Hi Trish. How are ya?

Hi Sally! I'll post over in the insights thread so we don't hijack Starz thread!

I had a mixed bag of experiences when I had open brain surgery in 2004 - I was on Betaferon at the time - and I remember a nurse (who was trying to do the right thing) jamming the huge saline mixer needle deep, deep, deep into my thigh, and me later realising that the drug hadn't been mixed at all - it was just a huge saline injection.

They were determined to give me heparin/warfarin so I didn't get a blood clot - and my husband and I had to argue with that too - my platelet count was about 30k (normal is 150-500k) and I had been on mega-steroids to try and increase it in the two-weeks prior.

Still, I guess you can't expect them to know everything, every time - they work so hard and have so many constraints. Still, it could have been catastrophic.

Same thing happened to me about two months ago. Dr said my meds would interfere with my antibiotics. My gallbladder was extremely infected as well and I was put on an almost continual antibiotic drip till surgery. They wouldn't let me start my normal meds until I'd been home for two days. Yea, like I was gonna listen to that!!! The hug had its grip on me something fierce and it was right where the surgery was. Norco, baclofen, clonazapam here I come! Not to mention neuro has me on gabapentin for my sz and something else so I was playing catch up with that too!! I was a mess. I feel for ya! I completely get where your coming from. I pray for a speedy recovery for you!

Well just a quick update. Despite all attempts by the doctors and nurses, I am recovering quite well irish tenacity I suppose. My meds are all back on track and this afternoon I was even able to fold up and put away a bit of laundry! Granted it was with multiple trips and didn't finish the load, but hey a small success on the road of recovery.

The hospital did contact me today as well to ask about my 'experience' so I told them about it. But couldn't complain too much since as soon as I started to explain, ms, missed meds... Oh the poor girl on the other side started having kittens!!! I think if I had stuttered even for a second she would have called for an ambulance for me. So in calming her down, I calmed down, and she assured me it would be passed along and they'll do their best in the future to avoid similar situations.

Which I'll be doing my best as well. I do understand that it's a rather small hospital though they're supported by their sister hospital from the city, it makes for a clean and generally well-run hospital, but they aren't as many available specialists and dealing with somewhat oddball diseases must be difficult. So I'm now left crossing my fingers that 1) I'll never need another emergency surgery and naturally 2) that should I need anything cut on in the future they'll follow my schedule.