Grandma's resent hopsital stay, The reason I am pissed at OHSU

First let me give you a bit of back ground, 8VDA was a floor in the Vetrians hospital that OHSU kept some of their patiants, if was for infection controle along with patiants that didnt warrent being in ICU yet didnt truly have a known cause for their illnesses. This wing of the hospital and its nursing staff though having some good nurses for the most part, horrificly horrid nurses, nurses that flat out just dont care and stand about the nurses station laughin.
Grandma had been on this floor twice before. The first time she went in with a bad bladder infection that requiered IV antibiatic. While there she contracted a bowel infection, causing her to stay in the hopsital for a while long. The second time she was in was before her stroke and she was placed in the room about 6 am from the emergency room. (Had I been there I would have walked with her and got her set up in the room, but eh, dont trust that person with her much anymore) Well she spent the entire day with out seeing a nurse, with out reseiving her pills nothing. I do not like to think what might have happened had it not been that eve Aunt Charlotte and Jacob stopped by to see her.
So with this history I do not like 8VDA or is staff. Well three days ago I took Grandma to the Emergency room after calling her cardialigiest with reports of her having extream chest pains. At the Emergency room they elliminated the posiblities of it being her heart or a blood clot. They desided to keep her for atleast a night to try and get her pain managed. They told me they would be sending her to 8VDA, I broke down in to tears it was 2 in the morning and I had been there since 1 in the afternoon with her. I told them that I would rather take her home and try my own pain management with her then allow her to go back to that place.
Two doctors assured me that she would be taken care of, that 8VDA was being transfered over to the 7th floor of the south hospital on the OHSU on the main Campus. Which was across the never ending bridge and down two floors. They assured me that this department was being watched very close because my was not the first of reports aginst the staff. Well she was taken great care of a Nurse came in ever 30 minutes checked on her gave her any medication she could and I fell asleep next to her. After all I wasnt going to leave her in that horrible place by herself.
It was 8 in the morning and they began to transporting of patiance from 8VDA to 7C. It was interesting. The new rooms at first was only equiped with the basic. The stuff for the patiance's. Well that was fine i scooted on down to the cafe and had me a bagel for brefeast I came back up and there was an uncomfy chair, Still fine. Every 30 minutes he'd pop it was great it was like wow they got the picture dont treat the people like shit.
I desided to go home and catch a couple of hours of good sleep a shower and come back. On my way back I got a call from the doctors they where realeasing her. She had a mild case of pnemonia. I was suprised to find out they where discharging her in such a case. But the Doctor told me that my Grandma had asked to go home. So I was on my way to get her.
I get there and she had not been given the bath they promised to give her, they had not been checking upon her as they where in my presence. To top it off the Doctor herself lied. My grandmother was out of it and never asked to come home, infact a nurse even resurred the fact that the doctor was pushy about getting her out. Unfortinantly the Doctor was in clinec and we where unable to get a hold of them. But I had to bit my tounge on all my thoughts and stuff as my Mother, (Alberta) was there and she bit in to everyone there and told them all what she thought. We packed grandma up and brought her home, but not before my mother made sure to make many complaints to the head of nursing and get numbers to which she has called repeatedly having her say on how they treated grandma.

Now, Grandmas esophagus is acting up due to bad acid reflect. She has a mild case of pnemonia, and after getting home the doctor called and said, She had a bactira in her blood, she was unsure what kind it was untill they petrie dish it. So I said will she be coming back. If so will she be staying on 7c, they cant seem to get it through there head that they do not take good care of the elderly on such floor. Sad but true.
I am sick of typing for now and will contenue later with information.

Great News, an Update

Well hello, I know I have not been keeping this up to well. Life got busy. But yesterday May 19th grandma had a doctors appointment with Mark Dunn. He gave her some great news. Because of the type of stroke she had, it should be no time at all till she is 90% herself again. Which is quiet huge. She is walking a lot more though she depends heavily on the walker. The medications are keeping her well. In fact she is down to taking only 4 pills in the morn and 5 of a night which is quiet a bit less then before the pacemaker. Also she has not had any spells really here lately with her heart. All in all the doctor says that she is recovery nicely. May 22 she has her occupational and physical therapy and they will help her restore her sight and body. Though at this point she still isn't well enough to travel to far away from home, she has been going to Oregon City searching through books helping record our family genealogy on her fathers side(Ralph Parrish). We are hoping by July she is doing well enough for a trip to the coast.

I guess this is about all to day today. I will try to post again soon.

(Edit) I forgot to mention that the fungus in her asoficise is gone, also that with medication her asoficise is working better. She is no longer having a hard time breathing or swallowing harder foods.

Todays Doctors Appointment.

Today Grandma saw Dr. Mark Dunn, he is her regular doctor at OHSU family medicine. He has chosen to leave any pills for her heart up to the cardiologist which she see's tomorrow. The last couple of days she has been in some extream pain, but have been able to controle it with a regualar pain medication schedruel. We also found out that her asoficise doese not close like it should, that is why she has so many issues with heart burn/ acid reflex also why she got the Funges infection in her throat.

Other then this there really is no other information. wait...

She got a hospital bed which Uncle Neil and Vernin helped put up along with Aunt Debbie and Kathy.

The Pacemaker and the Stroke.

Well as most of you know by now Grandma had a pacemaker implanted to help regulate her heart beat. Now what the pacemaker will do is allow them to help slow her heart when it gets to beating to fast. The pacemaker will not allow her heart to beat to slow. So the irregular heart beat is being helped by the pacemaker.

The night before she went in to have surgery she had a stroke that effected the right side of her brain. Her right hand doesn't quiet work as well as it once did and she has trouble with her right leg as well, But the worst is her sight, She now has to turn her head to the right instead of just looking out of the right side of her right eye. This is all stuff that will be worked on with the physiotherapist which she has appointments with in May.




Fallowing info found from
http://www.brainaustralia.org.au/stroke/effects_of_stroke

Effects of Left Hemisphere Strokes

The left hemisphere of the brain controls the movement of the right side of the body. It also controls speech and language abilities for most people. A left-hemisphere stroke often causes paralysis of the right side of the body. This is known as right hemiplegia.

Someone who has had a left-hemisphere stroke may also develop aphasia. Aphasia is a catch all term used to describe a wide range of speech and language problems. These problems can be highly specific, affecting only one part of the patient's ability to communicate, such as the ability to move their speech-related muscles to talk properly. The same patient may be completely unimpaired when it comes to writing, reading or understanding speech.

In contrast to survivors of right-hemisphere stroke, patients who have had a left-hemisphere stroke often develop a slow and cautious behavior. They may need frequent instruction and feedback to finish tasks.

Patients with left-hemisphere stroke may develop memory problems similar to those of right-hemisphere stroke survivors. These problems can include shortened retention spans, difficulty in learning new information and problems in conceptualizing and generalizing.

Fallowing info from
http://www.medicinenet.com/arrhythmia_irregular_heartbeat/page3.htm#pacemaker
This site also has a lot of interesting information on Heart Arrhythmia (Irregular Heartbeat)

What is a pacemaker?

A pacemaker is a device that sends small electrical impulses to the heart muscle to maintain a suitable heart rate. Pacemakers primarily prevent the heart from beating too slowly. The pacemaker has a pulse generator (which houses the battery and a tiny computer) and leads (wires) that send impulses from the pulse generator to the heart muscle. Newer pacemakers have many sophisticated features that are designed to help manage arrhythmia and optimize heart-rate-related function as much as possible.

The first blog.

Hello family,

This is me Carrie. I have desided that maybe some of you would like to know better whats going on with the eldest in our family. Jane Thompson, or most of you call her, Grandma. Well I have desided that for thoughs of you who are wanting to know that I would set up this place. A place where you can come and read after a Doctors appointment or after a test is ran, or just the day to day stuff she goes through. I will try to post as often as I can. But I am not just looking after our grandmother, I am also trying to get in to Pre med, so I have a lot on my plate to.

One of the other reasons I am posting this blog is because I want some people to realize that she is quiet ill at the moment and cant travel, Really that is doctors orders. Also perhaps it will give you a glimpse in that not only do we (my sister's and mother and I) get her for holidays all of the time and her birthday, but because we also get her for the Emergency Room trips, the doctors appointments, The nights she wakes up and has problems breathing, the days where she cant seem to stay awake, along with the nights she cant sleep. The nights we go with out sleep because we are worried about her.

I know some of you might be thinking at this point "Well why don't she go to a nursing home." All I can say is how dare you, how dare you for one moment think of putting her in a nursing home. There are cultures older then ours that sacrifice everything for there elders. I might have more time for myself if I didn't have to schedule things about doctor visits and such. But then I remember that she is my grandmother and what kind of horrible wicked person I would be if I allowed such thing to happen, or even for even thinking of it.



Carrie