It’s Friday night as I begin this report and I am off duty for the
evening. Shauna is at the rehab center with her mom, and I just finished
listening to the Top 20 Countdown on Hunters Bay Radio, wherein my producer and
colleague Juan Barbosa has reached #1 on the charts for a song off his upcoming
album Soulbot 6000. My little break
from the challenges of the past week. Indeed it has been a difficult one. As
anyone who has ever negotiated the bureaucratic nightmare of the health care
“system” knows, patient advocacy is everything. Hospital staff members are
often over worked, and it is astounding to me how many mistakes I have
personally witnessed in the past year. When Shauna’s Dad had the last big
stroke, which ultimately caused his demise, there was a point where a nurse
inadvertently switched his IV bag with the patient’s in the next bed. That
patient was getting a drug he should not have received and it had an adverse
effect on him. He was unable to speak and were it not for a rapid change in his
vital signs, no one would have known. It was Shauna who caught this, not the
nurse charged with his care. Physician do no harm. The challenge in the coming
weeks will be to determine where we go from here. We hope Mom Taylor will be
able to resume some semblance of normalcy, but right now we have no idea what
to expect.
One of the odd results of spending a lot of time in a hospital or rehab
facility is that, by default, one becomes familiar with the other inmates, both
patients and family. The other day, when Ethel was transferred to this rehab
facility she is presently in, it was chaos. The facility had no record of her
admission, the place was hot and badly ventilated, she was without her pain
medication for over eight hours, and the only saving grace was her bedmate.
Annie, in the next bed, had just had serious open heart surgery to repair a
rare heart defect. While she was only about a week and a half out of major
surgery, she was cheerful and funny and downright lovable. Most of all, she was
a subtle reminder to us how lucky we have been, and how all things must be kept
in perspective. Yes, I wish Mom Taylor’s accident had not happened, and yes
perhaps it was preventable, but she is alive, alert and as sharp as ever, able
to ambulate now with some difficulty, and let’s not forget, the woman has
thankfully reached the venerable age of ninety years old. Annie is only 78 and
still not out of the woods. After bonding with Annie in a very short time, in
the early morning, Ethel and her caregiver noticed she was gasping for breath
and called for the nurse. She had arrested and was in peril of dying on the
spot. It was likely our caregiver Andrea Yolanda saved her life. At present
Annie is stable at the Toronto hospital and awaiting the surgical insertion of
a defribillator in order to regulate her heart. Hospitals make us care when we
don’t necessarily want to, and they abruptly wake us out of our coma of
perceived immortality. It’s an in-your-face reality check, and we learn from
the experience whether we want to or not.
While doing my shifts in the hospital last week I put together my radio show
and sent it up to Huntsville via email. It takes a while to put that show
together, but like this report, it gives me a great deal of pleasure. As I
said, it was a long week. At one point last weekend, the dog was sick and had
to be watched, Shauna was in a pain flare and could not move, and I was at the
hospital trying to make sure Mom Taylor was safe. When I got home from the
rehab center late Wednesday night, I put together the voice tracks for show
number ten. When it rains it pours, and all we can do is the best we can do. It
was not the show I’d hoped to do, but I’m proud to have done it nonetheless. Thanks
to James Carroll at Hunter’s Bay Radio for taking the files I sent and loading
them in time to air Thursday night. I hope to be able to broadcast the show in
person some time soon.
-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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