Exactly one year ago: Dont drink while reading, you may have to clean your screen. At 6.45am on Thursday I suffered, what the doctors first described as, an event, that later was referred to as a TIA, of course I was blissfully unaware that the symptoms I was experiencing at the time were nearly as significant as they turned out to be. Let me explain. While kneeling on the carpet I suddenly started to roll over, uncontrollably, to my left, finishing up face down in the adjacent sofa, the more I tried to straighten up the more I sank toward the floor, until I gave in to it, then rolled over onto my back and just breathed until I felt stable. After a few minutes I was able to get up and return upstairs. One and a half hours later while having some breakfast I noticed that my left leg felt like lead. So I called my wife at Clinic and said I wanted to come and see my Doctor. The Doctor questioned me about the symptoms and arrived at the conclusion, I should see a stroke neurologist, he immediately made a call, I presume to a call center, and I heard him discussing the urgency of needing a consultation. I know the call center assistant mentioned two out of town hospitals, to which I interjected, why not here? is there no one I can see here in Glenview? The answer was that it was down to scheduling and I should see the first available. An appointment was made with a Stroke Doctor in Evanston, 10 miles away, for 12noon, it was then 11.15am and snowing, none the less I drove over to Evanston and met with the specialist, who on hearing me reiterate the whole story, decided I needed to be admitted to the ER. When I said I would go back to Glenbrook, he suggested I should go immediately to the Evanston ER. I live about a mile from the Glenbrook Hospital, where I went for attention in the first place and now it is being suggested that I be admitted in Evanston. No way! I drove back to Glenbrook and went to the ER and was seen by three doctors, plus a nurse practitioner, and subsequently by, wait for it, a stroke neurologist. Just a minute: hadnt I just made a twenty mile round trip, in knee deep snow, with only minutes to spare for an appointment and there is a Stroke Neurologist at the point where I started from. If I had arrived by ambulance, instead of under my own steam, would the ambulance have driven to Evanston or Highland Park?.... Of course not! The lady Doctor admitted me to Glenbrook and I was scheduled to go to room 3131, I let my family know where I would be and transport duly delivered me there within a reasonable time. When we arrived on the third floor we were redirected to room 3146 for whatever reason I have no idea. I entered the room as instructed and got into the bed. Staff made it abundantly clear they did not want me getting out of bed unaided and should I need to get up for any reason I was to use the call button on the bed. After several minutes I felt the urge to urinate and pushed the call button. Nothing happened, several more minutes elapsed and so I got up and went to the bathroom by myself. A rather disturbed nurse informed me that I should not leave the bed unaided in case of a fall, seriously, older men do not do well waiting indefinitely to urinate. This happened again before the shift changeover eventually someone activated an escape alarm on the bed, that only alerted them as I was heading to the bathroom. It was the night nurse who actually discovered that the call button was not communicating with them and that was at about 6.00am she, along with assistant both demonstrated concern at the discovery, and Staff nurse immediately informed her supervisor and reported the incidents to maintenance. A maintenance technician arrived and she told him that the bed was not connected to the communications system. By about 6.30 the systems were plugged in tested and running. Wherever the fault lies with this break down of proper hospital protocol, my opinion is that it was not the night team, by the time they started work I had already been in the room a number of hours, both were very attentive, concerned and more than helpful. However I was fortunate not to have been more seriously ill or infirm and the hospital lucky that a desperately ill patient was not in the bed, without a way of letting either the duty nurse, or nursing station, know of trauma or health issues. Only when the alarm sounded and lights flashed did anyone eventually become aware that there may be a problem, and that was only triggered when I moved my weight from the bed, moreover that system only worked within the confine of the room as both the flashing lights and alarm sound were an integral part of the beds construction and chassis. I was disturbed by the ineptitude demonstrated all along the dealing with this episode, this is an organization that claims excellence wherever you look, while I couldnt even find a hint of it. On the upside, however just twelve months on, even though I only had an LDL score of 120 last year but was told to get it below 100, today I learned that my last cholesterol check, just a couple of days ago, had me at a fantastic figure of just 59
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:10:38 +0000
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