Day Three - 10/26/07

Day Three and more of the same. Dr. Hudson comes in and tells me that I am doing well and can go home today if I feel up to it or I can stay and go home tomorrow. The problem with the unit I am on is that it closes down for the weekend. What? If I stay the night at the hospital I have to change rooms. So much for patient satisfaction/continuity of care – when the hospital might lose a buck or two keeping a unit open for patients that have been there for three days. Okay, I am finished bitching. The nurse kept coming in and asking me if I planned to stay or go home. She needed to have me moved or have me gone before 3pm. I really felt that I was getting the bum’s rush. I was so exhausted that the thought of moving to another hospital room for the night and then being discharged the next day didn’t sound good. I decided to go home. In hindsight, not a good idea. The nurse came in and discontinued my PCA pump and then thirty minutes later came in with liquid Lortab 5. I fell asleep again and the next thing I knew (actually about 30 minutes later) the nurse came in and asked if I was ready to go. Let me tell you, this is no way to stop a PCA pump. There is no way that I could know if my pain was under control. There needs to be at least 12 hours between discontinuing the PCA and deciding if one’s pain is controlled.

By 3:30 on Friday we were home. I had been discharged with Lortab 7.5 and Penicillin VK. I took the Lortab as often as I could and it was not managing my pain. I even bumped the Lortab to every three hours through the night with no pain relief. Horrible night.