It's Been Emotional

Big Chris said it best. It's been emotional.

We've been home for a few days now. Nyx was discharged on Wednesday afternoon. By that point I was ready to sign her out AMA. We had the best experience at that hospital back in September but this time around? Fuck those shitty nurses. Seriously.

Look, I know hospitals are busy places and nurses are overworked but for the love of God! Babies should not miss their pain medications because some nurse can't be bothered to watch the time. I had to pull a Shirley MacClaine ala Terms of Endearment to get my baby her pain medication. (GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!) Pumpkin went 9 hours without meds because the orders weren't written properly. I asked the nurse not once, not twice but THREE times if there was something Pumpkin could have instead of the narcotic written for her. No answer, no reply.

I'm not stupid. I know all she had to do was wake the attending. They did it the last time we were on that floor and Nyx had some pain management issues. He was only too happy to come down, check her out and write a new order.

When the docs came through to do rounds, Nyx was clearly in pain so the cardiologist and nurse practitioner wrote new orders for alternating doses of Motrin and Tylenol with Codeine. Great, right? Not so much. The nurse leaves to get the medicine, I assume. Doesn't come back for ten minutes. I buzz for the nurse and am told by the secretary person the nurse will be there soon. Ten more minutes go by. Nyx is screaming and rigid with pain. I'm fed the eff up. I leave her with Dave and head out to find the nurse. She walks by just as I open the door. I lose my shit--as calmly as possible, of course.

Pumpkin got her pain meds.

I figured that would be our one hiccup during the stay. Again, um, not so much. That night they started giving Pumpkin something to make her poop. Guess what? She had a massive adverse reaction. Lots of puking and dry heaving. You can imagine how much fun that was for her with a huge chest incision and a sternum held together with wire. And, of course, she puked up all her pain meds so she had nothing to help with the pain--AGAIN.

Early in the morning, right around shift change, Nyx puked all over herself for the millionth time. I managed to keep the puke from hitting her incision and chest tube sites but it splashed all down her legs and into that crappy little plastic house thing covering the IV on her foot. It soaked the white foam/cloth brace too. I couldn't clean it because the IV was already rather iffy. The catheter wasn't even fully inserted because of a valve. I didn't want to mess with it too much so I buzz the nurse. She tells me it will have to wait until after shift change. Um, okay. What about her pain meds? Those will have to wait too.

I clean up the kiddo (no easy feat since she's tethered to a pulse ox cord and still had a chest tube hanging out of her right side, just under her arm) and change the bedding. Lord knows you can't get a CNA or someone from housekeeping to help with linens at that time of the morning. I get Pumpkin calmed down and we pass out together because neither of us has slept in days--her because of the pain and me because, well, my baby was in pain. Who the hell can sleep through that?

So I wake up a little before eight and still no nurse to clean her foot or to bring pain meds. I talk to the attending during his early morning rounds. He tells me he'll find her and send in her in but she never comes. I buzz and buzz and buzz and she finally--after nearly forty-five minutes later--finds her way to the room. No pain meds in hand because she says the order is PRN. Um, no, it's not. It's every three hours. And she still didn't clean the baby's foot. She disappears.

By this point I am effing livid. The rest of the surgeons and docs and students come through to do their rounds and I tell them exactly what I think about how they and the charge nurse run that floor. My pumpkin is six months old. She has no real concept of pain or how to cope for hours on end with it. To have her suffer because of incompetence was absolutely unacceptable to me. My baby puked all night, sometimes gagging, and there was no suction hooked up in that room. Considering those nurses took half an hour to answer a buzz, my baby would have aspirated and died before any of them finally made it to her room. And that filthy puke foot? How fucking ridiculous is that?

And don't even get me started on the nurse who ordered six (6!) feedings worth of breastmilk from the Milk Bank knowing Nyx wouldn't take a bottle (we told her REPEATEDLY) and then looked surprised the next day when they had to pour all those bottles of milk down the drain. Gee, really? Man, I worked so hard for every single ounce of that milk. To have it go to waste hurt. I'd been pumping that milk to bring home for the sippy cup and to make homemade baby food. I came home with 17 bottles of milk so not too bad a haul but still. I could have had 23!

The poop hit the fan. They sent in a patient advocate, the charge nurse and the floor manager. Nyx finally got her foot cleaned and we had her pain meds on time. It still took an average of fifteen minutes for a nurse to answer a buzz but whatever. We got through those last few days alive.

Our discharge wasn't very smooth either. They came through that morning to do her last two chest x-rays and heel sticks. It took them four sticks to get enough blood. During our four and half days on that floor, the lab techs stuck Pumpkin's heels a total of 19 times!

So anywho. Lab techs take forever to squeeze out those little drops of blood. The nurse that day (a damn fine nurse) came in and told them (in the nicest terms) to fuck off down the hallway. Whatever blood they had was all they were getting. She gave Pumpkin her pain meds and then had someone from x-ray come up to take us down in a wheelchair for her x-rays. Since the kiddo didn't have that tube anymore they wouldn't do portables. Whatever, right?

X-rays and labs done, we waited for the docs to do their rounds and give us instructions. Pumpkin had a little bit of fluid around her heart but it wasn't enough for concern. We'll have it checked out tomorrow at her cardiologist visit in Austin (the first of two this week.) We were given a refresher on cleaning the incision site and giving Pumpkin baths. We went through the list of what to watch for and who to call. Finally, we thought, we're getting the hell out of here.

Except someone misplaced our discharge paperwork. That was ten in the morning. Our nurse finally tracked it down a little after one in the afternoon. Oi! So we sign and sign and make a run for it. I felt like William Wallace ala Braveheart when we finally pulled out of that parking garage and onto Fannin for the last time. FREEDOM!

I will say I don't think our experience with nurses on that floor is indicative of the level of care that hospital offers. I think we just had a batch of lousy nurses. It happens. I'm not about to paint the whole profession with a broad brush. I still think the bulk of nurses are compassionate, caring and skilled people.

If anything, I've learned you have to advocate for your kiddos. I'm sure those nurses thought I was on hellacious bitch but I could care less. I'm a mommy now. Making people cry--that's just part of the job.