I am usually the mom that loves everyone and has a hard time finding fault with the people and situations that pop up in the hospital. I wasn't even really angry when we had to change rooms two weeks ago at midnight- after I had already fallen asleep. Today I was livid.
We have two hospital choices when it comes to the urologist. One is a big hospital with a children's hospital attached, and one is a hospital that is only for children. One would think that the primary children's hospital would be... child friendly, right? No. This would be the same hospital that never checked vitals when we were there for her staph infection that was inside of her port. We usually won't go there, but in this case I had to make the decision in the middle of Kohl's with my calendar being my phone. I just thought this would have the stent out two days earlier, and it couldn't be that bad, right?
I knew we were in trouble when we got there and Emily pointed out that we all forgot to numb her port area with lidocaine (Emla) cream. We discussed it with a nurse who was more worried about getting Emily to pee. One would think we would work on the Emla first since it needs time to sit, but nope. She gave her a gown 12 sizes too big and demanded a urine sample- without the little cleaning cloths. Em was like, "but this won't be a clean catch!" They put her chair at the opposite end of the hall, and kept knocking to see if she had peed yet. We finally gave up and went back to the room. This time there were 3 nurses in the room, none of which had Emla. I finally texted Daddy to run out to the van. Oh yeah, did I mention that only 2 people were allowed back there with her? At our other hospital there was much less room but we could all go back together. Here they said that we could bring them back in "a little while". She also gave me the wrong room number so I almost didn't find them again. She said 9. They were in 10 with the curtain closed. Whatever. One of the three nurses never mumbled a word until it came time to attempt to access the port. It took two of them, one asking the other to grab supplies, but neither seemed to know what they were doing. In the end they hurt Em a bit, and then used a seriously oversized bandage on it.
I could be cool with all of that. Mostly. My final problems were that they finally allowed Dad & Zach back after two and a half hours back there, only to have them hang out for only five minutes. The worst part was that they didn't give her anything to help her calm down before leaving the room. In fact, they didn't even give us the, "last call for hugs" warning. It was just bars up, say goodbye. They said we could have a moment in the hall, but they kept the bars up. She cried all the way down the hall. You would think they would have handled that a little better, especially knowing that she is medically complicated. I was so upset about that. We all decided at that point that we were never going back there.
There were a few bright spots. The anesthesiologist was very sweet and he took his time, asking excellent questions. He even pulled a tooth while he was in there! :)
The other bright spot was our nurse practitioner. She has RA, and she used to see our first rheumatologist, now known to us simply as, "He Who Shall Not Be Named". She made a Freudian slip when discussing him that had me cracking up! He tried to screw her over, too. It was great to have someone who understood- if only for a few minutes. Overall though, we will never go back there. I don't care how new or beautiful an establishment is, or how good the view. If the quality of care is lacking, it just ain't worth it.
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