Just a Piece

 You know what they say about the best laid plans? They never turn out as you imagined. After my mostly sleepless night I reluctantly got up at 7:30 with the dogs. I wanted to crawl back in bed, but the dogs were having none of that.

I woke The Patient around 10:30. I made a scrambled egg and a lone piece of toast. He ate about half of it while I was in a cleaning frenzy. I can't stand endless clutter and I had a plan to conquer the mess. I had the washer going and waited about 15 minutes to see if the food would stay where we put it. I delivered his morning meds and he kept those down, too.

Then I noticed that Eddie was next to the bed on the side of The Patient. I demanded to know what he was doing. He or one of the others had chewed a hole in the drainage bag. I cried. Then I taped it up and put it in a ziplock bag. Read the discharge instructions again that told me should anything happen with the drainage system I was to RUSH The Patient to he emergency room.

I called the ER closest to us and gave them all the info on the drainage system, only to find that they did not use them. They were nice enough to redirect me to several pharmacies that carry DME. (Durable Medical Equipment). No one had the one I needed. I can replace the bag myself. I don't need a doctor to do it. Nothing is wrong with the tubing or the surgical site. The bag consists of a heavy duty plastic that has a bulb that the tube leaving the body is sealed in. To empty the contents, you depress the bulb creating a suction to help pull the infection out.

I called the surgeon's office and tried my very best to explain the situation. I asked if I could bring him to the office and was met with a big NO. She insisted that he had to go to the ER in Gainesville.

We arrived a little after 2 and checked in. Since all I needed was the replacement bag, we were "fast tracked" and told to take a seat. As the clock ticked away and approached 3, I went up to state my case again and told them we would have to leave in a timely fashion because I have night blindness. The very thought of trying to navigate the switchbacks in the dark made me feel like ants were crawling all over me.

A male person in scrubs (nurse, doctor, practitioner?) shrugged his shoulders and said there were 35 patients ahead of us. Another nurse stepped in and said she would call the OR and get them to send one down, a practitioner could sign The Patient out and we could be on our way. Supposed to take 20 minutes. Forty minutes after the deadline, we were still waiting. All I could do was watch daylight slipping away. I started bugging them at 3, knowing that if we left at 4 we would most likely avoid driving in the dark.

A package from supplies arrived and nothing about it even resembled this set up dangling off the side of the patient. "Where did this come from?" they asked. It came from this hospital said me, the voice of reason. "Well, we don't use this particular drainage system." I wanted to scream "YES, YOU DO".

Instead I told them to look at his patient profile in the computer and they will find that he was in this very ER a week ago after spending the night waiting to have a procedure done. The procedure was done here by the group of doctors known as TACS (trauma and something surgeons). "Well I guess we don't use these anymore, we might have in the past." 

I was losing it quite quickly. Anytime someone is in the ER, they are not having their best day. It was after 4 and I was not handling my temper well and when I said, "Oh, since last week" it totally evaded their comprehension. I then told them we would be leaving and she asked if I wanted our family doctor to be notified. Notified of what?

The visit and the unsatisfactory outcome? Or, maybe they were going to "tell on me" for leaving without their blessing. I taped the exsisting bag with dog teeth decor and placed it in a ziplock. As long as the bulb suction is working, there is no path to the wound. It will function just fine like this. Will it be cumbersome and inconvenient? Yes, but I burned a half tank of gas and wasted the entire day.

The Patient got a milkshake on the way home and didn't make a big dent in it, but it stayed down. Chicken soup at home and he took his nightly pills and antibiotics and is currently making a big ruckous snoring in the recliner. I made it home as the sun was falling from the sky and mopped the bathroom floor and cleaned the tub, toilet and sink.

I am done for the day. Tomorrow will come just as it does and I will tackle the rest. I just long for a nice uninterrupted sleep. Or, as my youngest use to yell at her siblings "Everybody shut up and be quiet, Mommy needs a piece of quiet!" Just a piece.