We are home!
It was a weird morning.
At 7:00ish the surgeon came in. Asked how H was doing. Said re the surgery H could go home - see ya in 2 weeks.
Nurse comes in at 7:30 and says she just noticed his discharge papers have been put in. I say, "But we haven’t seen the hospitalist". After some discussion, I explained that we would like to see the hospitalist first before we were discharged, so we can ask some final questions.
When she gets there, I asked her basically what I am to do re blood pressure. She took her time and explained things very carefully to me. In a nutshell, she said that we needed to go by symptoms rather than numbers. That unless it was drastically high blood pressure, that it was not too much of a concern. That the low blood pressure is what we wanted to be careful about. And anything with a systolic of less than ninety was concerning, But if it was just post cathing, we should wait a little bit and retake it.
They will be sending home health out for a few days to check blood pressure, and see that all is going well.
Before she left, I told her that we were hoping to speak with someone regarding palliative care. She said that she did not believe that the doctor could see us on such short notice. I explained that we just wanted someone to come and generally discuss palliative care with us so that we could start determining whether or not that was the route we were going to go at this point.
About 12 I let the nurse know that it was time to cath him again. (For some reason I continued to cath him, but the nurses would come in when I was doing it.… I guess to see if I was doing it properly?.)
After she finished watching me, she said that the discharge nurse was wondering why we were still there. I said that we had not spoken with the palliative care representative yet.
Then she actually said, "Yeah, the discharge nurse was wondering why you need a palliative care doctor when all he had was gallbladder surgery."
Through gritted teeth I explained that we came to the hospital because of acute abdominal pain, Had been admitted due to his recent history and current UTI, and serious blood pressure issues. That the gallbladder surgery was intended to be outpatient, and was simply done anyway while we were in the hospital.
Finally, at some point, I said that we would just go. Then she started backtracking… "Oh no, nobody wants you to leave." WTF?
I told her we would find a way to get palliative care information on our own.
I then packed everything up, loaded up my van, had someone help me get him out of bed, and left.
They barely caught up with us to get me to sign the discharge papers.
But, all the same, we are home.
I did some research and found several resources that said hand sanitizer did not compromise the integrity of the nitrile exam glove until the 20th time. Also, I have started using betedine (sp?) to clean him prior to cathing.
I’m also going to take his blood pressure before and after I cath him. I’m not so great with that. Any suggestions?
[This message edited by WhatsRight at 6:33 AM, Thursday, August 18th]