Hospital Post 1

Report as an inpatient.Maggie came into the hospital  yesterday morning about 21 hours ago.
 Lots of stupidity at admission. Somehow signals were crossed and we were sitting in the ER just waiting. I wondereed why we came through the ER at all. After an hour we came up the the 6th floor. Once up here we were settling in and talking to the docs etc. Then the two young residents came to tell me that there was an error and Maggie was supposed to be evaluated in the ER to see if she needed to be on the regular floor or in the ICU. They told me I had to take Maggie BACK downstairs.

I just looked at them, paused and said Uhhhh....noooo. we are NOT doing that.

They lamented hospital procedure and I said, let's use common sense. You are doctors and there is a possibility that this child is too sick to be on this unit and may need intensive care. Your solution for that is not to evaluate her, but to further delay an evaluation by sending us off this floor to wait for an elevator to send me down to OTHER doctors. That is non-sensical. If the hospital screwed up, the hospital can fix it, the patient wil not fix it for you.

They just looked at each other, panicked. They knew I was right, but they are very small cogs in a very big wheel. They said we don't have the authority to override this, Ok, I said, but you do have the authority to advocate for your patient.

They came to us - surprise surprise

She was moved to the ICU at 1:00AM. Now it's 7:28AM and they may move her back. Maggie falls right between acute care and intensive care on her best day. Shes medically stable - sick, but stable - but she needs more nursing care than they can provide with the patient load on the floor. I do a lot of the care myself, but I've told them they cannot rely on me 24/7. I have to sleep a little bit and I got about 4 hours last night. Not good sleep because it is constant beeps and blips all night. Bwetween the IV, the monitors and the feeding pump something was beeping all night. The monitor is measuring about five different things at once and has five different alarms depending on what needs attention. I was having dreams about being at a train station.

In addition to the pneumonia, Maggie has the "paraflu"virus. It's not influenza but a different virus. She is really struggling to breathe and the oxygen is up full blast. If the virus has crested, she will start getting better. If not and she gets worse, they may have to put her on a ventilator to help her breathe. Only time will tell that.

When we got to the ICU they gave her some Ativan which knocked her out. She hadn't slept in two days and that was a big help. They were unwilling to do that on the floor becasue they couln't monitor her close enough for an adverse reaction. Here in the ICU they are right aat her door all the time. THe sleep helped. She may be a little better this morning, but that might be wishful thinking.

Onward.