3rd Day Post Op - Nausea, bloating, movement thats NOT fun, and screaming banshees.

11 May 2019 - 3rd Day Post Op

• First bowel experiences....you DON'T want the full explanation...but um, HOLD the Miralax pleez
• Lotsa sleeping and not very much eating or walking
• The 600 lb man that can't find his call button AND the screaming banshee
• More indications that this is the "inner city" hospital
• Going way too long without pain meds means TWO steps backwards.....

OH JEN'S got ALOT to SAY about this day....

From our research regarding consensus on this particular surgery...the third day post op is generally the worst.  So we prepared for that possibility.  Alas,  I don't have alot of pictures because well...you'll read in a minute.  But I did include the printouts and records we kept (are keeping), designed and provided by another MALS surgery patient.  Medication log, Pain log, Food log, Bathroom log, etc.  We have a folder to record all these things and patterns for her care.  It's been hard to keep up with...but really nice to have and alot of help.

First bowel experiences....you DON'T want the full explanation...but um, HOLD the Miralax pleez - Lena woke up this morning having had slightly more sleep than the night before....but alot less pain.  We did get a new neighbor that would holler from time to time "SOMEBODY HELP ME"... and clearly he was vomiting from time to time as well.  This was midly annoying at this point but sleep was happening anyway so....

She felt good enough to get up and change.  I went down for a repeat of that yums omlette (spinach, bell pepper and ham....), and Lena ate grapes and a muffin in my absence.  She said, "I do NOT feel hungry but I knew I should eat something."  She was definitely feeling "stopped up".  Welp, we didn't have to wait too long....she made her way to the restroom, but her body sort of couldn't decide which end the food wanted to come out as she started to experience some pretty good nausea for the first time.

Without going into great detail, she did have some movement but it was loose, uncomfortable with cramping and she threw up one time.  We had been warned that the first experiences with movement were usually diarrhea...OR extreme constipation (Hmmm I don't like option A or Option B)....so she unwillingly chose option A and that basically put her out of commission for the rest of the morning.  She slept most of the day after that.  And eating and drinking weren't getting done due to her sleeping.  Unfortunately THIS morning was when Dr. Hsu decided to do his rounds and so she got a bit of a lecture about the need to get up and walk ....  but he did add a scopalamine patch to her orders which added help to deal with the nausea....

She did perk up late in the day though...and so we resumed with a walk to continue supporting "the movement" (although her appetite was nil).  We politely asked to "hold the Miralax" as she would hopefully aim for a solid experience next time.....  Also worth mentioning that by this day Milena wasn't even needing help to get to the bathroom at all.  I felt like a lump as she would just climb out every 90 mins or so and get there super quick (IV fluids necessitate many trips)....

The 600 lb man that can't find his call button AND the screaming banshee...  Sooo I already mentioned the man in the room next to us.  He continued to wail throughout this day.  When we went on the morning walk, I caught a glimpse of him, as his door is adjacent to Lena's - I could see the edge of his bed...and his lower half...and he was, laid across his bed with one leg over the edge, I was VERY grateful at this time that this individual had chosen to leave his breifs on under his hospital gown (gasp.)  As Lena made her round back to her room as we walked, I was like "look, but don't look..."  

600 lb man's hollers were adjacent to us.  As the day moved on, we began to hear another desperate type of yelling.  I don't even know how to describe it.  This one was on the other side of Lena's room, maybe two doors down.  The closest description I can come up with is that old woman in the old Poltergeist movies...you know the medium with the high pitched voice (Zelda Rubinstien) ??  Yes, that is as close as I can describe it.  Now, THIS lady was just outright screaming....and she'd ramp it up when ANYBODY passed by her open door.  "Hey!  Heyyyyyyyy!  I need you to come heeeerrrreeee.......OUCH, OUCH......"  And you could hear a variety of the staff arguing with her about needing to "leave the dressing on".  She'd yell about how she needed "anyone" to "come here" and "FIX THIS" etc, etc, you get the idea.  

At no point during the day did I hear any staff ask either one of them to be quiet.  And to be honest it wasn't that bothersome with the door to our room shut.  We both could rest through the noise so I didn't think too much about it.  How do I know how much he weighed?  Lemme tell you.  One of our "walks" we ran into our nurse, who was in the process of gathering ALL the staff in her wing to "transport" Mr. Heavy.  Each staff member she walked by she grabbed and she said, "I'm trying to get everyone in room 1041 to help me transfer my 600 lb patient...."

About 8:45pm  Lena had rested and recovered from her digestive trauma earlier in the day.  She had walked.  We made a plan: Go to bed, rest up and start fresh the next day to walk walk walk.  We pressed nurse call button about 15 minutes before she planned to go to sleep.  We waited and waited.  After Lena got prepped for bed, I got prepped for bed.  We waited.  We kept pressing the call button and we kept getting "we are coming!"  At 10:15pm I started to point out that Lena's pain medication was wearing off.  At 11:00pm, I started walking up and down the hall, trying to find Lena's nurse.  She was in the "banshee's" room with ALL the aids.  There were around 7 staff members in there - all trying to reason with screaming banshee lady.  Lena's nurse saw me and came out, which started a process of, "I'm sooooo sorry, I'll be right there...."  This process was repeated 4 times.  She finally came to Lena's room to find out what we needed and then apologized some more and ran back to the banshee's room before Lena actually GOT the medication.  By midnight Lena was almost 2 1/2 hours past the proper time of administration of the pain medication...and she was quietly enduring a pain level reaching a "9" out of 10.  

I finally started hanging outside the banshee's room and grabbing whoever I could to tell them that Lena needed her meds.  Finally my weary nurse came in WITH the drugs and administered them.  BUT then we figured out that Lena's IV line in the crook of her left arm was burning and starting to bend and needed to be replaced.  Her nurse immediately said, I need to get someone else to do that.  So STILL not really relief where she could GO TO SLEEP.  It was so depressing because at that point  I new this situation was gonna blow her energy for the next day AND you are supposed to avoid "breakthrough" pain by stringing doses of the pain medication together with no break.  This had ruined that plan.  The staff using all their resources to deal with these two other individuals had now disrupted Milena's care, and would likely result in another setback...an avoidable one that was our of our control.  I could tell, listening to our poor nurse verbally work through the situation...that in her training, she had likely been told NOT to call management for transfers of such patients...she was VERY hesitant to call security or management in spite of the situation.

Actually the IV nurse showed up quickly, but blew the first attempt and so she stabbed Milena (who by now was a non responsive lump) a couple times to get it in.  Once she got the IV in and taped up, she wondered if she should actually hook up the fluids.  I'm like, "Yes" they JUST unhooked it before you came in!"  She says, "I need to make sure since I wasn't the nurse that unhooked it, I'm not her nurse...."  And THEN SHE DISAPPEARED.  I waited another 25 minutes, several times wandering back over to banshee's room to beg someone to hook up the IV fluids - because the entire wing's staff was still in there fawning over her and trying to reason with her.  Lump Lena rolled over and tried to convince me that it really didn't matter, that she didn't care and just wanted to get to sleep.  But I was really concerned that she had been so dehydrated all day with the diarrhea AND she had barely eaten or had much to drink.  I finally just walked the other way down the hall and grabbed some random nurse...who stepped up and hooked up the IV.  She actually checked on Lena twice more that night.  

I settled in, did a good bit of complaining to my online "Dr. Hsu's Post Op patients" group ...and finally reported to our family and my social media contacts that "it is FINALLY done and it's quiet!"  Right then, and I am NOT making this up....some aid went into 600 lb man's room to check his vitals...  "WHERE AM I???"  was how it started....then 30 minutes more with his yelling.....so so so done.  

SO this, plus on our walks around the floor, the fact that one room had a policeman posted outside of it at all times...was definite indication that we had found ourselves at Bridgeport's finest inner city hospital.  You know what?  I told myself several times that day and night that both 600lb man and screaming banshee lady must have "a story".  I really didn't mind until it impacted Lena's care.  Our nurse really WAS doing all she could, I think she really didn't have another option to send either patient out that night.  I did talk to security in the morning about changing our room - but our morning nurse "Alejandro"....more about him in the next post...assured us we'd have more quiet from then on....And we did.