Timothy Birdnow

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Fear not oh noble reader; the Biden Administration did NOT come and cart me away, nor even poison me with polonium-210 in the manner of Vladimir Putin (at least as far as I know). In fact I can't say the government had any hand in it at all, although one is tempted to blame them for just about every bad thing these days.

No, I had a probable transient ischemic attack. I was getting ready for bed on the Friday before last and the world just started tipping sideways. For a moment I thought someone had turned up the gravity to the left of me. I mad it to a chair then got violently nauseated and boiling hot. Cathy called an ambulance.

Fortunately for me if it WAS a stroke there was no brain damage. The neurologist I saw in the hospital said I had a "perfect brainstem". I shall be known henceforth as the "man with the perfect brainstem"! I expect full compliance from everyone...

At any rate I had some other things going on. I was seriously dehydrated so they began giving me water via an I.V. As usual I knew better but you can't tall medical people anything. Soon they overfilled me and it all went into my lungs. I suffer from congestive heart failure and if I become over-hydrated my lungs fill up and I develop pneumonia symptoms. Sure enough I did; my oxygen levels tanked, I developed chills and felt like I was dying. So they then gave a mea culpa and put me on powerful lasix to drain out the fluid they put into me. I was sick several days with THAT!

Then they grew concerned about my kidney functions. My creatinin level spiked and so they kept me to observe that particular problem. Is it any wonder, given they had to administer a dose of lasix best reserved for elephants and sperm whales? But they were surprised when my kidney functions cratered?

At any rate when I got through all that they decided they didn't like the way I was walking (and well they shouldn't at first; I had another left-side gravity swell while in the hospital walking with the therapist.) They decided I wasn't "safe" going home so they transfereed me from the hospital itself to the in-house rehab center wearing a heart monitor.

Now I never had a complaint at the staff at the hospital; they did what they had to do (it was just unfortunate that the doctors weren't familiar with me or my case.) But the rehab center had problems.

On the first night they brought me in after waiting for hours, and right away I asked to see my nurse because I needed a cpap machine. I remember it had been tough getting one at the hospital itself. I kept being told the nurse would be in shortly - and that took three hours. Meanwhile everyone kept telling me "we don't provide cpaps. Didn't you bring yours from home?" To which I responded "do you SEE one here!" Finally after the third hour I started putting my clothes on and was going to just leave, just walk about. My nurse came in with an attitude and we got into a shouting match. Eventually the shift supervisor came and apologized and talked me into staying (I really wanted to just leave and make them explain how they lost a patient and couldn't find him.)

At any rate after that rocky start things went better. The day staff there was great; the night staff not so much, but most of them at least tried. But we'll revisit this story later.

I had one day alone and they stuck me with a roommate. He was a retired career military guy who still did martial arts and scuba diving and he was my kind of guy! We sat there watching Fox New all the time and complained about the government. I'm sure the nurses thought we were two cranks but what they heck! We were lovable old cranks!

He had just had open heart surgery and was recovering before he went home. But he started coughing, and so did I.

Yes, we both had contracted Covid.

Thinking back I do remember one tech with the sniffles getting very close to me at the hospital so perhaps that was what started it? I don't know but they put my rommate in solitary and then I clearly showed symptoms so they brought him hack when I tested positive. I think they should have been far more pro-active; should have checked me immediately. But they waited days before checking me. Hospitals are a microcosm of government; big,bloated bureaucracies that are inefficient and disorganized and moribund by excessive rules. Things get done in them by the courage of those willing to skirt the rulebook.

So I had a minor case of Covid to top everything off. My roommate was put on Ivermectin and given a cough suppressant to avoid the intense pain of coughing with broken ribs (broken by the surgeons when they removed the ribcage). I just bare-knuckled through. In fact I didn't feel very bad; just had a cough and runny nose.

I actually started feeling worse the day they let me out but I didn't dare say a word lest they extend my sentence in the hole. I swear; I felt like Steve McQueen in Papillon in that place!

To get back to my promise to revisit the subject of fighting with the staff, the night before I was to be sprung my roommate asked for his pain medication and cough syrup. He was told "the nurse will be in shortly". Two and a half hours later the nurse still wasn't in. We had called repeatedly and were told she was coming yet she couldn't seem to bother to show up. I heard someone outside the door and opened it "hey, is my rommate ever going to get his pain medication?" "IT'S COMING" came back a rather angry rejoinder.

I went into the bathroom and she came in and spoke to my roommate "I was bringing you your medicine by I forgot one because of your roommate". I shouted out "well, pardon me for discommoding you." She shouted back "I had an emergency" which made not sense; a 2.5 hour emergency in a rehab center? They would have called the hospital itself and taken the patient there.

No, she was just working her way through the list systematically and didn't want to be bothered.

I told her where she could put her emergency. After all if that were the case someone else could have at least come in and explained what was happening. And there were other nurses on the ward.

The supervisor showed up and we received a profuse apology from her. My rommate (one tough dude) was not satisfied with that and he insisted the nurse herself come in and express REAL remorse. (I think she may have been the nurse I had my first night, by the way.) That woman had to come in and apologize to us both; that had to be really hard. Maybe it will teach her some manners though for the next patients. As I kept pointing out we were both paying a lot of money to be there and her salary was dependent on people like us paying for services, services which she clearly didn't feel a need to deliver in a timely fashion.

Other than that I was treated well. The day shift was nice as could be and so were most of the night people; they were just not up to the same professional standards.

Oh, and they kept me eternally locked up with bed alarms and the rest like an infant. Drove me crazy; if I so much as wanted to stand to urinate in a plastic urinal I had to call for assistance. It wasn't so bad but one time I had diarrhea...

So they actually drove me home in a van and I went straight to bed. Slept six hours, got up for a few, then slept another eight. The only thing that disturbed me was the heart monitor. It's more like a smartphone than a monitor, and both it and the sensors have to be charged and plugged in. I hadn't changed the sensors; that had happened in the hospital. So when the stupid thing began going off at four this morning I couldn't figure out how to change it, and the machine is designed for at most a temporary stoppage of the alarm. Eventually I took the whole thing out to the kitchen where I couldn't hear it. I am going to send it back. The cardiologttists won't be pleased.

It's great being home and back in my groove. They never gave me enough insulin or other medicines and my blood sugar was always in the mid 200 range while I was there. Now I have some control and am back where I belong. Also they kept giving me my eyedrops wrong; doubling drops up at night when I should have taken one batch in the afternoon. That was after I got them, which took three days.

I hate hospitals.

Anyway, it reminded me of an old George C. Scott movie where a patient comes into the hospital for minor surgery and they almost kill him. Scott, in his inimitable way, says "let's get the poor bastard out of here before we kill him." It felt like that.

So I should be on the mend and while blogging will be light I'll be here with a few things.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:41 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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