P.O.D. #2: The Darkest of Days

I am home.

There's no place like home: the tastes, smells, cats and blessed silence. I've had some time to reflect on my hospitalization: I have a very good surgeon; I had knowledgeable and kind nursing staff. However, post-op day number two (P.O.D. #2) haunts my hospitalization experience. It really was the darkest of days. I don't want to dwell on it or remember it forever, but I feel like it's important to share my story.

Anemia is a truly horrible feeling. On P.O.D. #2 my hemoglobin was 78, 8 points away from requiring a transfusion. I have never felt so ghastly in my life. I was pale as death; literally you couldn't distinguish my lips from my skin. I had no energy and sitting up created this black vortex in front of my eyes. I couldn't stop shaking - large scale tremors that rattled the bed. Plus the pain of pinned together hip bones and hands inside your pelvis. I can't describe that pain. I had a button I could push for pain medication - a P.C.A. of dilaudid.

Pain and Anemia set the tone for my story. Basically I did not feel good before horrors of the day began.

My nurse for the day was a very sweet LPN, 'P,' and she had a student following her. They rounded on me fairly early, around 7:30. That day I was supposed to have an X-ray at 10:45, my drains pulled out, my catheter removed ad my pain management switched from the PCA button to pills, a long-acting and short-acting morphine. After P's initial round, I didn't hear from her again. In fact no one checked on me, offered me water, helped me set up for breakfast, or assist me with am care, which is bad because all patients need to be rounded on every hour. I pushed the call bell for my meds a few times but no one came to my room. P finally gave me my 0800 meds at 0930. At this time I was getting anxious about getting ready for the X-ray and taking the long-acting pills to control my pain. As a nurse I knew that long-acting pain meds take about 30-45 minutes to be effective. Therefore I should be given the long-acting pain meds well before the PCA is removed so I have some sort of pain-killer in my body. It's pretty logical: there has to be an overlap with the medications to control pain. I told P I wanted the meds, and P said she would come back but that she was really busy with other patients.

At 1015 the LPN student and her instructor came into the room to remove my catheter. At 1030, very close to my X-ray, I needed to pee. I called for help and the only person who came to help transfer me from the bed to the commode chair was the LPN instructor. This was bad. I hadn't been taught how to transfer and the instructor had never heard of a PAO surgery so she didn't know what precautions were needed. Luckily I transferred to the commode safely. When I was on the can, P came into the bathroom with another nurse to remove my PCA - before I had the long-acting pain killer.

However this nurse knew what was up, and she told P it wasn't appropriate to do this in the bathroom. She transferred me (safely) onto the stretcher, gave me my long-acting pain killer, and took off the PCA. Basically I had no pain-killer in my body two days after the most invasive, aggressive and painful surgery that the orthopods perform.

The journey down to X-ray was definitely not comfortable. I felt every jostle and bump. In X-ray, they had to slide me back and forth from the stretcher to a hard surface. I screamed when they moved me. As soon as I got back to the unit I took the short-acting morphine, but I didn't feel good: anemia, pain, and something else. I finally met my nursing assistant, Q, who got me to the bathroom. Then I started puking. I mean, gross, projectile, all over myself, the floor, my compression stockings, everywhere puking. And it wouldn't stop. I stripped off my gown and I start to cry and shake.

P runs out of the room to get some IV medication for me without assessing me or asking other nurses for help. I want to shower off the puke, but Q isn't sure if I can because of my dressing, so she says she will go ask P if I can. I'm cold, naked, crying and puke-sodden. P is a sweet girl but she hasn't assessed me, given me proper medications, or safely transferred me, so I tell Q: Go get someone who knows what they are doing. This offends Q. She leaves the bathroom as I ask for something to rinse my mouth out. She gives me a glass of water and then leaves. I have a mouth full or puke and nowhere to spit it out, so I scramble for an absorbent blue pad and continue heaving. P rushes into the room to set up my IV - she doesn't come see me first. Q walks into the room, loudly tells P that I "want a nurse who knows what she is doing" and then leaves. I am crying, shaking, puking, naked and alone in a hospital bathroom, two days post-op.

Thankfully, my mom enters the room and takes control. She wheels me into the shower, cleans me and soothes me. All I'm stammering out is: How could someone say that about me? How could someone treat another person like that? Q humiliated me. Eventually the hysteria died down. P got me into bed. It's past 1200. She doesn't check my vitals or assess me after a major fluid loss. Mom demands to speak to the charge nurse, to whom I tell my story.

It's almost one by the time I get more pain-medication, anti-emetics and my vital signs are finally checked. We see the unit manager, and he promises that what I experienced won't happen again. And it doesn't. For the rest of my hospitalization, I'm paired with competent, knowledgeable RNs and strong, helpful NAs. But it can't erase how I felt.... Utter humiliation. Extreme pain. Total frustration and betrayal with the health-care system and nursing care.

What happened to me on P.O.D. #2 shouldn't happen to anyone. No one should be left alone, naked and vomiting in a bathroom. Our system needs strong nursing care. I'm moving on: I'm getting stronger, and I have some hilarious poop stories I'll post later. I'm getting P.O.D. #2, the darkest of days, out of my system.