After my wife’s partial colectomy her catheter bag was filled with red fluid instead of urine. I pointed this out to the surgeon, and he said, “that’s normal.” She did not look well. I was somewhat relieved she’d survived 5 hours of surgery, but she looked pale and half-comatose, reminding me of the time 29 years earlier when she suffered a stroke and almost died. The next morning, she looked much better–there was color in her cheeks. However, 2 different kidney specialists came to see her, and it was then I learned she came out of surgery with kidney failure. One of the kidney specialists prescribed an IV fluid of just water to re-hydrate her kidneys and get them going, and her catheter bag began filling with normal-colored urine. Beware: when gastroenterologists push this kind of surgery, they don’t tell you kidney failure is a normal complication of the procedure. The 6th floor of Piedmont Hospital holds all the patients of gastroenterologists, and my wife’s room wasn’t the only one visited by the kidney doctors. I found 1 study online that estimated 3%-35% of patients undergoing prolonged abdominal surgery suffer from kidney failure. The wide range in estimates suggests this dangerous complication of a quite common surgery is vastly understudied.
Kidney failure is a common complication of prolonged abdominal surgery. Gastroenterologists won’t tell you this when they are pushing surgery.
Most of the nurses and staff at Piedmont Hospital were professional and excellent, but overall, the care was a uneven. My wife was in the hospital for 5 days including the surgery, and she left on the 6th day. She had an older nurse during the day shift on the weekend, and this nurse was always there for her. The night nurse on the weekend, a woman who looked like Miss America, was also always available. Perhaps the best nurse was with her on the 2nd night after the surgery when my wife was suffering from low oxygen saturation and in great pain. This nurse stuck with her and made sure she was breathing oxygen from the tank through her nose before she administered the pain medication. They gave her 2 types of heavy pain medication: dilaudid (which knocked her out) and robaxin, a special kind of muscle relaxant used for patients who had abdominal surgery. The latter drug caused her to have hallucinations. Some of the other nurses who took care of my wife were masters of the vanishing act. One day, 6 hours passed without a nurse seeing her. The worst times were during shift changes when there was not a single nurse on the entire floor. (I suspect they have some kind of stupid bureaucratic meeting during shift changes.) During 1 shift change my wife waited 2 hours for a Tylenol, while patients in the adjacent rooms begged for help and moaned in pain. On some days nurses came by and scanned by wife’s armband, then left without doing anything. They left evidence they were there, I suppose. Conversely, at night when my wife was trying to sleep, the nurses would be there constantly, checking her vitals, and IV technicians would tag along and take blood samples. The worst sleep disruption was a 5 am non-consensual sponge bath. They had all day to give her a sponge bath. Why do it at 5 am?
Another annoying experience of her hospital stay were the sensers on her monitoring machines. They would beep incessantly, and we couldn’t get a nurse to come in and stop the beeping. Hospital technicians were faster than the nurses, but they aren’t allowed to touch the IV machines. I figured out how to stop the beeping, many of the buttons were self-explanatory. I ended up unhooking the machines myself, so my wife could go to the bathroom. The techs told me not to do that, but she didn’t have time to wait when she had to use the restroom. I was furious at how long they left the catheter in her. The tubes were a tripping hazard when I transferred her in and out of her wheelchair and on and off the toilet. I understand why they kept it in longer–they had to monitor her kidney function–but still, it should have come out a day earlier because her urine was clearing up.
The cafeteria food was not bad, though a tad pricey. They offer the typical fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, sandwiches, and theme-of-the day meals. None of it was as good as my home-cooking, and I got bored with it. The rooms had nice fold-out beds, and the hospital does let patients have 1 overnight guest. I stayed all 5 nights. The doctors wanted her to stay even longer, but I demanded her discharge a day early. There was nothing they could do that I could not do at home, and our home was better set up for a disabled person.
GeorgiaBeforePeople 