I’m keeping this record now in case there are any other relatives (over-protective Mothers) reading this after finding out that someone they are close to has ulcerative colitis and may be about to undergo surgery to remove the large intestine. My plan is to have a separate page.
Yesterday son was looking really healthy and feeling positive. He had started eating a light diet and was experiencing some discomfort from his stoma and his remaining gut but he put this down to trapped wind. I was working today and didn’t get the chance to phone him but knew I would be visiting him this evening so wasn’t stressed. When I got home Hubby said that he had tried to phone but had no answer, we surmised that son was too busy mobilising to answer his phone. When youngest daughter spoke to us she told us that she had spoken to DIL who was with son, a poorly son.
When we got to the hospital son was lying in his bed looking waxy and gaunt, in the hour and a half we were there he hardly spoke. Apparently, this came from the man in the bed opposite, soon after we left the night before son’s pain increased considerably, the nurses were called and eventually gave him peppermint water to drink and when this didn’t work they tried paracetamol. At 3am, when the other patients all rang their call bells and told the nurses they would all be putting in formal complaints, a doctor was summoned who didn’t examine son but wrote him up for oral morphine. No one examined son until he started vomiting, this was after lunch, and then they discovered that the ileostomy wasn’t working, his intestine was blocked. They have now sorted it out, apparently he still has pain but nothing like it had been for the previous 14 hours. Understandably son is now tired, depressed, has no faith in the people ‘caring’ for him and does not want to try eating again in case it causes him problems. I know that what happened last night is a relatively common complication but that makes the lack of appropriate action from the staff even worse, it could all have been solved far sooner. Thank heavens for the other patients interceding on son’s behalf.
I have been reading your blog for going on 3 years now as I remember I started reading after my son was born, I am horrified they would let someone who has been through major surgery who started feeling somewhat better then drastically worse suffer for 14 hours. My boys are still 12 and under but I can only imagine what your “mother’s heart” is going through right now as well as how awful this has to be for his wife. We are praying for your family.
~Roxie (Kennesaw,Ga U.S.A.)
Sorry he had to go through that. I mean when the other patients are calling out the medical professionals…..OMG that is dire. A set back you all didn’t need – but let’s hope it is smoother sailing from here and the baby holds off a wee while longer. Thoughts with you again…take care.
Nothing constructive to say except that I am reading with interest and sending you all my support and prayers.
Anji – X
This kind of situation happens all too often in NHS nowadays. Every patient now needs an informed relative/friend advocate, visiting regularly,liaising with staff/doctors,ensuring standards of care,asking questions etc. (I speak from personal experience) I won’t go into what I think is the matter, but ‘Fings ain’t wot they used to be’ !
So yet again people who’s only job it is to CARE for the patient fail to fulfil that fundamental, base-line objective. WTF is the matter with these people? Is our society so wrapped up in bureaucracy that we’ve totally lost the ability to apply humanity and basic concern for another person’s well-being? Isn’t that what a *nurse* is supposed to do – *nurse* people back to health? It’s a total and utter disgrace – really. Yes, some procedures and illnesses result in pain that cannot be completely removed and yes, sometimes patients described as unacceptable symptoms and processes which are expected and must be borne before normality, even if it’s a new personal reality can return.
But this does not appear to be the case here. First the epidural and now a complication, which should have been spotted or at least suspected – both missed at the grass-roots level of care; the interface between surgeon, patient and recovery:- the nurse.
Shame on them. I don’t care what their excuses are and I don’t want to hear any rubbish about “budgets, targets and cutbacks” either – this was a decent, normal and caring guy not some awkward ranting gibbonesque resource-gobbling time-sink hypochondriac. In severe pain and perilously unwell at a horribly stressful time due to the imminent birth of his first child.
A disgrace to all of us that put up with this.
This post nearly made me weep. You poor son. How can it be that sombodies lack of care is now impacting on your son eating??? It is an absolute bloody disgrace. Why do people enter a profession like nursing if they aren’t prepared to nurse?
They should be thoroughly ashamed by their lack of attention to your poor son.
My father is due in hospital for open heart surgery and I am full of worry for him, reading posts like this does nothing to ease those worries.
Well good for the other patients at least – a bit of solidarity there! Hoping things improve…
If this is the Trust I think it is it does n’t surprise in the least. It echos the treatment I myself and family and friends have received. Fortunatly I won my GMC case against Senior Consultants but nothing seems to have changed. Said Trust no longer wants me as a patient and have said they will immediately transfer me.
I do have serious concerns about the Trust, if its the same one.
tboo – Are you any better off being transferred though? This level of care appears to be endemic nowadays.
One of the obsevations I made to the medics yesterday was that the incidence of litigation must be lower on the general side as they do not seem to be as concerned about poor record keeping and attenetion to detail as we are within obstetrics/midwifery, he laughed.