Tuesday afternoon my husband ended up in the Emergency Room of one of our local hospitals. He has had some abdominal pain that would come and go over the past month or so. Tuesday, it came on with a vengeance and didn't leave. It started around noon and by 3, he came out to me saying he couldn't take it anymore and he needed to go to the hospital.
I am a "suck it up" kind of girl. I hate to go to the doctor, let alone the emergency room unless I am to the point that I feel like I'm dying. I have all of my yearly appointments, but beyond that, I would rather just stay away! My husband is not far off from that same concept. Doesn't like going and I make all of his appointments for the year.
So, when he walked out, doubled over and looking a tad green, saying he wanted to go, I knew it must be some serious pain. I grabbed a sweater and my kindle and off we went.
When we entered the hospital his blood pressure was 135/79. High. Not his normal pressure. They decided to treat him for acid reflux, gave him some medication and pain medication and said in 20 minutes if the pain had subsided, that would be the issue. 45 minutes later, his pain was still there, if not worse.
Take his blood pressure again and it is now 143/81. Higher. Not good. At this point they hook him up to fluids and give him another two doses of pain medication.
An hour later, they retake his blood pressure and it is 150/83. Even higher. Now at this point I'm becoming frustrated. His blood pressure just keeps going up and no one seems concerned. You can tell the nurse can't figure out what is going on.
Then it happens: SHIFT CHANGE
It all goes to hell after that. We ask twice for another blanket for Jeff because by now he is freezing. No blanket. They never retake his blood pressure. The new nurse comes in and says blood work didn't show anything, nothing else we can do here. You need to get an appointment with a GI doctor and take some pain medication. I'm confused as to what the point was of us even going there. He was released with the same issues that we went in for!
Needless to say, Jeff's evening was not good. The doctor I called that the hospital referred me to, said they could see him in August! Not happening. So, asked a friend for a recommendation and he now has an appointment today.
I feel bad for him. He is extremely uncomfortable and just wants some answers. Hopefully those will come today!
Hope Jeff gets some answers today. I know the feeling of shift change - my dad had a mild heart attack last week and somewhere in the shift change they forget to give him the nitro to help the pain. The doctor finally came in the room and asked how the pain was now that he had the nitro - I SAID HE NEVER GOT IT!!!!!!! Hopefully Jeff gets a doctor thats willing to try to figure out his pain.
ReplyDeleteOMG! I hate hospitals. What about doing an abdominal scan, I mean what if it was his appendix, or something along those lines? Monitoring blood pressure has nothing to do with what his abdominal pain might be. What a joke. I'd be soo pissed off. Where are people getting their licenses to be doctor's and nurses these days? The drive thru at McDonalds? I mean really!? What is good medical care, and with that insurance and the cost of medical care is going up, for what? No one is getting care.
ReplyDeleteOk, sorry to rant on your blog. I really hope your husband starts to feel better soon and starts to get some answers. :(