Behind The Scenes

This is my version of Bill Maher's "New Rules."

HOSPITAL NEW RULES:

If you check into a hospital for a procedure, the phlebotomist must actually look at the orders when she is verifying the name of the patient. A patient's wife gets uneasy when blood is taken for no reason. By the way, I can hear everyone talking about the confusion at the nurses station!

Student nurses should not be allowed to put in, or take out, IV's on a Cumadin patient, especially in a hospital we are paying OUT THE NOSE for! Cumadin makes a person bleed. You don't have many chances to do it right.

Patients should be able to order take out, if it's been over 3 hours since lunch was ordered.

When traveling to St. George, DON'T GET SICK! Your spouse will be put in the Psych Ward because of the staff's slow speech! I hear "compound" accents!

Cardiac Surgeons must realize that all their patients aren't hard of hearing. Don't come in the room shouting. I'm only 46 and my hearing is just fine! We are smiling because we are laughing at you!

Spouses must not be allowed to watch a cardiac conversion, especially if the patient is not medicated enough! The paddle leaves a red burn for a reason. IT HURTS LIKE HELL!

AND FINALLY:

Specialty doctors have their place, but they must communicate with each other. We go to the Electrician, who refers us to the Plumber, who tells us to go to our Primary Care Physician, who is out of town. We go to the ER and they give us medicine that they shouldn't, admit us, adjust our medicine and we practically bleed to death when we go home. Then the headaches start all over again. OHMYHELL!

On paper, it looks like our Red Storm are struggling. It doesn't help that we played 2 games in a higher division. While Dixie gave Montana State and Western Oregon a run for their money, both ended with a loss.

But then there is the defense, which has the firepower to go up against the big teams! They have kept their strength and let our boys come home with dignity.

Quote from Spectrum:

"The defense has played well enough for us to be 3-1 right now, and that's too bad," Thompson said. "We turned it over a little bit against Montana State, not letting us win the game. Last week our defense scored a touchdown for us, got some key stops and we just couldn't finish the game. It would have been nice to get a win because the defense did everything they could."

So off we go to cheer on the Red Storm! Win or lose, we'll have a great time with our friends and family! Kev has given his heart and soul to this team and we couldn't be more proud of him!

Cumadin Is Evil And Must Be Destroyed!

Yesterday, Harold got a nose bleed at 8:30 AM. Because he is on Cumadin for his new hardware, he couldn't stop his nose bleed. Off we went to the big house (aka IHC). After running some tests, we found out he was 5x more likely to bleed and basically had no clotting factors in his blood, which explains the huge bruise on half his leg. We also found out his artery had an aneurysm (big bulge causing lots of pain). Thank God for huge needles and an ultra sound tech! Needless to say, he gets 2 nights in the hotel IHC, plasma, a big balloon up his nose, morphine and gourmet food for 2 nights. Some guys have all the fun!

I'd like to ask the patient next door to please leave his ventilator in. It's not nice to try to die, when so many people are trying to get healthy.

My Superhero!

Wednesday was a very stressful day. After grabbing some take-out, Harold and I finally made it home from work around 8:30. Around 11:00 Harold didn't feel well and we took his blood pressure. It was WAY too high. Pulse...very irregular.

A quick jaunt to Alta View and we found out his heart was back in Atrial Fibrillation. Around 2:00 the decision was made to transfer him to IHC in Murray. He had a wonderful ambulance ride around 4:00 AM.

Test, test, tests and more tests. Long story short - new stent put over old stent and a quick shock to get heart back in rhythm (they let me watch that and I don't recommend that to anyone). The doctors tweaked his medication and send him home on Friday.

Although Harold would love to keep this off my blog and not have told anyone, I'm so proud of my Super Man! If he wasn't in such good shape or didn't work so hard on being healthy, his outcome wouldn't be so good. But because he makes the effort to keep fit, he will have a very long life. He has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know! If we could only keep the stress away...IT COULD HAPPEN???

HIGH FIVE, Harold!

Interesting Interview - Great Point of View