Sunday 10/11/09

These are the two reports I got from Bette. I think I mentioned how important it is to have an advocate on your side while in the hospital. Well if you are going to have one, Bette is the one for you. Maybe she can be an "Advocate for Hire" when all is said and done? She would make millions!!

Sunday am:
The wound care leaves much to be desired. Saturday the wound care nurse did not remove all of the ointment from Mike's facial wounds because she didn't want to "hurt" him. (That, my dear, is the painful reality of burn wound care.) She then dipped her fingers into the ointment, put it on his face and dipped again with the same, contaminated now, fingers. aaagghh! Mike finally told her that the burn nurses took a glob of ointment, placed it on the back of one hand, and placed it on the wounds. When done with that batch, they would then CHANGE GLOVES...what a concept! Double dipping??? Bad bad bad! (that's JC's opinion, not necessarily reflected in the opinion of the whole world but definitely considered sub-optimal care where she practices medicine)
Anyway, moving on....
Mike didn't get a shower or spit bath on Saturday. At the burn unit, he got washed from head to toe with baby shampoo every day. The old stuff washed off and new stuff applied every day.
Mike didn't have a good night. The guy across the hall was HOH (hard of hearing) and had his TV on full blast at 4am. They are talking about putting a PIC line in again. They seem obsessed with blood work. Bette thinks that she will need a little more explanation on why they want so many tests.
Bete added more ointment to Mike's head this morning. The wounds on his head were really dried out (bad!). They put non-stick stuff on his wounds, but it does stick if it dries out...then whey you go to take it off, it opens up raw spots. (did I mention this was bad?)

Sunday pm:
It's 5:40pm and we are still waiting for wound care. Bette gave Mike a shower about 2 pm in hopes the wound care specialist would be there to put ointment on Mike's face. His wounds were drying out so Bette put the ointment on and put his tube sox on his arms. (maybe she should draw a salary for doing someone else's job) They are supposed to give him pain meds before he gets wound care. Bette says what are the odds that he doesn't have his pain meds when they come to do his care? He delayed his supper until after wound care. It is cold now...

Okay, these guys are not starting on a good foot. Let's hope they can pick up the ball because you don't want to get Bette riled up. Maybe they can be sent over the video that was made on face wound care starring Michael???? Hopefully, there will be an attending doctor that can put a fire under the nurses/wound care specialists...my fear is that if you piss off the nursing staff, Mike won't get any type of quality care and they are stuck in a bad situation. If you are there to do a certain job, you do it. If you want to do sub-standard of care work you should go to another job. (I almost said "like McDonalds" but that would be minimizing the excellent service they give...plus I don't want them to spit in my food!)

Let's hope that they perk up a bit and put out some excellent care. Randy (my husband) always says "Just pray for them". Well, then, I'm praying hard!!!

More later,
and so we go
JaCee