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My mom had emergency abdominal surgery several weeks ago. She had sharp pain, and we ruled out labor (not pregnant), menstrual cramping (menopausal), kidney stones (she's had before and the pain was not the same or in the same place), and gas (pain level too excessive).
It turned out to be a "muco-seal" (tumor-like growth of mucos inside appendix, benign, not related to appendicitis). Resulted in a four-inch incision, removal of appendix, and four-day hospital stay. I learned a few things about hospital stays of loved ones. Read on only if you're okay with messy things like blood, bodily fluids, catheters, etc.
1. Don't ever leave a loved one alone at the hospital for any length of time. My grandma died in the hospital while perfectly healthy - she fell when trying to go to the bathroom during the night. My mom was hardly conscious for the first couple days due to the morphine, so no one would have been there advocating for her care.
2. The air-powered leg-pumps they put on her calves are the most awful material. Use pillowcases to wrap the patient's legs, then put the pumps on over that. The pumps are necessary to prevent blood clots. We took them off during the day and massaged her legs ourselves. When she first came out of surgery and was doped up on morphine, she told me she had these wonderful things on her legs giving her a nice massage. Once she was changed to a different pain med, and more coherent,
3. Managing pain is a significant issue to be considered. The patient is supposed to push the button themselves, which releases the IV pain drip. There is a cap on how much they can get. Also, it can take several hours for the total amount in a person's body to build up sufficiently to bring pain relief. What happened with us, is the first night my mom woke up twice in excruciating pain, so bad that she felt she couldn't breathe (she was just breathing really shallow and almost hyperventilating since the expansion of her lungs in a breath pressed on her diaphram and abdomen, hurting the incision area). After that, I started pumping her morphine every so often, because it was awful having her wake up so out of control and panicked, and taking an hour to get enough morphine back in her to calm her down and let her sleep again). However, I ended up giving her too much, because her lungs filled with fluid and they said her lungs could have collapsed. Then, the 2nd day when she was awake, the morphine was making her so itchy she was refusing to pump the button, but then was in too much pain yet again. We had to practically FORCE the nursing staff to call the Dr. and request a different pain med. It took several hours to accomplish this. Which leads me to....
4. The nursing staff is very busy, and doesn't pay attention to you unless you keep in their face, physically asking for stuff (forget the call button). The lady next to my mom was not allowed to go to the bathroom by herself, and she would push the call button, asking for an assistant to go to the bathroom. Once she waited almost 1.5 hours, and no one ever came. I finally went out and found someone, but by the time they came in, the lady had an accident all over the floor. Then the nurse had the nerve to lecture her about how she wasn't allowed to get up, and if they didn't get to her in time, she should just go in her bed. Disgusting!
5. The nursing staff has to call your Dr. to request any additional medicine changes (different pain relief, addition of anti-itch, stool softener, tylenol, whatever). However, they don't tell you that. What they tell you is that they are "supposed" to give the patient what the Dr. has ordered, and nothing else. You have to INSTRUCT them they must call the Dr. and ask for something else. They are just too lazy/busy to do this unless you make them. It's not that your patient can't have any other meds, it's just that the Dr. has to order it, and the nurse doesn't want to hassle with asking them.
5. Never leave a family member alone at the hospital at any time. You should sleep with them, go to the bathroom with them, shower with them, whatever is necessary. They are like a helpless child with no one watching out for them. They WILL need help with many things, and the nursing staff is not their lifeline of help, YOU are. My mother-in-law has been a nurse for 20 years, and she still agrees with me. She stays so busy she can hardly manage all her patients, and she would never leave someone she loves alone at a hospital. I can't reiterate this enough.
6. Hospital beds have gotten larger! There was space in my mom's bed for me or one of my sisters to sleep right next to her. This was better than a sleeping bag on the floor, because her throat was too sore to talk (from the breathing tube they put down her throat during surger). She could just touch my hand when she needed help.
7. Morphine releases histamines in the body, which makes a person itchy. Benadryl is then used to reduce the itching. If this is not bringing sufficient relief from the itching, ask for a different pain med to be prescribed. My mom's itching was unmanageable for her, but all the staff kept telling her to just deal with it. Once we switched her pain med, she was much more comfortable.
8. Bring food from home for your patient. The hospital food is ridiculously expensive and unbearably awful. Just ask what type of foods they will be bringing (full liquid = jello, broth, juice, water), (next stage = cream of wheat, applesauce, crackers), (next stage = full solids, anything you want). The jello they brought tasted like spoonfuls of corn syrup. The beef broth tasted like popping a beef bullion cube in your mouth (so salty it was only edible after watering down 1/4 broth to 3/4 water). The juice was extra sugary. The cream of wheat you could cut with a knife and wasn't flavored or sweetened at all. I could go on and on. They kept bringing trays of food (3x a day!) when she could only eat maybe 15% of what they brought. After a day or so of this, I told them to stop bringing her meals, and stop charging us for them. We made our own chicken broth, jello, etc. and brought them in little tupperwares to the hospital.
9. Take shifts with other people. Of course, with a big family like mine, this was easy. Me and my sisters rotated in approx 6 - 8 hour shifts, so we could go home, sleep, and just get our minds on other things. Hospitals are so oppressive. In a shared room (my mom plus another female patient), men are not allowed to stay the night, so only my sisters and I could sleep there overnight.
10. Sometimes you have to just tell the patient what to do, because they are overwhelmed and their brain is fuzzy. Some of my sisters had a harder time being with my mom, because they would ask her what she wanted (do you want a massage? do you want to eat? drink?). She always did well under my care because I would tell her to eat, and feed it to her whether she liked it or not. I would initate a leg or foot massage, or helping her shower, or whatever. She tried telling us she didn't need the pain IV drip as often, so we let it alone, but then she would all of a sudden be in unmanageable pain. It worked better when we reminded her she needed to pump the med right before trying to roll over, or get out of bed the first time, or such. I tried to anticipate her needs and just do them. This worked much better overall.
11. That said, the patient really has to cooperate and be determined. My mom was determined to get out of the hospital as soon as she could, so she really pushed herself to get out of bed, sit up, walk the halls, etc., once she was coherent enough. She got out about two days before they had said she would.
12. If your patient has a Foley catheter, it can cause minor bleeding/spotting when using the bathroom, up to two days later. We got a little freaked out after my mom came home, and the catheter had been out for two days, and all of a sudden there was blood in her urine. We called the Dr. and he said it was just the foley. It never happened again.
13. Of course, pray, pray, pray. Be alert, pray with your patient, read Scripture, sing songs, encourage each other. This was the best thing we did, and the Lord kept my mom safe the whole time.