Sharing the ups and downs of my son's time in the hospital

[Energizer Bunny]

as some of you know, my son, trey, was in the hospital last week for god knows what. we still don't know and it has been going on a long time now (since january). i wanted to share with some of you what our experience was like with the nurses and other staff at the local hospital.

first, in the er, we had an absolutely fabulous rn named owen who took great care of trey. he did the iv and was even in there talking to him and rubbing his head, etc. when we got to talking, i mentioned to him about starting school again in the fall and he was very helpful, suggesting some different things to me to keep in mind. we took trey upstairs after midnight and owen kept apologizing because he had two admissions before trey (and was supposed to go home over an hour before that). i certainly didn't mind when we were receiving such good care.

the dr. that saw him in the er was the one on call for our pediatrician and we absolutely loved her. she was the first dr. that actually acknowledged that something was really wrong with our son. every other time we had had him in to see his regular dr. she treated us like we were being overly cautious. (i don't think she has any children and i think this might be part of the reason why she is not quite so understanding...but that is a poll question waiting to happen!) the ped. that we saw in the er actually called to check on trey the next day. our reg. ped. never called!!!! never!!!! and she was not ever on call when he was in the hospital so we never saw her. she was supposed to call us on wed. or thurs. with our referral appointment at children's and never did. finally, my husband called and told her what we thought of the treatment we had been receiving. we switched all of our children to the other ped. that saw trey in the er. but, i digress....

the night trey was admitted, he had a fabulous nurse who just took wonderful care of him. she brought me in a fold out chair to sleep in or told me i could sleep with him if i wanted to. she brought extra blankets and pillows for me and asked me if i needed anything. after reading on here how many of you don't like patients families asking for all kinds of stuff, i was hesitant to ask for anything unless it was something trey really needed.

silly kid got so he wouldn't pee unless i had gone to get something to eat and he could ring the nurse to help him instead of me! the nurses loved it though and were very helpful to him.

the nurses in the unit work 12 hour shifts so we only had one shift change and even during that, the nurses were always available to us. they kept offering to come and sit with trey so i could get something to eat, etc. they were very, very helpful and when they saw me reading a nursing manual, they were very nice and helpful with suggestions for me with school just as owen was. trey also had some students helping to take care of him. he always had an rn and two aides...sometimes two rn's and one aide and then lpn's sometimes too. a student even took out his iv for him when he left.

the night before he got discharged, i got violently ill. i had been having stomach pains and went to get something to eat, per nurses orders. about five hours later, i was praying to the porcelin god. i felt so bad that i cleaned up the toilet but i had gotten trey's hat dirty so i had to ask them for some help. when i went out to the desk, the clerk there got me everything i needed and called someone in to clean up the bathroom. she also got me some ginger ale, though i kept telling her she didn't need to. another nurse also got me some maalox even though she wasn't supposed to. they really were just fabulous! and i cannot say enough about the desk clerks....they were always willing and ready to get trey a popsicle or whatever he needed.

it was very depressing in the peds. unit because they have mixed it in with a regular medical unit due to not having patients much of the time and the nursing shortage and all. but, the nurses really helped to make it a much better experience than we expected.

we are going to sit down and make them some thank you cards together and some cookies and take them up to the unit next week. i feel so much better knowing that he was well taken care of and also having each and every nurse validate my feelings that something is really wrong with trey. so, i'm not completely nuts, eh?

anyways,....to all of you out there that are already nurses...a great big huge thank you for what you do!!!!!

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

That was awfully nice of you to give nursing the thumbs up. Hope you are feeling better now that everyone is home. A rule of thumb- if you are worried about being a bother- you aren't at all. So relax and enjoy the pampering. :)

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Thanks for sharing. Hope Trey gets well and stays well.