetic and very interested in my side of the story. When I explained what had happened, they told me my story exactly matched that of the nurse who had filed the complaint as well as another patient in the ER that night that they had also interviewed (he was the one with the thumb tip that was cut-off and it did NOT take 12 hours as my nurse told me, it took them a little over an hour, the reporting nurse said that my nurse exaggerated the time hoping the physcian's assistant would just sew me up instead) They told me that the ER had been unusually slow that evening and that, in fact, there were only 6 total patients there the entire time I was there. I arrived at 5:05pm and was discharged at 10:33pm. They said that there had been a major issue with triage & that the nurse in charge did not indicate anywhere that I was bleeding profusely, she had just written "small laceration right index finger, patient stable" The truth was, the laceration to my finger cut through two arteries, a nerve bundle, nicked a tendon sheath and I lost a significant amount of blood (arrived at 5 with Class I, Discharged Class III - I am reading this from the paper & don't know what it means). The laceration is 10.2 cm which isn't small. In the end, you may see hyperbole, while what I'm feeling is confusion, pain and stress. Now I have NO idea what is considered an emergency if cutting through a couple arteries, nerves & a tendon, bleeding more than 30% of my blood volume to the point where I was going into shock isn't considered urgent, I guess I don't know what is then. For those of you who wished me well and didn't automatically think I am making things up and told me that I am right to feel upset, thank you. You are the type of nurse I always hope to have caring for me when I need one and the type of nurse I hope to be one day. I feel 100% confident that what I said happened actually did happen now that I've had the hospital admin. approach me AND the fact that a co-worker of those people saw it was not right and reported her own co-workers, maybe no-one else will ever have to feel terrified, confused & in pain when they seek care for an emergency.