FU to the "Hospital Waiting Game"

[Jolie]

Ugh. FU hospitals. My grandpa is in the hospital, with blood pooling in his brain, and all my mom can tell me so far is "well, they say its not a stroke". He is still awake (or was last time I talked to my mom) but hes really confused and has been getting worse throughout the day.

This sucks.

[Ballbuster1]

I know how you feel, Jolie. I hate the b-s games hospitals play.
You want info and you get nothing........:icon_evil
I know they are tring to cover their ass, but it's your family
and you want answers. STAT.

[Stinkysteve]

I hope they find out what's going on and he gets better soon.

If we can help, you know where to find us!

[SpotcheckBilly]

Sorry, Jolie..
Hope it all works out okay.

[Sinn Fein]

A few months ago my boss's brother died in the hospital waiting room of a heart attack. He went to the hospital with chest pains. They made him wait. He had a massive heart attack while sitting there.

They suck.

[Jolie]

Sinn: :( I'm sorry to hear that...

And thanks guys... My family is back in New Mexico, so I can't even easily get there.

I'm just afraid that waiting until tomorrow is too long and he is going to have a massive stroke or something while they get their act together for the surgery. :-/

[PrncssNikki]

I'm sorry to hear that Jolie.

On my sister's 10th birthday, she tripped and busted open her face. My mom and her sat in the ER for 5 hours until the took her back. By the time they did, the cut had already set so they couldn't give her stitches and now she's got a scar across her lip. They're bullshit. That day we learned if you want any sort of immediate assistance, tell them you're having breathing problems because as we were waiting there we watched a woman smoke a cigarette outside then walk in complaining of breathing problems and they took her right back.

[Sinn Fein]

Too often, they seem to only want to do something AFTER something major happens. I don't think they teach preventative medicine anymore in medical school. You have to be a pain in the ass and insist that they do something for anything to ever get done.

Earlier in the year we had to take my g/f's father to the emergency room because he had an allergic reaction to something he had to take the day before some tests. He broke out in hives all over and started swelling up, especially his neck. The fear was, of course, that he wouldn't be able to breathe. My g/f is a nurse, with specialties in cardiac and respiratory care. She felt he needed immediate attention, and that he needed a cortizone shot or something similar (I forget what he called it) to stop the reaction before it stopped his breathing. They insisted he wait and told her she was overreacting. Well, once he passed out in the emergency room they rushed him right in.

He ended up having to stay until the following evening. The doctor even said if they had just given him a cortizone shot when we got him there we could have taken him home that same night.

[Hoagie]

You can thank the law suits for all that. The situation in PA is becoming critical. All the good doctors are fleeing the state and pretty soon we will have to go to New Jersey or Deleware for emrgency treatment. Good luck with your grandpa, Jolie. I hope he gets better.

[chumpy]

Sorry about your Grandfather Jolie,


Having been an EMT, and having brain problems of my own (epilepsy) I know a little bit.

Since a stroke has been ruled out, bleeding in the brain becomes a waiting game. It dapends on how much bleeding there is. If it's just a little, then odds are it will be re-absorbed over time. If it's more, then they have to identify the source. Probably with an enhanced ct scan. They inject something into the blood to make it traceable to the source of bleeding. Where the source of bleeding is usually helps decide what treatment should be. Also his age and any other conditions he has or meds he takes make a difference.

I hope I was able to help somewhat with this info and not sound like a babbling jackass.

[Jolie]

Thank you chumpy! That does help... My first thought yesterday was this sounds a LOT like what happened to my husbands dad last year, although they didnt take him to the hospital until he was unconscious and by then it was too late - he had a hemorraghic stroke and died 6 weeks later. So when I first heard blood pooling in the brain, and the symptoms seem so similar (confusion, forgetting conversations he just had, sleepy all the time...), it just sounded SOO much like what his dad went through. :( By the time he was unconscious and had the CAT scan, there was such a huge mass of blood that was already really dried... so his brain had been bleeding a decently long time, we think.

Oh well, the surgery is today... hopefully it goes well...

[chumpy]

Great, glad I could help. Sounds like he'll be fine *fingers crossing*

[Jolie]

Well, they finally took my grandpa into surgery at about 8:00 eastern tonight. Apparently they had a string of "emergencies" today, so my grandpa got pushed back. Finally they wanted to postpone it till thursday and my mom and my grandpas wife told the doctor how confused he had been all day, so she went in to talk to him, and when she came out, told them that it was an emergency now, and they would do the surgery tonight. So anyway, I just got a call and they said they got the blood (there were clots and bleeds, it sounds like), and that they are a little concerned because he is not waking up as quickly as they want him to, and he was getting very agitated trying to wake up which was causing his blood pressure to spike. They are also concerned because he doesnt appear to be able to move his left side at the moment.

Anyway, please keep him in your thoughts... It would mean a lot to me..

[SpotcheckBilly]

I hope your grandpa gets better..He's in my thoughts.

[100 Grand]

Hang in there Jolie!

I had surgery last year and they said they were worried that I wasn't waking up that easily, and I was agitated too.

[mascan42]

Hope he gets better soon, Jolie.

Hospitals suck. My Grandfather went in on the night of Dec. 29, 1999 with abdominal pains, and by the following afternoon, they'd figured out that he had a large gall stone. A fairly simple operation to remove it, if you do it soon enough. The fucking doctors decided it could wait until they got back from New Year's vacation. In the meantime, his gall bladder ruptured, filling his system with bile, and resulting in a massive infection that fucked up his immune system. He never recovered, and died in the hospital 5 months later. So good for you on insisting they do the surgery right away.

[Jolie]

Okay so the latest is, my grandpa did wake up finally last night. Apparently he has a history of waking up slowly from anasthesia. He also started using his left side when he woke up, and those were the two things the doctors were most concerned about. He was still confused, but the doctors said they thought that was from the swelling caused by the surgery. So hopefully, hes past the scary part now, and can just start recovering!

Thanks for all the thoughts guys.

[Sinn Fein]

Glad it all seems to be working out.

[chumpy]

Glad he's ok Jolie. Rest easy