The Advocate Day Two Hospital

 Day Two Hospital 

I took a short nap and got ready to head back in. 3pm I called my sister on the way back to the hospital to get an update. She said they had put her on a high flow nasal cannula during the day and her saturation was stable and no other significant changes. I come back to the hospital and she’s still in the ER bed but to my surprise back on Bipap and still breathing rapidly. The nurse said she continuously pulled herself off and saturation would drop so they put her back on the Bipap. The nurse said she pulled her self-off and they all went running in her room (I’m sure they didn’t) and she sat there and said, “I figured that would get your attention, I want something to drink” (Now I’m 100% sure that did happen because that’s how she is). When you look at her mouth it was black and obviously real dry. (Day three is when I realized why this was, more to come.) Fortunately she was somewhat alert and oriented when I sat down beside her. She was extremely uncomfortable and wanted in the chair. Still no catheter. As I started to get her chair ready to sit in it said, “Oh God I’m going to have to use the bathroom”. I hit the call light and waited for a minute. She got impatient which is understandable. I got the bedside commode and was she was able to transfer with little help unlike the night before. As soon as she sat down, she started to cry. Here I am she’s crying because she can’t breathe well and I’m having to help her. This doesn’t faze me, and she got over its real quick cause she knew this is just how it was going to be in the ER just me and her getting through it. Well the smell hit me, and I hit the call light that someone conveniently turned off before without responding. Someone finally answered and I told them she was on the bedside, and I need help getting her put back together. I thought in my mind Ill wipe her hind end if I need to, but I would rather someone else do it that’s getting paid. So the nurse came in looking like a cheetah print elevated ego ER RN. She was like “Oh”. I said I guess you didn’t get the message and she said she was there just to give meds. I was like oh ok good you can help me clean her up and put her in the chair. Obviously not really what she anticipated. This was awkward she acted like she was scared to do this task, but it was happening. I could tell she didn’t expect me to help which was a continual trend during our stay. She didn’t have a flow which was prolonging this process. Eventually we got done and Moma was sitting in the chair. The nurse looks at the commode and was like I need to figure out what to do with this. I chuckled. I then went into fixing Moma up in the chair and fixing her bed back up. I asked for the catheter, and she said she would look into it. I also tried to make small talk asking how many patients she had and how the evening was going. She said she had five patients and that three of them were critical including Moma. I asked her if she had ICU experience and she said she had just been an ER nurse. Now don’t get me wrong I love a good nurse and I also don’t think every nurse is created equally some are better at certain things than others. This nurse was not into intensive care or long-term care she was a treat em’ and street em’ kind of gal not interested in building a rapport with the patient or family. That’s totally fine she is an ER nurse they’re not all built to have a patient for long periods of time. With COVID and the staffing this has changed things a bit. They were expected to handle Intensive Care patients that usually get a nurse with only one or two patients and handle emergencies at the drop of a hat within the Emergency Department. People coming in stuff that don’t need the ER didn’t help this issue. Like the one when I was in the lobby that had been exposed to COVID but had no symptoms. Also the staff getting burnt out on handling this patient load was not helping either. So here we are again staring at each other and she’s still breathing 40-50 times a minute now. Able to talk some but not full sentences of course. While sitting in the chair she rang the call light and said she was hurting whoever answered it was short with their responses but said OK. Shortly later she rang the call bell without me knowing asking for a catheter. The lady that answered the bell over the intercom was the rudest soul that walked the planet. She said I can’t here you speak up, I said she is on a Bipap its difficult, I said she is asking for a catheter. Whoever this evil soul was said “We are not asking a doctor for a catheter for you, we have emergencies out here we are handling.” I’m not sure why at this point I didn’t show my entire ass, but I felt so helpless, there was nothing I could do. A good friend came by after being persistent telling me I need to eat and brought some food. This gave me a little fuel since I remembered I hadn’t eaten. Usually I don’t miss a meal, but out of sight of mind. The nurse had made another round finally and I asked her for a catheter, she started in on a lecture of how it wasn’t necessary and so on. I calmly said I totally understand what you are saying, but if you would please look into your computer for an order that would be fantastic. She belittled the question but said she would look in a little while. Within 30 minutes she came back in the room with a catheter kit and super apologetically said this had been order since 630am that day. I helped her through the motions and at that point even though she was not a rapport kind of gal she had invested herself a little more into our care. So we are at about 32 hours now of her being in the ER still and still having this horrible respiratory rate of 30-50 times a minute. I’m exhausted at this point with only a very few hours of sleep. I told her I needed to go home and take a nap. She really did not want me to go home, and I felt guilty about leaving, but I was not worth anything. I had decided to go home and sleep for about four to five hours and come back. I made sure she was all set up and comfortable and propped up right and had the bed angled so she could not scoot, had the call bell right there and just tried to make sure she would be set for a little while. I left her phone with her in her lap. I headed home around midnight and did a load of laundry and tried to relax finally laying down around 1am. I had a tough time falling asleep paranoid I would not be able to hear my phone if it rang.