Was pretty much just getting started on my day on Friday when I get a call from my Mom (who had been over at the Rehabilitation Center of Chicago, doing rehab following back surgery) saying that they were going to be transferring her back to the hospital. So, I drop everything and scoot over there, finish packing her stuff up, and wait for transport.
About 3:30 pm the transport guy shows up ... says we can't bring anything (but one suitcase) with us since we'll be going in via the emergency room (to do evaluation for her hospital re-admit), so we have to leave like six shopping bags full of stuff over at Rehab.
We get to the ER about 4:00pm and check in. I have a pack of paperwork that's like half a ream, but NOBODY wants to see any of it, instead they're trying to wring a medical history out of my mom, who's doped up on pain meds, and very uncomfortable in a "shell" brace and wheelchair. From what I could tell, they must not have a lot of transfers in, since nobody over there seemed to "get" that she was being shifted back to the hospital from R.I.C. and they were kept coming back to crap like "why are you coming in to the hospital?" (she's being transferred, you insipid fools! DUH!).
Then, since it's the ER and the waiting room runs under a triage system (and its about 100 degrees out and its the start of a holiday weekend), we sit there for SIX HOURS waiting for them to free up a bed in the ER. Six LONG fucking hours. It was bad enough for me, but my mom was in the aforementioned brace and upright in the wheelchair for the whole time, PLUS she was due for more pain meds about half way through that. Arrgh.
Finally, at about 10:00pm they get us into the ER and start poking around. Again, NOBODY seems to give a fuck about the hundred plus pages of documentation that R.I.C. sent over with her (with stuff like all the meds she'd had that day up till when they sent us over), but want to ask us about this that and the other thing. Since nobody would look at the damn paperwork they even ended up with the wrong doctor on her wrist band ... since the asswipe doing the admitting pulled the first MD out of the book that sounded like what my mom said was her internist (this STILL hasn't gotten changed ... some some other doctor is probably going to be getting all her labs) ... something I didn't catch until this afternoon!
Finally, about 3:00am they transfer her up to a room in the hospital. ALL they did down in the ER was to do blood work and hook her up to an IV ... they could have put her in a room at 4pm and done that THERE! She wasn't really assessed until 3:30am when a resident came by the hospital room. Again, why the fuck couldn't this have been done 11 hours previously! It is insane!
Anyway, I get home about 4am, grab a bite to eat and then crash. Only to hear in the morning that the surgeon has been in to see my mom and SHE'S expecting that surgery is going to begin momentarily, so I need to whisk my butt back to the hospital again. Well, after hanging around all day it appears that surgery ain't going to happen until Tuesday at the earliest, with them hoping that having her on an IV drip with antibiotics will clean up whatever infection is causing her white blood cell count to jump (the reason that Rehab wanted to send her back to the hospital in the first place).
Grrrrrr... hate this shit
- BT