Nightshade1972

I once read about a guy who showed up at his local ER, screaming and hollering about how his back hurt, it was killing him, he needs treatment *now,* why is the ER staff so rude/slow? Finally, after a few hours, it's his turn to be examined. Suddenly, he stops screaming and he's perfectly calm. They ask him why he's there. Turned out that, at the beginning of the week, he woke up with back pain. He hoped it'd be gone by the end of the week, since the US Super Bowl was that Sunday (he went to the ER on Saturday). When the back pain wasn't gone by Saturday, he went to the ER, fully expecting them to give him an instant fix for his back pain. "Well, if you've been living with the pain all week, why is it suddenly an emergency now?" "The Super Bowl is tomorrow! I'm supposed to be having a big party with lots of friends! How am I supposed to host a Super Bowl party if I can't even sit up without pain?!" IIRC, they gave him some muscle relaxers and sent him home.

I was born with hydrocephalus, caused by aqueductal stenosis. Apparently "water on the brain" is a common colloquial term for hydro, even though it isn't "water" (it's CSF), and it's not "on" the brain, it's "in" the ventricles.

My wife used to do disability hearings in the US. She learned early on that it was better to just ask her claimants to bring their medicine bottles with them to the disability hearing. If they didn't, she'd ask what they were taking, and she'd get a response like, "Oh, a little white pill, a red tablet, and a big blue pill," but when asked, pt had no idea what the medications were, or what they were for. She also had far too many like what you described, where they'd happily tell my wife that they "used" to have diabetes, but they "don't anymore." "Oh, really? Then what are these (diabetes meds) for?" "My diabetes! But I'm cured now, because I take the pills!"

Years ago, I was a pediatric patient in the neuro ICU, following brain surgery (hydrocephalus). Some sort of doctor or counselor came into my room to do some cognitive testing. During the day, my covers had gotten pushed down to my ankles, and I was too weak to reach for them myself. I was cold. I politely asked the doctor/counselor if he could pull my covers up over my legs, then I'd be happy to do the testing. He flatly refused, and was so rude about it that I started to cry. I realized, even then, it was a power thing for him--"I'm a fully grown adult, you're just a child, *you* don't get to tell *me* what to do!" He did ultimately pull the covers up over my legs, complaining the entire time, even though I'd done everything he asked.

Don't react to anything they say. Let them have the last word. My mother always tried to provoke a response, as "proof" of how mean/rude/unstable/stupid/etc I allegedly was. I learned to just sit there and smile until she wore herself out. When she didn't get the response she wanted from me, ultimately, she'd stop.

I think Cornerstone was the place that kept pestering us when my inlaws had their final illnesses. My inlaws knew they were reaching a point that they could no longer live independently. At the time, my wife traveled a lot for work. With my inlaws' blessing, we started looking at retirement homes that offered progressive levels of care. One of them was very aggressive about calling my inlaws' landline, our landline, and my wife's cellphone, constantly. Couldn't have happened at a worse time--within weeks of each other, both my inlaws became ill and were hospitalized, and my FIL ultimately passed away. No matter how many times I told Cornerstone, when they called (multiple times a day) that now was not a good time, and we'd get a hold of them if/when we were interested, so please take our names off their calling list, they kept calling. I finally looked up their facility online, clicked the Contact Us box, and sent them a very detailed email asking them, for the umpteenth time, to please stop calling us. I also told them that, if they didn't, they could expect to hear from our attorney when we filed charges against them for harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. That's what it took to finally make them stop. The director of the facility responded personally to my email, and promised that no one from his facility would call us again. Fortunately, he kept his word. My FIL died in the hospital. Many of my wife's cousins are nurses, and at least one is also married to a doctor. After my FIL passed away, my MIL moved in with her sister, in a different city, where many of my wife's cousins also lived and practiced. They were able to give her hospice care at her sister's house, until she passed away a few months later.

I'm reminded of one of my MIL's hospital visits. My inlaws lived alone, confident they could take care of themselves. My wife would visit every weekend, usually Saturday. Sometimes I'd come, sometimes not. Anyway, MIL reached a point where she was sleeping more than she was awake, and "awake" consisted of her being very groggy and not with-it mentally. Despite our urging, that didn't get addressed until she had to be hospitalized. She usually went to Hospital A, closest to their house. That hospital was full, so they sent her to Hospital B, closest to our house. The staff at B looked at her meds list and were dumbfounded. Multiple instances of Dr. A prescribing coumadin, Dr. B prescribing warfarin, and my MIL took both because my inlaws didn't have the medical sophistication to recognize a problem, and apparently their pharmacist never caught it. Hospital B, as I said, were horrified when they realized what was happening. They immediately eliminated half her meds, and severely cut the dosage on the other half. They sent her home a few days later, with very strict instructions to follow the new dosing regimen. The very first thing she said when we got her home, after looking at the new dosing regimen, was, "I wonder if I should go back to taking all my old meds? The new doctors at Hospital B wanted me to change everything, I don't want the doctors at Hospital A to be mad!" It took all three of us a great deal of effort to convince her to follow the new medication regimen prescribed by Hospital B.

My mother was one of the unit clerks at the ED in a hospital in suburban Chicago. The entire staff figured out in advance who had four-wheel drive, and who lived close to who, so that on bad weather days they could coordinate. Sometimes that meant my mother (or whoever) would have to get up extra-early because the only way to get a ride into work was to carpool with someone who was working 8a-4p (my mother worked 4p-12a). But she did it, because she wouldn't have felt right leaving the ED understaffed. In Chicago, bad winters are expected, and planned for, they're not a huge surprise.

My husband once had a claimant who had something like 27 cocaine-related heart admissions in 24 weeks. He still couldn't get a clue.

I'm reminded of some of the claimants my husband's dealt with over the years (he helps ppl file for disability). Hubby looks through their history, and asks them about their high blood pressure and their diabetes. They insist they "don't have" HBP/diabetes. My husband says, "Really? Then why are you on (HBP meds) and (diabetes meds)?" The claimant smiles brightly and says, "Oh! I *used* to have HBP/diabetes, but since I started on those meds, I don't have them anymore!" *Facepalm*

My MIL was overmedicated for many years, because neither she nor my FIL understood that (for example) Warfarin and coumadin are the same drug--and that wasn't the only drug that happened with. When she finally had a medical emergency and the hospital closest to them was full, the ambulance took her to the hospital closest to us. The hospital near us took a good, hard, look at *all* of her records (more than the hospital closest to them ever bothered to do) and were horrified. They immediately eliminated half her drugs (duplication) and severely cut the dosage on all the rest. When she was released from the hospital, with discharge instructions including the new drug regimen and their dosages, she looked my husband in the eye and honestly asked him, "Should I really keep taking these drugs, or should I go back to all the drugs I was on before? I don't want (my cardiologist) to be mad at me!" My husband and I hastened to reassure her it was more important for her to be healthy, and less important whether or not her cardiologist was "mad" at her.

My husband's a non-attorney hearing representative. He goes in front of a Social Security judge to explain why his claimant deserves disability benefits. Several of his clients over the years have had an order for alcohol in their chart, for the same reasons others have already stated here--they're dependent on it, and they shouldn't have to suffer through forced detox in addition to whatever other reasons they're in the hospital. When you're treating someone for, say, a burst appendix, that's not the time to also force them to instantly get sober.

I know I posted a comment about this a while ago, on a different thread, but this reminds me of an article I read, about 30 yrs ago, about emotional child abuse. One of the anecdotes was about an elementary school-aged girl who apparently broke her arm during recess. Her teacher found her crying silently in a corner. When the girl was taken to the hospital, her mother was contacted. The first thing the mother did when she arrived at the hospital was demand to know where the coffee machine was. She continued to ignore her daughter. The teacher finally understood why the girl had never said anything to her about her arm, she was used to being ignored. :-(

My mother trained to be a music teacher, but when I (her first child) was born with hydrocephalus, after she left student teaching (back then, you couldn't teach and be pregnant at the same time--I'm 44 yo) she stayed home with me for ten months, then went to work at the local hospital as a unit clerk in the ER. She did that for the next twelve years. After we relocated from Chicago to Houston, she stayed home for 1.5 yrs, then got a job teaching elementary school music. She taught in a public school for 20 yrs, then a private school for four years. Now that she's retired, she still does handbells and choir. She's a member of a small choral group which goes around and performs at malls, nursing homes, etc. Her group frequently performs at the senior living facility where my grandmother (her mother) lives.

Aww, thank you. I've been through 17 shunt surgeries (I'm hydrocephalic), so my pain tolerance is higher than most ppl, but after the hysterectomy I was popping the hydrocodone like candy. Take two, fall asleep for a few hours, wake up, take two more, fall back asleep, etc. I was basically awake long enough to bathe, eat, and go to the bathroom for the first two weeks post-surgery. Haven't touched any hydrocodone since. :-)