Another Hospital Trip

Wow, the new Norton Brownsboro Crossing Hospital is pretty nice. We’re not talking BEast Park Tower nice but it’s nicer than the shared rooms at the Cleveland Clinic. While the hospitals here are going toward the hotel look, the newly remodeled floor at the Double C is going old style psycho ward look. White walls, white floors, industrial artwork, the only thing missing is the straightjacket hangars. It’s no wonder we wanted to get the heck out of there.

Did I leave something out? Why am I telling you about the new hospital? Why do you think? I’m telling you because Renee just can’t stay away. Four days out of Cleveland and she just couldn’t help herself. She must have been going through withdrawals. Just because we came home does not mean all is well. Take the patient, she expects complete recovery overnight. She is getting frustrated with the continuing pain and the inability to eat like she did before the surgery. Uh, hello! Abdominal surgery equals abdominal pain and appetite and diet may be affected by this. Do you think? Cream of wheat and tea have been her staples. Boy she likes her tea, I wonder why she doesn’t have a cup out when it is offered?

I started back to work Tuesday so I’m juggling car pool, housemaid and nursing duties along with my regular shift. Juggling is easy, it’s just keeping all of the balls in the air at the same time that is tough. Wednesday was a tough day of fielding panic calls about an ambulance and hospitals from Renee and her mom. Now I must confess that for a change none of this was about Renee. It’s about Other Nana, her 92 year old grandmother, and her admittance to the hospital. For a change Renee is not the patient but the visitor. Sorry folks I just couldn’t resist leading you on a bit.

Other fell in the bathroom, needed x-rays and some other tests so took an ambulance ride to Norton. The fall has knocked her further out of lucidity and raised her level of care to 24/7. Not that she wasn’t there before the fall but now I think her primary caregiver, Renee’s mom, is finally accepting that this has reached a degree beyond her abilities to handle at home.

Renee must be feeling little better because one, she got out of the house to visit Other and two, she was arguing with her nurse, me, over a bandage versus a band-aid. She has two incisions, one being the stoma site which is pretty large and the other a small slit to drain the knot that wasn’t a knot. Both sites are healing nicely. It was my turn to change the dressing, since it’s always my turn, and Renee felt the need to tell me how to do my job. Which one of us went to nursing school here? I think I can tell when a tiny wound requires only a band-aid rather than a 4x4 bandage with enough tape to wrap a mummy. OK, so maybe I didn’t go to nursing school but I have almost a full year of on-the-job-training with Renee and, at least I looked at the wound before I decided what size band-aid to pick. Just to make Renee happy I picked the biggest in the box.

I’ll allow a certain amount of post-op antics as I understand the frustration of the patient, but if she pulls a stunt like that again I’m going all Nurse Ratched on her. Nurse Ratched guys? C’mon do I have to explain everything? One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest? Ring a bell? You should know that if you’re reading this blog that there’s going to a heck of a lot of insanity references. It helps keeps me sane – and not a word from you hecklers.

The good news is that Renee is slowly progressing rather than going in the opposite direction like her previous surgeries. The bad news is that she has the added stress of her sick grandmother and we just can’t seem to distance ourselves from those dang hospitals.