Well..THAT was fun....

Dave's paperwork from his doctor's office said specifically, be at the hospital at 9 for an 11:00 out patient procedure on Thurs. 4/8.

I filled out the form, and scheduled to take ALL of my accumulated off time, so that I could take the day off, and accompany him.

We arrived at about 8:45 and checked in.

We sat in the waiting area until 10:30. A nurse finally came over from the cath lab and picked us up. As she was getting Dave a gown, she said "You DO know your appointment isn't until 1 pm, don't you?"

Um...no....we did NOT. A phone call might have been nice, I said, to alert us to the change....but the nurse said that it was ALWAYS scheduled for 1, nothing had changed.

It was the woman at the doctor's office, who wrote everything down for Dave, who made the error. Somehow, between making the appointment for him, and getting everything written down, her mind shifted from "1:00 procedure, be there at 11," to "11:00 procedure, um...I guess you need to be there at 9!"

Moron.

So, we waited. And waited. Dave, starving for food, lying on the gurney, in a gown, in a freezing pre-op bay.

Eventually, they came in for blood, and to insert the IV port. Dave melted down, even though they gave him valium to try to way lay the melting.

He did relatively okay, though, as long as I was holding the other hand, and could get him to LOOK AT ME, and listen to me, while it was happening. He did better than some other times when I have seen him completely freak out, screaming and thrashing around.

His mom arrived.

We waited. And waited.

1:00 came and went...no sign of the doctor.

2:00.

3.

FINALLY, the doctor, who had not only us, but the entire cath lab crew, waiting around for HOURS, finally came. He said something about being on call at another hospital.

Why would you schedule an on call day for the same day you're scheduled for procedures at a different hospital? Asinine.

The procedure was over in about 45 minutes. In, out, easy.
Doctor said everything was fine inside of Dave's chest....so there was still no clear reason for his shortness of breath.
"Everything should be okay, and you can take him home this evening. We'll do some other tests in a couple of weeks."

The doctor escorted me and Dave's mom over to recovery, where Dave was having a good deal of trouble coming out from under the sedation drugs they'd given him.

We waited.

And waited.

Dave struggled. Then, in a moment of relative lucidity, he said "My chest hurts," and he started to panic. So, of course, WE started to panic. I reached across him to the nurse call, and pressed it.

"Can I help you?" I replied: "He's complaining of chest pain."

4 nurses crowded in around the table, and one ran out to call the doctor. They administered an EKG, and gave him nitro under his tongue, and took his blood pressure.

The doctor said "admit him."

The chest pain stopped, Dave was put into a sitting position, and said "I'm hungry," so one of the nurses got him some crackers and 7Up. He had not, after all, eaten since the previous day, and it was now going on 6 pm.

He went back to sleep.

We waited, and waited, while they tried to get him a room.

I started to think about my own experiences coming out of sedation.....I have had very emotional moments, call them melt down, where all of the stress and anxiety that had built up BEFORE the procedure comes flooding out in those moments of "no guard" while still drugged up.

I figured his chest pain, since everything else appeared normal, was an intense anxiety attack, like the one he had 10 years ago that landed him in a hospital with chest pains!

Mom went home.

Ultimately, we were in a room by about 7:15, and I ran home to get something to eat, and to pick up some things for Dave.

He slept.

I was back by 8, and did not wake him until about 9:30, at which point I asked him if they had brought him his dinner, like they were supposed to, while I was gone.

I did not see a tray, and usually, the tray sits there for hours before it's taken away.

No. They had not fed him. No one had been in his room for anything yet, except me.

It was 9:30 at night, and all he'd had to eat, since 7 the night before, was crackers. He was admitted from post-op because of chest pains, and no nurse had been to visit.

I was, needless to say, less than pleased.

I went out to find his tech, and sent her to get him some freakin dinner!!

He ate, and a nurse finally came in, FOR THE FIRST TIME, and asked him her series of check in questions, which she entered into a lap top computer on a little wheeled stand.

She also hooked him up to his oxygen, which had been disconnected since they moved him in,and took his vitals.

Anyway....he went back to sleep, and I came home, called my boss on her cell, and went to bed.

The next day, the doctor was supposed to come by in the morning and make sure all was well, and discharge him.

I got up and went back to the hospital, instead of to work, because that was what we had been told.

When I got there, Dave explained how the staff didn't seem to know what they were doing...first one person brought him breakfast, then another came to take it away..."We have to do an ultrasound of your gall bladder."

He explained, as he had over and over to other various staff, including the nurse the night before who had entered it into the computer, that he had not HAD a gall bladder for nearly 25 years!

"Oh" said the nurse....

Eventually, they let him have some water, but kept saying they could not feed him. The doctor HAD ordered a gall bladder ultrasound, because gall bladder pain can refer up into the chest....but the doctor didn't even seem to remember that Dave's gall bladder has been gone for 25 years.

So, they came and wheeled him away at 11, and did an ultrasound of his right upper quadrant anyway. Whatever.

Then, they FINALLY let him eat, but not until lunch time.

Hours and hours passed. The doctor didn't come.

FINALLY, after sitting around in his room, doing nothing but watching him sleep, and watching tv, the doctor FINALLY showed up at around 5:30 and told us to go home. No excuse was offered this time.

I took a day off, unscheduled and without pay, which my company REALLY frowns on, for nothing.

Dave didn't even know I was there for most of the day, because he was asleep.

It was, needless to say, very frustrating.

During the check out process, the nurse removed the IV port from his hand, and blood spurted out onto the floor like a fountain. I almost fainted, and so did Dave.

This was the nurse he'd had all day, the one who told him TWICE about his gall bladder ultrasound, even after he'd told her the first time she mentioned it, that he doesn't have any such organ.

She obviously didn't know how to deal with port removal on a patient taking 3 different blood thinners.

Jeezuz.

So we had to wait a while until she got that under control. He left with a blood covered hand, with a big lump of gauze under a pressure bandage. Unbelievable.

This entire experience was FAR worse than the last in terms of staff competency.

BUT, this time, Dave feels a lot better after the procedure. Not nearly as much pain and stiffness in his leg where they went into his artery.

The doctor thinks Dave is having ANXIETY issues, and also that the artery around the stent is spasming, causing the shortness of breath. He still wants to do some lung capacity tests, to check for any other possibilities, but not for a couple of weeks.

We can start back on our exercise routine in a week.

What a fiasco this whole thing was.....