By November 28, I am alert and know everybody. Before I was confused and did not know all who were around me. By now I have had to have a Tracheostomy and tubes put in my chest to drain fluids off. Also now infections were in my lungs, abdominal cavity, and stomach. By December 3rd I was moved from Critical Care to the Respiratory Rehabilitation unit.

You would really be amazed if I told all the things that happened to me while in the care of the hospital. Like while I was in Respiratory Rehabilitation, one night I started choking and Diane hit the call button and nothing happened. So she ran to the nurses station to find two nurses. One at the switch board and one at the counter - both of them were sound asleep. She had to wake the nurses to get help. Then the nurse at the counter acted all pissed off and treated Diane rudely. She was probably angry because Diane caught her sleeping.

On December 11th the doctor took me off the Ventilator, I am making progress now. But I am hurting so much that the amount of pain medication is increased. This works well to snuff out the pain but I start getting crazy. I started seeing animals walking around in the room. I even got mad at my father when he wouldn’t call the FBI. While under the influence of this pain medication I had become convinced that there was a dead body in the closet and another dead body down the hall, but Dad still wouldn’t make the call. I even got in an argument with one of my friends who had dropped by to visit. I was mad because I wanted to give her the butter beans that I had in my pocket. But I couldn’t find my pocket and I couldn’t find my butter beans! Of course there were no beans and there were no pockets in my hospital gown either. Later I got so unruly they ended up putting restraints on me. That made me even more wild. When my doctor came in to check on me he was in total shock. I was talking out of my head, real crazy stuff. The hospital staff had not told Dr. Cowan how I had gone berserk on the pain medications. He stopped all the pain medication right then. On December 14th my wife noted that I was beginning to talk more plain and it seems I was over the effects of the pain medication. I do really remember seeing a little dog running around in the room!

December 15th the doctor had me transferred to a regular room where I stayed until my discharge from the hospital on January 13th. Here I found many nurses that were very good and I even found a few nurses that were not so good. One night a nurse came in and while I was asleep she stuck me in the arm with a shot. I woke up and ask what had just happened? She told me she had just given me a shot and not to worry about it, go back to sleep. Sleepily I said okay, I started to lay my head down - then I suddenly raised up and called out to the nurse. She stepped back into the room and I ask her what the shot was? When she told me I nearly went into a panic, she had given me a shot of something I was allergic to! She stood there and argued with me about it, I told her I was allergic to that medicine and to go look in my chart. She did, and then came running back into the room asking what type of reaction do I have to that medicine? I told her it drives me up the wall, it is like I am on speed or something - it just makes me go wild. She turned and left the room, when she came back she had the Charge Nurse with her and they told me they were going to give me another shot to counter the first. This shot was a sedative, and it was strong because it quickly knocked me out. Then about 3am I woke up suddenly - I couldn’t breathe. My Trach had become completely blocked. No air going in or out. I grabbed the Nurse Call Button. In response I heard a voice say, "Yes, may I help you?" But with no air going in or out I couldn’t speak. Result, the nurse turned off the call light. I quickly hit the button again and this time I started hitting the call speaker on the bed rail. Next thing I remember the nurse came in and turned on the light, she took one look at me and quickly called down the hall for help, saying, "He’s cyanotic!" Another nurse came in and called for a Crash Cart. At this point the room was becoming dark, everything seemed distant and I felt panic like never before. I grabbed at the nurse beside me and then blacked out. Next I opened my eyes and saw the nurses had "bagged me" and were trying to revive me. As I looked up at the nurse I had grabbed out at, she looked down at me and exclaimed, "we didn’t think we were going to get you back!" That is when I realized I had been dead long enough that my muscles had relaxed and I was lying in a pool of my own waste. My bowels and everything had relaxed and I messed on myself. I decided that from now on I was going to watch every move they made. When nurses would come in to do a procedure on me, I would ask what he/she was going to do. If I didn’t know about it I would have them bring in my chart and show me the doctor’s order for that procedure. That seems petty, but this saved me from many nursing mistakes. Yes, several times this stopped a nurse from doing something to me that my doctor "did not" order.

Every time the IV bags were changed I made the nurses show me the old bag and the new bag so I could be sure it was the same. And yes there were times when it was not the same, the wrong stuff had been sent up by the pharmacy. The nurse thinking the hospital pharmacy would never make a mistake, just didn’t check to be sure it was right - but I did, and I caught the mistake before they had a chance to hang it. One time when I caught a mistake with the new IV bag being wrong, my assigned nurse got into an argument with me about it. The Charge Nurse over heard us and came into the room. She showed the other nurse where it was wrong and then they got in an argument about it. Then they started to argue about how to set up the controls on the IV pump. At this point I was fed up with their confusion and arguing, so I told the Charge Nurse to call my doctor and get this cleared up. She told me that tomorrow when my doctor made his rounds have him write all my IV orders over, to clear up any confusion. Tomorrow! I told her that I didn’t want that IV bag connected to me until they talked to my doctor and verified the orders and the correct dosage instructions. The nurses left the room but I felt that they were not going to call my doctor since it was just after midnight. I had my wife give me the phone and Dr. Cowan’s answering service phone number. I dialed the number and when Dr. Cowan’s answering service answered, I told them I was a patient of Dr. Cowan’s in the hospital. While I was on the phone the nurse came back into my room. The answering service person ask me what the phone number was to the nurses station. I didn’t know so I ask my nurse, she told me the number and then left the room quickly. Then suddenly while I was talking to the doctor’s answering service the phone went dead. Nothing, no dial tone, no sound - just dead. I hung up and tried several times to dial out again but no dial tone - the phone was disconnected. I waited a few minutes and then tried again this time there was a dial tone, so I called the doctor’s answering service back to be sure they had all the information they needed and would contact Dr. Cowan. Just as they answered and I started to tell them who I was, the phone went dead again! The phone stayed dead several minutes and then came back to life again with a dial tone. This time I dialed the number again and when they answered I quickly blurted out my information. Just as I did the girl at the answering service said they were contacting Dr. Cowan and then the phone went dead again. Shortly after that the charge nurse came in with my chart and in a mater of fact tone of voice, said they had talked with my doctor and now had the instructions they needed so she hung the IV bag and set up the pump. That morning on the next shift, the Registered Nurse assigned to me came into my room and I ask him if there was any way the hospital staff could interrupt an out going call from my room. He told me, "Of course, they can control all calls incoming and out going from the switch board. They can even disconnect your phone if they want to." He then told me he had already heard what had happened on the previous shift. I ask him if they had tried to prevent my calling the doctor? He said he couldn’t say…

There were even times when the people from X-ray came to my room to take me down for X-rays that I didn’t know about. So I called the Nurse’s station and a nurse checked my chart only to find that there were "no orders" for any X-rays. An other time Dr. Cowan had ordered an X-ray, STAT (that means right away). Then he told the nurse to call him with the results as soon as the X-ray was done. The people in Radiology never got the order. Someone goofed up somewhere. And I still wonder what they did with one nurse who came in and injected medication into my central line, a place where the IVs are connected to me, then left the uncapped syringe and needle on my pillow. After she left the room I turned my head to say something to my wife only to see a needle pointed at my eye about an inch away. I froze then told my wife to carefully get the needle before it stabbed me in the eye. I called the Charge Nurse and told her what had just happened. Later that day another nurse told me that I would never see the other nurse again, she had been "dealt with." While I am talking about needles, one day another nurse came in while I was setting up in the big stroke chair and left an uncapped needle on the pillow behind my head. After she left the room the uncapped needle dropped down between me and the chair. Several hours later I got up to go to the bathroom, as I stood up I thought I felt something funny and turned around to find the uncapped needle in the seat of the chair. I had my wife look at my back side, and on my buttocks was an impression where I had been setting on the exposed uncapped needle! I can’t tell you all the possible things that could have happened if that 1½" needle had stabbed me, but luckily I didn’t get stuck.

Wrong equipment settings, wrong medicine, wrong procedures, improper handling of sharps, Nurses asleep at their stations, and many other things I haven’t mentioned - is it any wonder that my doctor canceled three cases of surgery that were scheduled in that same hospital. And now he tells me he is not using that hospital any more.

But I lived through all this and many other things that happened while I was hospitalized. Finally Dr. Cowan told me I would probably be better off at home with Home Health Care Nursing Service. To this Diane and I agreed and just that fast he ordered my discharge. Home Health Care delivered to me the IV/Food pumps, suction equipment, breathing treatment machine, and all kinds of supplies. Everything I could possibly need, then a nurse came over to my house and hooked up everything. Then she started teaching Diane and I how to mix up the stuff to go in the IV/Food pump, and how to administer the medicines into the tube in my side.

Well I am home now. It has been over two months in the hospital and I still have at least one open tear in my gut that is still leaking. But now I think I will get well quicker, I’m home with my family, pets and my computer. Now I feel more secure as I am in charge of my own treatment and care with the assistance of the Home Health Care Nurse..