My sister has had a multitude of health problems. I think her body is that of an 80 year old and she is 65. She was diagnosed with bronchitis 2 weeks ago, really didn't get any better except temperature went down a little bit after 4 days of antibiotics so she saw the doctor again and they did a chest xray this time. Showed upper lobe infiltrate to which they were calling pneumonia but because of her history of cancer of the breast wanted to do a cat scan. That showed a pulmonary embolus! And then to top it off her doctor said it is up to her whether to treat it at home or go to the doctor. The doctors nurse, although she was just passing on what the docotr told her to tell sis said if it were up to her she would straight to the hospital. I could tell my sis was quite apprehensive, she knows what a blood clot in the lung can lead to. I didn't want her to just go by what I thought best, I told her to go with her gut feeling which I already knew was hospital. If she had said the other then I would have told her my opinion as nurse. So she goes in, I talked to her at 9:30 this evening. The doctor still hadn't even called in any orders at all so she couldn't even have a glass of water. I tried and tried to call all evening and no answer on her phone so I got the switchboard to connect me to the unit. They checked and her phone hadn't been plugged into the phone jack! She had no lotion, blanket, anything in her room. This is a major medical center here in Evansville. I told her that pretty soon they should be calling the medical director for orders. I didn't like to do that when I was working but sometimes as a nurse you just have to be the patients advocate. She has a lot of confidence inher doctor and since she got there after doctors hours, the MD on call from his office admitted her in his name. Well to me his name is MUD

Oh wow!!! I'm so sorry for your sister! hopefully she gets better treatment and gets better soon!

Sounds like a hospital SNAFU to me. I hope they get it together
soon, for your DSister's sake..

Doydie- It's been a long time but isn't this an emergency? Shouldn't she be on heparin and have an "umbrella" placed? Also, where did the embolus come from?

Best to her.
ANN

Ann, as a nurse that has been my thought all along. Back 'in the days' a pulmonary embolus wold have been immediately transferred to ICU, Heparin, possibly an umbrella, etc. Norma said her blood pressure was quite high, well duh, and the nurse called the doctor asking for some medicine and doctor said sounds likes she needs to see her herself. Well thank you missy doctor. How kind and thoughtfull of you. Norma got there at 6:30 last night and the doctor came in at 9 PM. So an echo is scheduled for tomorrow, she was started on an IV antibiotic and all of her medicine restarted. Norma is actually taking some of her own supply tonight. I tried to tell her that as a nurse she really shouldn't be telling me that but Norma is desperate to have a good night sleep at a decent pain level. She is on a cardiac unit and her monitor looks good, I stopped by and peeked You know hindsight is wonderful. Thinking about it this evening I should have advised her to talk to the nursing supervisor before now but you know what MS does to us, especially in times of stress.

Facebook is wonderful. When Mom was in hospice I started this mass message out to all of the family members across the US so I could cut down on calls, repeating myself with each one. So everyone got the same one. I did that the whole two weeks Mom was there before she died. I have a brother that is a chaplain in a hospice and he loved those frequent update so much, he felt like he was in constant touch and every family member could see what the others were saying so actually they were in contact with each other. It just helped them feel like they were still together. He took that idea back to his inpatient hospice and they made sure that they installed 2 computers with wi fi for all the members. So I enjoy that. Plus it makes me feel needed, like I am still part of a nursing team.

Maybe the working diagnosis is no longer a pulmonary embolus. I would think that she would have had a VQ scan by now rather than an ultrasound (echo). They must be looking at something else.

Families connected on FB seems a very positive thing. Because of some of the negative things about FB, we don't use it. It could be wonderful and in exactly the way you used it.

The neighbor sent me a picture from the hospital of his several hours old newborn. They had a place on the unit for the fathers and gave them some simple instructions to choose a pic they had taken and frame it and send it out. Probably common now. Debbie would know.

Yep, no 300 of my closest friends for me.
Use FB for Family only. Only get 15 Happy Birthdays,
instead or 100.

Thanks Ann, so they still do that same scan now. Well I guess some things do stay the same. Her B/P remain pretty high still, doctor made one change tonight and said if she is OK tomorrow she will send her home. I wold love to go chain my sister to the bed and forbid it but I know I can't. She did order the echo but did not feel the need to have it ordered stat so that means it would be done on Tuesday. I understand a lot of the push is by insurance companies seeing that they aren't ordering anything stat on people, vital sings are stable and don't warrant a hospital stay anymore. I worked long enough to remember having to try to calm down some irate family members myself. I also have to remember that my sister is married, if the doctor does not see the need to order a cardiologist to see her in the hospital and my sister and her husband agree to that then I can't barge in and say anything to the staff. I have told my concerns to my sister and husband. They have relayed those to the nursing staff. It was a completely different story with my Mom. Hospitals expect family members to be their Mom'd advocate and voice. I can't be that for my sister. I just have to learn to deal with me and my own anxiety now. You'll find my other concern in another post about my daughter