Hospital Frustration

I spent the last several days in Florida with my mother, and returned to NYC last night. She was in the hospital for six days, the last three of which she spent waiting for her electrocardiologist to bother to show up . . . which he never did, despite that his office kept saying he would be by for rounds. It was very frustrating, to say the least, and we raised complaints about it that have gone up to the highest administrative levels of the hospital.

Finally, on Saturday, they just sent my mom home with two prescriptions and no surgery. Yesterday morning, we wound up back in the Emergency Room, since she was having a lot of pressure in her chest, and when we called her cardiologist, that is where he told us to go.This morning, my mom is supposed to be going in for a cardiac catheter (which will involve an angioplasty if needed). Unfortunately, I had to come back to New York yesterday. The plan had been that my brother would come in on Sunday and we'd overlap a day. But, once my mom was discharged from the hospital, we told him not to come because we thought my mother would be returning to work today. He will get there this afternoon, but I felt so badly leaving without him being there already, and with my mom on a bed, hooked up to tubes and machines in the Emergency Room.

A bright spot in all of this is that my mom worked in this hospital for about 20 years, so she knows almost everyone, and there is a constant stream of visitors and calls from friends and colleagues. So, at least she will not feel too alone until my brother gets there.

Thank you all for your nice messages, prayers and thoughts. I printed out my last blog with all of the posts and brought it to Florida with me so that my mom could read it. She was really touched and appreciated it very much. :)