Hospitals Suck!

So today marks day 16 that D has been in the hospital. I am just DONE with it. I was doing fine until today. I think I probably just need to have a good cry and get it out of my system, but that really doesn't fit into my agenda until much later tonight, so I'm going to go for a nice blog rant right now!

Our hospital is great! The nurses and care assistants are wonderful, the doctors are, too. I even like that it's a teaching hospital, and don't mind the student doctors and nurses. But I really want some one to acknowledge, "Wow, D has been through a lot!" Because this is how today went... I woke up at the hospital at 6:15, hit snooze on my phone and got up at 6:22am. I checked out with the nurse, said good bye to a sleeping D and hit the road. Got home, had breakfast, showered, woke the kids up and got them ready for school and G ready for the day. Got Z & H to school and headed straight for the hospital with G. Got to the parking garage at 8:58am. Ah, yes, the daily rush of people trying to make it to their 9am appointments. Finally find a spot on level -3. (Purple plane Level! G is excited, we don't often get down this low underground! ) We go upstairs and wait in line to get through security. Get through, head up to D's room, it's 9:15am. He's up and happy, and even happier to see us. We wash hands and play a little. I check in with the nurse, and I haven't missed rounds. Whew! That's why I hurried in - besides not wanting D to be alone, I want to be here when the docs walk around.

10:45 - finally, the secretary announces "the purple team is rounding". Even G knows D is on the purple team. We watch them (I think there's about 15) troup onto wing. 11:00 We watch them leave. I check with the nurse. No, they didn't stop to talk to her either, probably because his care is being followed by the renal team. OOOOOOkay. Well, I'm going to take G to the cafeteria - really the only way to make sure the renal team will show up is to leave the room. (I've learned that - just like the only way to get D to fill his urine bag is to STOP checking on it!) :)

11:05. Down to the cafeteria. G gets her standard hospital lunch of equal parts chicken strip, ranch dip, and ice cream bar. (I'm only slightly exaggerating here.) 11:10 Back to room to eat - ah, yes! There are the renal docs!!! So I set the tray down and G attempts to cut up her own chicken strip while the doctor lets me know the status on things. He doesn't *think* D will have surgery today. He will *Probably* have surgery tomorrow. Right there, that one statement throws me... there's a possibility he could have surgery today??? Because I'm leaving in 30 minutes, and Tony won't be back until 6pm. So, my brain is so scrambled, I'm trying to be coherent in the 3.2 minutes of doctor time I get. I make sure they understand that I WANT to be here when they do surgery. I NEED to know WHEN the surgery will be so that I can make plans to be at the hospital, because I can't be there all the time, and I will need to make plans to get here at the surgery time. (And as an aside, I have learned that a scheduled time for surgery is really a pretty vague thing. So "1pm" really means "well, it could be as early ast 11am, but more likely later, most likely at 4pm, but probably not ever right at 1pm, but you'd better be here, because it might be")

And while I'm trying to impress on the doctor that I need some time to prepare for a surgery date, so I can make arrangements to be at the hospital. And what do I get back? A nice smile. "Yes, you are doing a good job of being here a lot." Smile. Does this man even understand what I am saying? I just want to scream, but instead, I need to remain calm and remember what questions I have about D's care today .

I just want a doctor to acknowledge that this is all very hard. And maybe show a little sadness that they are scheduling another surgery for someone who is only maybe 12 hours into total recovery from the first one. I'm glad they are working to get him home, but the steps to do that are hard, too!

OK, vent ended. Must go pick up kids from school and put on happy mom face!