upset by hospital policies!

{KIDS MENTIONED}


this is good to know; maybe I too will be so drugged I won't care.

I have 3 kids, but they will be with their fathers. My oldest will be with my first husband and my youngest two will be with my second husband. They will stay with their dads for one week and then with my sister (who lives on the same property as me) for my second week of recovery. After two weeks they'll be with me again but I'll have my sister nearby to help if it gets overwhelming. My kids are 9, 3 and 19 months.

I suppose this snafu, with being alone in the hospital, will be a small bump in the road to recovery when it's all said and done with.

Hi Lena,

The hospital I was at only had private rooms which made me really happy. We had a large tv, wireless internet and a pullout bed for the hubby, but I ended up sending him home. I was on a morphine pump so I was totally out of it the day of surgery and most of the next day. I would fall asleep mid sentence, lol. I will say the first night I woke up a lot in pain and it was hard to get on top of it once I got behind, so in retrospect it would have been nice to have someone there to wake me up every hour or so to press the pump (it was available every 8 minutes) just so it wouldnt get out of control.

Best of luck and bring whatever you can to make you feel as comfortable as possible and that will help. Also, get as much rest as possible too!

I too was also in a private room. The floor i was on was the Women's and Children's floor i was not on the ob ward. My husband could have stayed the night with me the first night but i had two children that didn't have a babysitter. I was fine until about 2:00 in the morning when the nurse came in and gave me my medicine i couldn' t go back to sleep so i asked for my sleeping pill and i was starting to get emotional after that but then i went to sleep. The only thing was i wasn't able to get up out of bed without help because my oxygen levels were low. But the nurses on the staff was really nice and when i had to ask questions they understood. The first sleeping pill that i got the nurse said if it didn't help i could have my second one at 10:30 put the first pill helped me go to sleep but when the nurse came in at 2:00 to give me my medicine for pain and gas i couldn't go back to and i asked for it she said " doctor brown order it for 10:30 am but it won't hurt to give it to you now so she gave it to me at 2:00 am. They understood everything that i was going throug.

as a single girl, i have to admit it never occurred to me, i assumed i would be alone at night, and frankly, it wouldn't have mattered one bit if someone was there or not, slept the whole night, unless they were taking temp or blood pressure... if you are really anxious about not having an advocate in the same room, than i would highly recommend two things:

1. have an epidural in addition to general so that your head is clear while you are on your own -- rather than the haze of morphine or some other drug - i had a TAH/BSO and the epidural was amazing - no pain, standing upright as soon as they got me out of bed, and while it meant a foley i wouldn't do it any other way.
2. make sure your cellphone is charged and with you when you go to bed so that if you need to talk to your advocate you can (assuming they are light sleepers and will hear their phone ring).

as far as roommates go, i couldn't have imagined a worse roommate if i tried. i was on a surgical floor, she had dementia, she was a racist, she would cry out if you touched her - and even with all that there is some compassion for the person in the room with you - they too are suffering and going through recovery, it reminds us that we aren't the only ones going through pain... i don't imagine she could have imagined a worse roommate either - i threw up every twenty minutes for the first six hours - couldn't have been fun to hear and i too was one of the obnoxious people who had lots of visitors (as soon as i was able) and my mom with me all day every day. it all balanced itself out.

best of luck to you.

I was very thankful my hubby was able to stay the night with me. I would have been bored to tears without his company that evening and the next morning.

Thank you for all of your kind words and support. Can I say, for the record though, that all of the talk from those of you who have had an experience closer to the one I was hoping for (private room, significant other at night, etc) is not making this any easier for me?

It feels a bit like, "here's a little salt for your emotional wound, enjoy!". I'm really quite upset about being alone and with a stranger. Tales of that being "not that bad" of an experience are making me feel a little better, thank you. But tales of what I'm not going to get to have are honestly, kind of making it worse. Just being truthful.

	Quote:
Originally Posted by annie_nj as a single girl, i have to admit it never occurred to me, i assumed i would be alone at night, and frankly, it wouldn't have mattered one bit if someone was there or not, slept the whole night, unless they were taking temp or blood pressure... if you are really anxious about not having an advocate in the same room, than i would highly recommend two things: 1. have an epidural in addition to general so that your head is clear while you are on your own -- rather than the haze of morphine or some other drug - i had a TAH/BSO and the epidural was amazing - no pain, standing upright as soon as they got me out of bed, and while it meant a foley i wouldn't do it any other way. 2. make sure your cellphone is charged and with you when you go to bed so that if you need to talk to your advocate you can (assuming they are light sleepers and will hear their phone ring). as far as roommates go, i couldn't have imagined a worse roommate if i tried. i was on a surgical floor, she had dementia, she was a racist, she would cry out if you touched her - and even with all that there is some compassion for the person in the room with you - they too are suffering and going through recovery, it reminds us that we aren't the only ones going through pain... i don't imagine she could have imagined a worse roommate either - i threw up every twenty minutes for the first six hours - couldn't have been fun to hear and i too was one of the obnoxious people who had lots of visitors (as soon as i was able) and my mom with me all day every day. it all balanced itself out. best of luck to you.

Annie, is this normal? (the vomiting post surgery?) That sounds wretched! I am concerned about something like this happening to me...I'm sensitive to this sort of thing. I had hyperemesis gravidarum during my pregnancies and had to wear a subcutaneous infusion pump of Zofran (stuck myself with a needle every 12 hours and the meds bypassed my weak tummy). I did this until the third trimester, wasn't fun.

I'm sorry you were so ill and your roomie was such a pill! I have a hard time stomaching the people where I live...many of them are very rural and I'm a city girl, transplanted here, and I hope I just have a roomie that I can ignore and she can ignore me :P

I was in a semi private room. I didn't ask about dh spending the night and honestly, I would've not have wanted anyone to spend the night with me. I wanted to be alone and sleep, sleep, sleep. I did watch some TV, but that was about it. Most of the time I was out of it. In fact, after the surgery when I was brought back to my room I couldn't wait for everyone to leave so I could sleep peacefully. I kept trying to fight it as I felt like I needed to talk with dh, mil and grandma. Don't get me wrong, I am glad they were there for me, but I really didn't need anyone to spend the night with me. Dh came and visited the following morning, went to work, and than came back in the late afternoon.

lena, i had an EXTREME reaction to anesthesia -- that said, if you are prone to a sensitive stomach i would definitely mention that -- they finally put me on drugs they give chemo patients and that stopped the nausea, granted it took a while as they stepped me up on meds but the epidural kept me from feeling anything related to my surgery so that didn't hurt at all, only the discomfort with throwing up, but NO pain at suture site. i don't suffer from a sensitive stomach at all, but get incredible motion sick - don't know if there is a correlation.

i'm a professor and being patient with people who are different comes with the territory, city kids, country kids, in the end we are all the same, we laugh, cry, are in good and poor health... in the spirit of the holidays i'm sure you'll be fine...

i held my cellphone in my sleep both nights i was there, but didn't need to call anyone. once i was i could keep food down there was so much in the way of physical therapy and checkups etc that the only time i turned my tv on was while i was waiting for my breakfast...

more important than a roommate is your health, more important than whether your husband can be there for a night or two is your health - here's hoping that the hospital and staff are good ones and that your path in recovery is an easy one.

best of luck,
annie

Annie, you sound just like my bf...he is also a professor and he subsequently is very honest and very patient. Must come with the profession (or, on the contrary, an innate quality you guys have that leads you to the profession!). I didn't mean to sound intolerant, but I live in rural Appalachia and I find it hard to relate to many of the people that I come into contact with.

I have no experience with this hospital or staff, which I'm sure is adding to my anxiety. I was very fortunate that my other hospitalizations were in state-of-the art suites that (at the time) I didn't realize were nicer than the average hospital. Couple this with my hospital being ancient and rural, and I'm even more anxious. Not to mention I'm a worrier by nature anyway. Relaxing is something that is not easy for me to do. I suppose ultimately as long as they don't wheel me into a room with a jug of ether and a few scalpels, I'll survive it