The Advocate Day Five Hospital

 Day Five Hospital  

This morning I woke up to a message from my sister that they had flipped her back on her to her back, but she didn’t tolerate it too well. She said she was stable. I got ready with my new routine of getting my stuff together to head to the hospital. On the way to the hospital this morning I decided to listen to a YouTube video about ARDS. This was a mistake. I get so upset because I hear high mortality rate a poor prognosis. I texted my sister and told I needed her to tell me on a scale of 1-10 Moma was going to die. My sister's only response was ARDS mortality rate is high. I said I need a number and she said she honestly doesn’t know. When I got there, I walked into the room, washed my hands and automatically talked to Moma telling her I was there and that I loved her. I was immediately met by the nurse that was taking care of her. She was so pleasant and was giving me a full update on how she was doing. She said since they had flipped her over, she had been randomly dropping her saturation even unprovoked. She said all her vitals were stable and her last blood gas was good. She just didn’t do so hot laying on her back. I told the nurse my sister planned on being there later that day and she could go over everything with her. I sat in the room a while and decided to pull up my work email. That was a mistake, got a resignation from a girl who literally had told me a few weeks ago she loved it here. This gave me anxiety of course. Fortunately, during this whole time I've been out of work Cindy has been holding down the fort, but this was a little much. Ricardo had gotten us lunch and we were going to meet downstairs. We met outside where we waited on the door dash feller to drop off our Chinese food. Once the food was delivered, we weaved back through a weird hallway. Finally, we make our way to the doctor's lounge. Large open space with plenty of seating and a kitchen area fully stocked. We sat down and there was an old man in a badge shirt and khaki pants. He was just aimlessly walking around. Ricardo said he retired as a surgeon about 10 years ago. I'm automatically confused.... Why is he here? Ricardo said he just comes every day and eats snacks, uses the bathroom and watches tv but doesn’t talk to anyone. Ricardo then said no one really talks here, wait and see. I was thinking he was full of it. Lord was I wrong. As we ate our chines food tons of doctors come and went, he would say hey or wave and they would be looking at their phone or the floor or straight ahead. None of them acknowledged anyone. This environment made me feel so uncomfortable. Halfway through our conversation I just blurted out I know what you mean now. He asked what, I reemphasized how depressing it was that none of them acknowledged each other's existence. We finished up lunch and I headed back to see Moma, and he headed to the office. Later on, my sister shows up. She came in and had it together then the next thing I knew was she tore up crying. I was like that understandable she looks rough. I gave her time. I decided to rub lotion on Moma's back and arms. She used to tell me “Them old people love that”. All those tips and tricks about bedside care she ever shared I have always used, and it does set you apart from the others. After my sister gathered herself, we stood around the bed and recapped everything and once again I wanted to know what's next. Ivy was persistent, she was transferred to a higher level of care. The nurse was in the room and asked my sister if she wanted to review the labs, she also just talked about how she had done over the day. The nurse was so genuine and kind it was nice to have her take care of Moma. Through conversation we learned that the nurse's sister who was 30 years old was on the vent with COVID back in Ohio. Ricardo automatically went into small talk about Ohio. All I could think was damn if I would be at work if my sister was laid up on a vent. I felt like I needed to tell her how good of a nurse she was. I told her I was so sorry her sister was so far away and that she was here working but expressed how thankful I was she was able to provide such great care to my mother. Dr Garwood came in the room, and I was eager to tell her Happy Womens Physician Day. She said she didn’t know there was such a thing. Something I learned from my old bosses is you got to invest in people and your team, and they will invest in more into you. So here I am trying to butter her up to take good care of Moma. Like I said, this doc and Moma had a history together, so she was already fully invested in her care, but I just wanted to put the cherry on top. She looked over her and talked with Ivy about a transfer. Dr Garwood acknowledged that the attending McGuire was stubborn and didn’t want to transfer her. He had already blocked a transfer to Duke that Ricardo had inquired about. A little while passes and McGuire comes into the room. He said he doesn’t think she is stable enough to transfer and there was nothing anyone else was going to do differently for her. At this point I feel discouraged, is this the end of the road or are we still playing the waiting game? The doctor reviewed everything he had done and talked about what we were dealing with now. Ultimately at this point we have ARDS but unsure if it is due to COVID or aspiration pneumonia. I thought he already thought this was aspiration pneumonia because they had done a sputum culture with a preliminary reading of Haemophilus. My sister said to the attending what about treatment of nitrous oxide? The attending shot that idea down and said everyone he has tried nitrous on has died. Here I am listening to everything but at the same time I could not hear anything. I started to shut down at this point. I tried to act tough though because I just wasn’t ready to break down yet. The doctor left the room and Ivy and Ricardo continued to talk. Ivy had reached out to a friend about potentially getting a bed at Atrium in Charlotte. Ricardo said he would try to pull some strings or do a physician-to-physician favor. We decided to leave for dinner for the night. Every time possible I try to talk in Moma’s ear to let her know what's going on. This struck the conversation up at dinner about whether she can hear us or is she asleep. What's going through her mind? Is she ok? Is she counting sheep? Is she hurting? Is she trying to get up? I hope she's just in a good sleep. We had a decent supper and headed our separate ways. Ivy took the night shift of keeping up with Moma again.