When does being an advocate turn into being an adversary?
This is a question that has been on my mind since last night. We have this hospital thing down pat. Mom packs up the weekend before. Julie takes Dad through the admission process Monday morning, while Mom takes her youngest to school. Dad gets settled in and, hopefully, goes down for his MRI. I show up around 4:00 with his standing order of Onion Rings from Sonic. Julie comes back up after work and we leave together somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00pm. We like to meet the night crew before leaving. Mom stays with Dad and hopefully has a bed brought to the room.
From the very beginning, Dad has never been alone during his hospital stays. We like to think that it helps the hospital staff because we take care of the non-medical things; getting his ice and water, helping get him to the bathroom while maneuvering his IV pole (when he was still wobbly we had it down to a NASCAR pit stop; shoes on, cane in hand, pole unplugged and ready to roll), Mom helps with getting into and out of the shower, we change the linens, we keep up with the fluid intake and output, even putting it in the collection cup for the tech, we carry his meal trays back to the collection cart and so on. We save the staff a LOT of time by being there.
On the flip side, we do ask a few things from the staff. We ask for copies of his MRI reports. We ask for copies of his labs when they do blood work tracking his methotrexate level. And that’s about it. So hopefully you can agree with me when I say we DO more than we ASK. For this reason, it is so frustrating on the rare occasion that when we ask for something and they ignore us. It makes it difficult to keep our MY cool. It has been thoroughly discussed that I am the wildcard in the family. I am the one that is more likely to blow her top than anyone else. It’s ok. It’s who I am. I try really hard to control it, but about 2 seconds in, if you are not being honest with me, well, it’s over. My fuse is lit and sparking away. I can promise myself to stay calm and collected. I can give myself all the pep talks in the world, but my fuse is short and highly flammable.
I am thankful that we have not had many occasions to see my fuse light up while Dad has been at the hospital. There was an argument discussion early on about some meds that they were withholding and I am still not sure who had it right; the nurse, Julie/Mom, or myself. The next one came when Julie was on duty and the nurse could not tell her when a certain dose of med had been given because it wasn’t charted. Julie was quick to call me and mom, and we assured her that the dose had been given before shift change, but apparently the night nurse wasn’t aware. That is a scary situation for sure. We were so glad that Julie was keeping track. We don’t like that nurse. We are always glad to see her walk to another hallway when Dad is in town. Then we have last night. I am not going to bore you with the details other than to say that if my Dad is due a dose of pain-relieving eye drops at 6:30, and we catch you outside our door at 6:30 and ask you about it being time for the dose, and you, the nurse, have not come into the room by 7:45, you are going to hear from us. Julie was doing her best to diffuse the situation and just let her know that we had asked reminded the tech to get with her about the dose as we left the room. The spark that lit my fuse came when the nurse tried to explain the “window” of time they have to give the meds and indicated the dose was given at 3:30. WE HAVE IGNITION! Uh no, I was there, in the room, with a clock, and a watch, and it was 2:30 and the day nurse said it was due at 6:30, 4 hours later, because they are prescribed to be given EVERY 4 hours. And my Dad was in pain. And he never complains. And we are doing ALL of the little things that keep you from having to come to our room all the time. So quit being a lazy less than stellar nurse and give the dose. Ok, so that was in my brain. What came out of my mouth was just a reminder that they had been given at 2:30 and it was time. Julie is moving us to the elevator, being nice, and praying I haven’t caused us to go from advocate to adversary.
I appreciate all of the wonderful nurses we have had. The number of good has far outweighed the crappy less than stellar. I understand working in a service industry. I teach public school. Trust me; parents don’t always like my style standards in my classroom and sometimes I hear about it. It is my job to keep teaching that student to the best of my ability. As their educational advocate. Avoiding at all costs a parent looking at me as an adversary. I can only hope as we move forward with this hospital stay that the lazy less than stellar nurse from Monday and Tuesday night understands that we are Dad’s advocates, as is our right to be, and not her adversary.
EDIT: Our favorite nurse is Elizabeth. She was the nurse that took care of Dad on his first admit to Harris 7 (Oncology). She faithfully checks in on Dad any time she is on the floor, even when Dad is not her patient. In fact, she stopped by last night to check on him. She was getting ready to leave after her shift but made the time to swing by. When she asked Dad how he was doing, he shook his head as he was holding a compress to his eye (that is infected with Shingles). She talked to us a bit and before leaving she gave Dad a hug and a peck on the cheek. She is a gifted nurse. She is a true advocate.
