Life and Time

I can not believe that it has been a month or more since I have written. This last 6 weeks has been but a blur. My Dad has in the last 6 weeks been handed a cancer diagnosis, had scans, and finally surgery. He is recouping now at home. Vacationers at work made for 2 weeks of extend hours, which probably for me could not have come at a better time as it kept my brain busy. Also during this time 4 cats have delivered kittens, 13 in all. And last but not least I have been given the ok to go off my coumadin.

My Dads surgery was done at Robert packer Hospital in Sayer, PA. When the surgeon came out to talk with us immediately after the surgery I addressed pain management, and the surgeon said they would work with him and keep him comfortable. I have to say that somehow this did not happen on Thursday and Thursday night into Friday following the surgery. I am disappointed in this event as I was under the impression Robert Packer was a first rate hospital. The surgeons did an excellent job, however, Dad waited in holding by himself for over 3 hours. If it were me I would have had a heart attack from anxiety before I ever got in there. After the surgery the recovery nursing was excellent. It would have been nice if the hospital had rooms for the immediate family so my Mother could have gotten a decent place to stay near him without having to leave the hospital as Dad's surgery was serious and could have turned out very differently, and we live so far from there and some one needed to be near. Having her roaming around Sayer, totally stressed out, and not familiar with the area would have been totally unacceptable. Once on the floor it was as if he was planted in a room and left there to emerge on his own ready to go home. This is were the pain management went out the window. I also found it interesting that they were keeping an I&O (input and output), but no one seemed to be concerned that his output was far exceeding his input. In other words he was not eating and drinking as he should. He had no IV for hydration and that place was so dry my dentures started to warp after the first 3 hours I sat with him. Unless the oxygen coming into the room was moisturized from the spicket that was not on a bubbler in his room to add moisture either. It is my understanding that the nursing staff commented on their inadequate staffing issues when Dad waited for his pain meds, which lead to the pain getting a hold of him, making it harder to manage later.

I have my own view of "nursing shortages". As a RN myself, and having worked in both the hospital setting as well as the office setting "nursing shortages" do not always revolve around a nurse shortage in numbers. All I will say is that you can't treat your employees like crap and expect them to stick around very long. There are a few that can put up with being mis-used and it rolls right over them. I think there are many more that worked their tails off for the nursing degree and expect to be treated like professional adults. Employer policies sometime conflict with common sense and smarts. This is very frustrating. I am done with it. I had been told throughout my career that I was an excellent nurse, that my patients' appreciated my ability to empathize with them and appreciated the extra feet I went to make sure they were comfortable. My employers however did not see those extra steps as profitable I guess because they were constantly running my butt over #10 sand paper about it. So hats off to the new nurses out there, and god speed.

I got my Tracfone- finally!

Well, the Tracfone has finally arrived. They sent it "next day" after I called the Headquarters in Florida. Next day turned out to take 4 days, but hey it is finally here. It took 4 calls to get it activated and the second tie I tried to call they had me o hold for over an hour and a half. The third call "hold" status only lasted 45 minutes. I resent the fact that I had to fight to get the phone and the service. Had I not harassed this company week after week for 2 months I would have ever t the phone at all. Had I not called the headquarters I do not think I would have the phone yet either. And why would they sell product in an area that they knew it would not work in? There were a lot of those types of phones hanging there on the display, I can't help to think how everybody that bought one is in the same boat.

For my trouble I got 30 more minutes (big deal because for $20.00 you can buy 200 minutes), and the service to keep the number alive for a year. The phone I bought cost $64.00, the one I got costs $19.99. Guess who got screwed here? So the lesson learned here is Tracfone is a company out for the almighty buck at your expense.

Have a good one-
Deb