A quick note on our hospital stay...
After we were done in the recovery room the nurse began rolling us to the room I'd call "home" for the next 3 days. I was so excited when we got there and they began setting me up by the window. I'd never had the window side before and when you are in the hospital for any length of time having a bit of a view starts to seem like a pretty special thing. What I didn't know at that moment is that I should have traded the window spot for a healthy room-mate.
Unfortunately, later in the day, the next lady they wheeled into my room was very, very, sick. She was vomiting constantly for hours and hours on end. I felt just terrible for her and, I must admit, I was getting a bit grossed out by listening to her. I assumed she was just having some sort of reaction to having given birth, or the meds. she had been given, or something like that. But, by the time she let the nurses know (obviously within earshot of me) that she had also been having (turn away now if you are squeamish...or if you are eating...or if you just don't want all the gory details) explosive diarrhea it started to become clear that something else was going on with this lady. I heard the nurse tell her, "Well, you really shouldn't be sharing the bathroom with the other women. I'll get you set up with a commode chair. And, be sure to always wash your hands really well. That is a terrible bug you have there".
Oh great.
So here I was with my brand new (read: vulnerable) baby and I've got the woman with a "terrible bug" as my room-mate. The nurse came over to my side of the curtain and said, "Have you been washing your hands well when you use the washroom?"
Well, Yes. Of course. But, has she!?
The panic started slowly there. Once they got the lady's commode chair all set up for her - the panic became full blown.
Imagine you are in the hospital, with your little baby, and the woman on the other side of the little curtain has been vomiting constantly since she came into your room and you've now discovered that the vomiting isn't her only symptom. Then, they set her up with the equivalent of a kitty litter box which is placed directly on the other side of your little curtain in which she is supposed to have all her explosive diarrhea from now on. Not only is there no noise control over that situation, there is also no smell control. And, all I could think of as this went on...and on...and on...was the aerosolization of all her germs that were just floating up into the air...up, up, up and over my little curtain and down, down, down onto me and my baby.
I tell you - I got no sleep in the hospital. Literally. None. And by 4 am on Monday morning I was up and out of my little bed and packing up all my stuff. I couldn't take it anymore! I packed up all my clothes, all the gifts that our friends and family had brought by, and all my magazines, etc. I only left out one change of clean clothes. I sat on the side of the bed freaking out and waiting for time to pass. I was desperate for the morning so that I could, basically, plead to be let out of the hospital and...if that didn't work...I was well prepared to demand it.
In the morning they started to get prepared to move my room-mate to her own private room. Great. But, unfortunately, I had already spent 3 days with this lady. I wanted out of there and I let everyone who would listen to me know it.
Lily-Pie had lost some weight since her birth, but I knew that was only because she wasn't eating much for the first day or so. She was eating well by that point and I had no concerns about whether she was going to put weight back on. My only concern was getting her out of there. The nurses decided to call my family doctor and let it be up to him. Fortunately (for everyone involved) he agreed to have us released and we just needed to bring Lily-Pie into his office the next day for weighing.
I asked the nurse how concerned I should be about having roomed with the lady who spent the first three days of her son's life puking her guts out - and she told me not to worry. Well, I was worried -- worried about what the next 48-72 hours might bring me (let alone Lily-Pie)! But, at least I was leaving.
The room with a view wasn't all it was cracked up to be, after all, and never before had the saying "There's no place like home" rang more true for me.
(this photo of Dave and me with Lily-Pie was taken with the self-timer...with the camera propped up on top of the truck. Didn't quite work out) ;-)
Yeah I'd be glad to be home after that too. That is a horrible experience. You'd think they would have moved her right away.
ReplyDeleteWith Abby my roommate was on the phone all the time, all hours and she was not a quiet talker. They wanted to keep me in because Abby was in NICU. My family doctor did. My OB asked what I preferred and I begged her to let me go home. The roommate's baby was in NICU too so she wasn't going anywhere.
With Maya, the roommate began begging immediately to go home. After endless discussions and referrals with the docs they let her go. Then they brought someone in and parked her until her private room was ready. And then I started crying and didn't stop. I was exhausted, Maya was taking forever to eat (because she was sick and nobody knew yet) and I had to wake her to eat. Abby was on the phone begging me to come home and crying so I cried some more and the nurses took pity on my and locked out my room. No more roommates.
wow, I can't believe you had to share a room with someone so sick! I guess I'll be doubly thankful that the hospital I delivered my kids at doesn't really do shared rooms for new moms...
ReplyDeleteWhen I had my appendix out, though, and got to go home after 5 days, then had to go back the next day with some serious complications, I ended up spending four days sharing a room with a druggy with her constantly visiting family. They would sit and discuss drug exchanges and selling of the woman's prescription pain meds to get extra cash, etc. She would also cough this terrible smokers cough about every two minutes, day or night, she snored louder than any snore I've ever heard in my life, and she was half deaf, so she watched the TV at full volume. She would gag loudly when she ate, and had just had her hip replaced, so couldn't get up on her own and was CONSTANTLY requesting help up, so the nurses were streaming in and out of the room at a fast and steady pace. It was terrifying and exhausting and I will admit I cried more than once and begged for a new room on several occasions and nearly kissed the doctor four days later when they finally released me to come home. As horrible as it was, at least I wasn't worrying about my newborn's health! I'm so sorry for your terrible experience!!!! ack!
Oh dear lord!! You poor thing!! I'm so happy you were both resistant to that mass of germs.
ReplyDeleteMy brother (the one close to my age) had been deathly ill after his muscle broke and all this body chemical stuff put him in renal failure and his heart stopped. Well, once he was out of the ICU, he was roomed with an old man who was hacking up a lung and god only knows what else. My brother called his best friend who snuck up the stairs at 5 am and was fully prepared to high tail my brother out of there. I think my mom showed up at the hospital and curtailed that plan. Either that or they got caught by the staff. At any rate, the guy was moved to another room, or died.
You are a saint for having put up with all of that for so long. I would have felt the same as you. My husband would have told me I was being paranoid.
OMG!! That reminds me of the woman in the room with my dying grandmother. The woman had colon cancer. In my mind, that means her butt was cancerous. Keep in mind, not 3 months before, we had a bird that had a mass protruding out its butt area. It would fly into walls and slide down and just lay there. Turns out, the bird had a cancerous mass on its butt.
This roomie of my grandmother's would walk around the room NAKED as the day she was born!! She would sit on the visitor chair on my grandmother's side of the room. I couldn't get the image of that cancerous butt bird out of my head. I told the nurses and they spoke to the woman several times. She was a repeat offender. When she went out for her smoke (clothed, thank God!), I sprayed disinfectant on the chair.