chapter 12:part 5

continued from chapter 12; part 4

When you know a complete change of scene is desperately needed and your partner is attached to an intravenous, then beg, borrow or demand one of those tiny poles that attach to a wheel chair, to handle the IV's. Then you can take your partner away for a while and if the weather is good, go outside to literally watch the grass grow.
One afternoon, after a change of shift that left only unknown nurses on hand, I simply had to get my depressed husband out for a while. Not one of the stranger-nurses would help me find the necessary pole. I was savvy enough to hurry down to the emergency department and there wasn't one pole was in evidence. I ended up struggling with the wheelchair while Hal pushed the tall pole on wheels in front of him. I held the elevator door open with one shoulder and shoved him into the elevator, but his chair stuck at the entrance and a passing visitor grabbed the pole before his intravenous ripped out of his arm. That tells you how desperate I was to get him outside for even a short while. He was remarkably quiet and slightly bemused at my desire.

Regrettably, all that effort failed us because I was upset both with the uncaring stranger-evening shift nurses and with what I might have done to cause him more physical distress.

My message to you is--prepare first. If you don't have all the equipment you need, use all your considerable ingenuity and charm to locate the missing pieces, or cancel that plan and re-think it for tomorrow.

Stick with the same hospital if you can. This is absolutely critical. Some of our acquaintances switched from one hospital Emergency department to another for anything serious that arose between doctor visits. That meant starting a new file and coping with new doctors. We had moved to the suburbs in the middle of Hal's illness, and despite the fact that it meant more travel time and there were three hospitals closer to us, we continued to drive the extra miles in order to maintain continuity, knowing that if he had to be admitted his regular doctor and his records were there. I felt he had gone through enough hands as it was, and didn't want to go back to point zero to start a new file in new territory and I wasn't about to involve a new and (to me) untested doctor at this stage.

Only once did we use a hospital other than our regular one, and that was the adjacent cancer hospital. Hal was suffering from painful complications and was admitted during his regular visit to the oncologist. I never got used to that hospital despite the serene setting and wonderfully considerate nurses. You 'd think he would see the oncologist more often by being on the premises but the fact is that the guy can't cope with a staggering case load in clinic and then take charge of his patients on the floors, so, out of necessity, his residents take over, under his supervision.

During that time, Hal saw his oncologist only once, which left us thirsting for information. Who do you ask? You keep encountering strangers.

continued in chapter 12: part 6