We were watching a show about animals that had the R in backward in the title. And thanks to closed captioning, the word came up and it made for good conversation.
The first place we went to- couldn't even talk to one another. Apparently if you're in the hospital for a body thing they don't think about your mind and if you're in for a mind thing they don't think about your body. I'm wondering if there is or ever has been a mind without a body? I can't think of one example. So you would think that a big hospital in a county full of old people, that happens to be named for a president and is next to where the 9/11 pilots trained... would know how to deal with both.
After 10 hours in the emergency room with a manic loved one, the patient was taken away. Someone came out to tell how things were and lied, saying the patient was okay and that they had talked to her- but actually that staff member had not eve seen the patient.
The patient was taken to the 5th floor and had a blast until she fell off a chair in a crowded public room and was sent to the 2nd floor because he blood pressure was extremely low. Waking up talkative, the patient was given all kinds of tests to see what injuries had happened on the 5th floor and thankfully there seem to be none. But since the issue was now seen as medical the psych medicines were withheld. This resulted in the patient speaking nonsensically for an hour and slipping into a state in which which she did not move, speak or respond for 4 days. Huddled into the side of the bed, gripping one bed rail with her neck crooked to the side, barely blinking; nurse after nurse showed great compassion for her but seemed surprised when we asked if maybe they could do something to wake her up. It wasn't until the 4 days had gone by that someone thought to check her psych meds and fixed them.
Nurses still said things like "Oh, she can speak?" and "I didn't know she had been mobile." She's in the hospital to stop talking so much and 4 days of unesponsiveness- with staff screaming at he and she's unable to respond- doesn't strike anyone as odd?
Muscles so cramped that she now has to go to rehab to learn to walk. This is what they did to her.
Today in a new place, the patient is receiving more help than the week spent in the other place- and no harmful things as yet. The food is better too.
We actually waited a whole day and a half for a room to open up in the 5th floor again when unknown to the 2nd floor, unresponsive people can't be up there. Then we waited 4 days for rehab and she received no physical therapy. The first morning at the other, new place- she's up and walking the very first day... not walking fat and with no confidence, but the other hospital did not even try. They did not even think of trying to work with her to get her up and walking- because they're not a rehab. No, they are not a rehab. They put people in worse health than when they arrive.
If I had not demanded, they would never have taken the patient out of the bed. I made them put her in a chair.
It's amazing I am not more angry. But I've done what needed to be done and not wasted any energy on that.... yet.
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