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| Chilling in the PICU |
And topping the list today...(drum roll please...) INCOMPETENT MEDICAL PERSONNEL! We have two premier children's hospitals in this city. When NiNi was a baby, I had an unpleasant experience at Children's Hospital #1. So ever since then we shifted all of the kids' physicians and care to Children's Hospital #2. Problem solved. Except our beloved pediatric urologist at Children's Hospital #2 (who is seriously the coolest, nicest guy in the world) happened to be doing surgery at Children's Hospital #1. When I saw it on the paperwork I had a bad feeling, but I brushed it off. So Ethan was scheduled for a circumcision and chordee repair (a minor easily correctable birth defect). Surgery was scheduled for 12:00 noon. This was not the greatest news because he of course had to fast all day. The night before, they called me back and said they were able to get him in at 7am. Awesome. Day of the surgery...oops, they now say they can't do it in the morning after all, but go ahead and come in around 11 and they'll see what they can do. Ethan actually didn't even complain about being hungry until about 10:30. We got all settled in the pre-op room at 11:30. By then he was pretty much starving and anxiety off the charts (as soon as he sees the hospital jammies he starts freaking out). Long story short, I waited in the pre-op room with my starving, screaming kid until 2:00pm. Child life never came by to offer toys, movies, nothing. So at that point they take him screaming from my arms (this never gets easier no matter how many times you do it and no matter how minor a procedure) and I head for the waiting room. About an hour later I see the surgeon (OUR surgeon) wandering around the waiting room looking for ME. He tells me there was a mistake...he was handed the wrong size syringe and a medicine (the local anesthetic) which was supposed to be administered just under the skin, was mistakenly injected into his blood stream. This can cause heart arrhythmias so they were taking him to the PICU for observation possibly overnight. What??? Mind you this was supposed to be an hour long procedure. My other kids were getting off the bus and I had chili simmering on the stove. Ethan was ok, but, because they screwed up the local, he had virtually no coverage for pain except oral pain meds. He is a really tough kid and it takes a lot for him to complain, and he was screaming. And I was mad. They moved us up to the intensive care floor and hooked him up to heart monitors. I kept asking questions... how did this happen, does this happen a lot, what are the long-term effects of getting a dose of this to your heart, etc? At one point there were 3 people in business suits standing in our hospital room I assume trying to preempt a law suit. We got somewhat settled. About 2 hours had gone by, fluids pumping into his IV for 3 hours total. I'm not a genius, but I do know that if you pump fluid in, it's gotta come out. I realized he had not peed nor did anyone come in to suggest he get up to try to pee since he came out of surgery. Interesting. So try to pee we did. In the process the heart monitor leads came off. No one came in to check on the apparent cessation of heart beats either. Hmmm... I wont bore you with more details but I really could go on and on...pain med script came up missing (and doc on call wouldn't write a new one but suggested we use "leftover pain meds from the last surgery"), nurse who accidentally socked him in his surgical site while pulling up his pants, etc. Once they discharged us (around 10pm) I think I practically ran to the parking lot. His heart is fine and Ethan is hanging in there but recovery has been very painful. We have decided that underwear are a completely unnecessary part of his wardrobe. I smuggled out 2 pair of the drawstring hospital bottoms and that's all he wears...I wash one pair while he wears the other. They are peach. Poor kid. Looking forward to having our boy
back to his old self.
