Medical People really don't get it

I have told so many of my friends I HATE doctors. I truly do. Yes, I know, I go to them when I'm on my death bed to have them fix me but I truly do not like them. I have told a few doctors that too. I like to get it out in the open so we know where the other person stands on the "relationship". I don't trust them. They are human and can err, but too many of them have a "God like" attitude and it pisses me off!

Yet on the other hand I'm VERY intrigued with the medical field. When I hear of something I have to research it. It just blows my mind on how the body works. I love the medical for humans and animals. Science in general maybe?

My dad was in a car accident in June of this year. Well, actually it was a motorcycle accident. He was hit by a 70+yr old woman who ran a red light. Totaled my dad's bike and left him with bruises, 3 broken ribs, and a seperated shoulder. He is fine but since then his shoulder has been messed up and nothing seems to be working.

When my dad first got into the accident the hospital he went to did some x-rays of his shoulder. They told him they could do surgery but they couldn't guarantee it would fix it. So he opted to not have the surgery. They never told him to go to a specialist. Then after a few months it wasn't better so he went back to the doctor and they told him he needed physical therapy. They wanted him to go five times a week. He went maybe 2 or 3 times a week because he told my mom it was too painful. If you know my dad he can handle pain so telling my mother it was too painful was saying alot. She told him she didn't think he needed physical therapy because she felt it was doing more harm than good on the shoulder.

He finally decided to go to another doctor and they sent him on to a shoulder specialist. All this doctor does is shoulders. He told my dad he should have had surgery 4 mos. ago and that his shoulder would never heal and the physical therapy was doing more harm than good. HMMM....interesting. Apparently the muscle in his arm was torn to shreds and it couldn't heal. There wasn't anything in there for the body to repair. It simply couldn't do it.

He told my father he would do the surgery and put a cadaver muscle in there and it would take 6mos to recover! So the surgery was scheduled.

The day of the surgery my father did everything he was suppose to do like not eating and such. They called my dad and told him the doctor was running behind and they didn't know when they would be able to get my dad in for his surgery. Now mind you, his surgery was scheduled for 11:30am. They had called and pushed it to 10:00am and then they called and said 10:30am and now they say they don't know when it will happen. He is a hypoglycemic and can't go without food for too long and he was already starting to get hungry AND irritable! Not a good combination. He told them this and they said he could come in and they could monitor him until the doctor was ready. He said he felt like a piece of meat. He said he wanted to reschedule and the nurses told him they would have to call the doctor and find out. My dad told them he would do that himself. The doctor called my dad back himself and told my dad he was waiting for this machine he would be using in the surgery so he wouldn't have to use a cadaver muscle. My dad told him to reschedule and the doctor said he only did surgeries on Fridays and he would let my dad know when he could fit him into the surgery schedule!

Ok, so that right there threw me into a tizzy. I'm thinking if you know you are going to be operating on a patient on a specific day wouldn't you have the machine there the day or two before so you wouldn't have to look like an idiot? Hmmm....so we are starting off on the right foot, aren't we?

My dad had to go to the hospital prior to this first scheduled surgery and pre-register. He told the woman there he would have to have my mom in the recovery BEFORE he woke up because she is the only person he can hear and he is not such a nice person when coming out of being put to sleep. So the woman red flagged his chart all over the place to let them know this.
My dad even told the surgeon this and the surgeon said, "There won't be any need of that because the staff can handle it. If I let you back there then I would have to let everyone back there. I can't give you special treatment." Hmmm...OK, your choise there Doc!

So a week later the surgeon was able to get my dad in for this surgery. Now you must first know my dad is a VERY hard person to get to go to sleep. When he went to get his wisdom teeth out they gave him the highest dose a human can have without killing them and he still was not asleep! That tell you something? My dad has to get it in his mind to allow them to put him to sleep or it just isn't happening.

Day of surgery my dad goes in and they give my mom a pager to let her know when the surgery is over. She was out for a smoke and the pager hadn't gone off but when she got back to the waiting room the nurses were practically running to greet her. They told her they had been looking all over for her that she MUST come back to the recovery room. My mom said she thought, "Nope you said you could handle situations like this so go ahead, handle it!" Then she thought better.

My mom went with them and as soon as she got in the recovery room they were getting out the straps and were getting ready to strap him into the bed. That would have been their FIRST, maybe second, or third mistake??? My dad would have ruined what the doctor just spent an hour and a half repairing! He was fighting and he was fighting BIG time.

My mom told them to NOT do what they were doing and told them all to just BACK OFF. She got near him and got his attention and he looked at her and said, "You sure are pretty." She said she knew then he wasn't in the present! :)

She leaned in and said, "L...you are in the year 2008 you need to repeat that back to me."

My dad looked at her and said, "Where are my men? Where is my rifle? I'm hurt, I have to help my men."

My mom said, "L...you are not in the military. You are in the year 2008. Repeat this back to me."

He said, "Where is Gerard?" Gerard was one of my dad's men.

My mom said, "The last I knew he was living in Texas working as a lawyer and he is just fine."

My dad said, "I'm tired. I'm so tired of killing people. I don't want to kill anymore people."

My mom said, "You don't have to. You are here in 2008. You retired in 1987. This is the year 2008."

My mom was crying during this seeing my dad go thru this. I even started crying during her telling me this.

During all this time as she is holding him down and keeping him calm nurses are coming and going and keep trying to come up to my dad. As they are my mom puts up her hand and tells them to stop and not come near and asked what they needed. She would then tell my dad who they were and what they wanted. One time a nurse came up and went to take his blood pressure and he swung at her. He didn't know who she was and thought she was the "enemy". All he knew is that he was hurt and he needed to protect his men. He didn't know anything else.

The nurses just didn't understand you could NOT touch him. You could not go near him. He can kill a man with his bare hands and these nurses would not have been anything to him.

Then a doctor came in. He shuffled right up to my dad and my mom said my dad was scooting to get out of the bed. He looked right at this doctor and said, "I don't like that man." My mom said if looks could kill that doctor would have been dead. The doctor didn't even pay attention. My mom told him to STOP and to stay right where he was and the doctor said, "I'm Dr. Kenny and I came to see if he wants that block we talked about before he went to sleep." My mom tried asking him what block he was talking about and the doctor totally blew my mom off and wouldn't acknowledge her and was STILL trying to get near my dad. My mom kept telling him to BACK OFF all the while trying to keep my dad still. My dad at this point was fighting to get up to get away from this man or kill him we aren't sure which. Finally the doctor got upset enough and huffed off. My mom then asked to speak to the head of the hospital because that doctor was WRONG.

So here is another mistake. When you are just coming out of a sleep like that you are NOT awake by any means and this man is coming in and asking my dad to make a decision on his health care? Ummm.....can't make rational important decisions!! Don't they make you sign papers before going into surgery that warns you about making decisions like that and NOT to??? My dad was, in his mind, laying in a field in Vietnam hurt and looking for his rifle! HELLO!!!!!!

By the way, the head of the hospital was in a "meeting" and my mother was still waiting to hear from her when she called in the afternoon to let me know how he was doing!

My mom did hear one of the nurses say, "post traumatic" and then they got what was going on!

They finally were able to get my dad's blood pressure under control to move him into a room and then another nurse walked in and my mom stopped him. She asked his name and what he needed. He said his name was Mike and needed another blood pressure. My mom told him to give her the cuff and she would take it for him. So he did. SMART NURSE FINALLY! She took the blood pressure and let Mike know what it was. Mike said, "you passed the test." My dad looked at him and said, "She passed the test a long time ago." Then my mom had to explain to Mike she was an RN. Mike had to do some other things to my dad and my mom looked at dad and told him who Mike was and what he needed to do and my dad looked at mom and said, "2008?" My mom said, "Yes, 2008." She knew at that point he was back to where he needed to be and things were going to be fine.

Then the nurse who had written all over the charts for my mother to be there BEFORE my dad woke up came in to see my parents. My dad grabbed her hand and said, "Hi Kathy, nice to see you." She apologized so much to my mom. My mom told her it wasn't her fault and to not get upset. She did her job it's the other people who didn't listen.

This just infuriates me! I have had ONE doctor in my whole life tell me I'm the person who knows my family, children, and myself better than any doctor and doctors should listen more. HELLO! Why can't they all be like him? My dad AND my mother both told these people my mother needed to be in the room before my dad was to wake up and everyone chose to ignore their request.

I told mom I think they just hear so many stories they just blow most of the stories off but yet they shouldn't because there could be that one rare case where the people are really, truly serious about what they say! In this case they found out!

My mom works for hospice and she said when they first start a cancer patient out on morphine they give them .5mg of it. When my dad woke up he immediately started fighting them and they couldn't control him so they gave him 20mg of morphine and 10mg of toradol and the man was STILL coming out of the bed swinging and fighting them. Any "normal" person would have been sound asleep again but not him!

My mom said, "I still believe dynamite comes in small packages!"

The block the doctor wanted to give my dad? My mom asked my dad about it since the doctor wouldn't tell my mother! My dad said it was a shot they give in the neck into a certain nerve and it "blocks" the pain for 12-24hrs BUT it messes with your diaphram too and it can stop your breathing and kill you! My mom said, "Do you want that?" My dad said, "NO!" Could you imagine if my mom wasn't there? First of all Dr. Kenny wouldn't still be among the living and my dad would be back on the surgery table NEXT Friday to repair what the doctor had to repair!

My dad's shoulder was so bad the doctor still had to use a cadaver muscle because he couldn't save the other muscle. Now my dad's shoulder is immoblized for TWO MONTHS. Which is going to be very hard for him because he is HARD to keep down. The doctor said he should have 85% use of his shoulder once it's all done. Again, they don't know my dad. He had shattered his wrist one time and the surgeon told him 80-90% mobility in that wrist and he has 100% mobility. The doctor was totally amazed.

So, this should be a fun 2 mos. The doctor said he will be in an extreme amount of pain this weekend but if he can get thru this weekend it will be all down hill after that.

My mom is going to write a formal complaint against Dr. Kenny and she will also write about how the medical staff REALLY needs to listen to people when they tell them something. GO MOM!

Medical people really don't get it!