After several days in the ER, the wife has returned home.
Her wild blood sugar level swings put her there initially. These were brought on by a urinary tract infection. All the bacteria causing the UTI feed on the sugars being pumped out of her system because of her diabetes. The more sugar, the worse the UTI.
They did a culture on the bacteria causing the UTI, which can take up to seventy-two hours to grow. This is part of why she was in the hospital so long. They had to know what bacteria was causing the problem so they could get the right antibiotics to get rid of it. Wile she was there, she developed a toothache and an ear infection as well. They ended up giving her a wide-spectrum antibiotic that they said should kill everything off.
We never did get a good explanation of the acute kidney injury other than it isn’t a physical injury and they didn’t seem too worried about it.
The ER was packed to the gills over the weekend. They had patients on gurneys in the hallway, with screens around them to give them a little privacy. It seems they were short-staffed as well, as several of the nurses told us they usually worked in other areas of the hospital and were called in to help out.
One guy was sitting at a computer station in the hallway the entire time I was there. No matter when I went up and down the hallway to the wife’s room, this guy was always sitting at his station. One time I walked by I asked “Do you ever get to go home? You’re always here.”
He said “Yeah, thanks for noticing. I do get some time off, just not right now.”
There were several times there was a general call to a room in the next corridor over. When the announcement went over the PA system, people scrambled to get there. I’m guessing that particular room is where they put the worst cases that need the most attention. Should I ever go to the ER, I don’t want to end up in that room.
The nurses were always busy and I commend them on their efforts. The wife is not real patient but they managed to keep up with her requests.
This afternoon they finally had a regular room open up and they asked the wife if she wanted to move to it. She told them no, she was going to leave, with or without their consent. We had to wait about two hours for them to discharge her. The nurse taking care of her had to get another nurse to handle the discharge, as she was handling an emergency situation in a nearby room. She came in just before we left and apologized that she hadn’t been able to get the wife discharged earlier. We told her it wasn’t a problem and no apology was necessary. She’s busy keeping people alive, that takes precedence over getting someone out the door to go home.
I’m sure they wanted to get as much of the ER cleared of patients as possible. We have a nasty weather systems moving into the area tonight, with three to five inches of snow and ice expected. I’m sure there will be plenty of people doing foolish things on the freeway and having accidents. There is at least one major accident on the freeway every day, even in good weather, so I’m sure that will go up with the bad road conditions. I’m just hoping that the ER doesn’t get swamped. The folks there need some down time.
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