Morning Coffee by Mary Bradish Titcomb 1858-1927
Mum was rushed into hospital once again, in the early hours of Sunday morning this time with breathing difficulties. We were literally ten minutes away from visiting her at her care home on Sunday morning, at the more respectable time of 10am, luckily we were still on the motorway when my brother phoned to say that a voicemail message had just come through on his phone, it had been left in the middle of the night but he has his phone off then. My phone is always on, but for some reason this time they didn't call me. 😕
Anyway a quick re-programme of the Satnav and we were headed for the hospital where after a lot of chasing round departments and wards, as she had only just left the A&E department, we finally found Mum looking very frail and very confused.
We are quite confused too, as there is nothing they can do for her except make her comfortable and give her oxygen, something they could very easily have done at her care home, especially since she has instructions on her paperwork not to send her to hospital except in a real health emergency. Which happened a few weeks ago when she had yet another bowel blockage. They are a nursing and hospice type care home as well as residential, so they have a lot of very qualified staff.
We were most concerned that the hospital seemed to know nothing about her. Luckily we arrived just as the cutlery was being delivered to the beds ready for lunch, she was about to be given a 'normal meal', something she cannot eat now as she is on a NHS Level Four diet. They also didn't realise that she is completely bedbound, doubly incontinent and has dementia, so is unreliable to ask any medical questions of, hence them being told by her that yes she can have any sort of food.
I had a good chat with her nurse and then we had to come away as you can't visit during lunch time. You wouldn't think that this was that stressful really, well I wouldn't have years ago, but when it's been going on in one form or another for over two and half years on a very regular basis it's starting to have a real build up effect.
I sent an email to the care home when I got home, not complaining as such but asking why I wasn't phoned this time, and also suggesting they had some sort of Patient Passport type document, just a photocopy from their file, that could travel to hospital with residents when necessary to give the nursing staff at least a head start. It would save a lot of stress. It turns out they have this in place already, although the system keeps letting them down and the document goes missing somewhere between the paramedics and the A&E staff and then never makes it to the ward. They are now going to be raising this matter urgently.
I needed to get all this down in writing so that I have it for future reference, and my blog seemed as good a place as any.
Normal service will be resumed tomorrow. 😄
Sue xx
Incredibly stressful, you must be always on edge wondering what next.
ReplyDeleteI hope your Mum is now safely back in her care home rather than the anonymity of a hospital.
I fear this is happening all over the UK. Wishing your mum all the best - hope she is back at her care home now. Xx
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry. These things seem to happen more and more, so worrying for your family. I hope your Mum gets back to her care home asap. Regards Sue H
ReplyDeleteI feel your frustration. We walked the same long, nightmare labyrinth for years with MIL, dreading the phon calls, carers, care home, nursing home, interspersed with hospital, hospital, hospital.
ReplyDeleteOh Sue, I too am living this nightmare at the moment. My dad has a head and neck cancer that has mutated into a fungating tumour. It's horrendous. The tumour now cover 25% of his lower face. He's on a level 4 diet too. The tumour is growing towards his carotid artery and when it breaches death with be instantaneous. I have tried to care for him but after five years I am burnt out. The slightest touch can make it bleed profusely. Last bleed, I rang for the ambulance and in the 40 mins it took them to come Dad had soaked six hand towels. In A&E the consultant was brilliant. He wouldn't examine him closely but he knew all about these tumours. He was horrified that I had been left to cope with my father with the high risk of him bleeding to death. He wrote a strongly worded letter to Dad's G.P.
ReplyDeleteA week later we got him into a nursing home. Dad isn't confused at all. He's 93 and reads every day, does 10 crosswords and talks to anyone he can capture. He didn't want to go in. He's lived in his home for 66 years. It's been a wrench for him.
The stress has lessened but it's still there. Some days I feel as though I will never get back to being myself.
I completely understand how you feel and the frustration of dealing with inept people is the last straw.
Hope you can find peace and moments of joy in this awful situation.xx
Sue, I relate to this so much! We currently have my MIL in a nursing home and they kept taking her out for Dr. appointments we knew nothing about. We finally had to insist they do not have permission to transport her anywhere without calling us first. Currently we have not heard from her for several days and when we tried calling her phone, it went to voicemail. David called the nurses station yesterday to ask someone to go to her room and either fix her phone or have his mother call. We still haven't heard from her or the staff and that was almost 24 hours ago. This is common and it's so frustrating. We can't all just jump in the car every time we need to check on things, so you would hope the staff could be relied on. Sadly that isn't the case. Very scary how much the hospital was about to do wrong by your mother.
ReplyDelete