Until MSNBC reran Keith's hour long Special Comment on Health Care Friday I had not seen the whole thing. Just a few clips here or there. In it he mentioned that most Americans have no idea what it is like to spend a night in a hospital, since less then 1 in 10 Americans in any given year even spend a night in a hospital. That got me thinking.
There are almost countless Diaries (as there should be) about what health care reform should look like. About insurance nightmares and how family members have been ruined, if not died cause of a lack of coverage.
But I can recall little talk about how the "best health care system" in the world actually treats patients when they spend an extended time in a hospital. I've written about my health care insurance nightmare here more than once. This is not a Diary about that.
Instead it is a Diary about something I've never talked about here, what a nightmare an actual extended hospital stay can be like in America. And as we talk about health care reform, it kind of makes me think stuff like this should have been much more apart of the conversation.
Background: My Personality
This is important to note before I tell my story, cause it helps frame (at least for me) why many of the things I'll bring up below were so painful. I am a classic Type A, anal retentive, obsessive compulsive personality. I like information. I like to know what is going on. I like to be involved in decisions that affect me. I like, well to be in control.
Background: How I Got Into The Hospital
I can't recall the last time I even had a cold. I am blessed with wonderful health. Never even had chicken pox or my tonsils removed. Never been to a hospital other then to get stitches. Well in a matter of 2.5 days I went from feeling fine to almost dieing. I caught a rare, like 1 in 10,000,000 infection. An infection that normally affects infants, but in recent years has jumped to adults.
The infection is called Haemophilus Influenzae Type B and it attacks the trachea, causing massive inflammation, called Epiglottitis. Quickly your Trachea ceases to work, you can't breath, and you die.
I had gone to my primary doctor at about day 1.5 in with what I thought was just a bad sore throat and was told my Salivary glands were infected and to take these pills. But he also said (best advice I've ever been given BTW), if it gets worse go to the ER. I did a day later and from when I entered to when I was having my cloths cut off me and doctors running to the OR was less then 15 minutes.
I woke up about a day later in the ICU with a tube down my throat, my arms tied to the bed. This would be a position I'd be in for the next week.
My Hospital Experience
Disclaimer: The guy in the ER that first saw me was the head of the hospital's ENT department. He was smart enough to realize my symptoms where what they were, almost unheard of in adults, and he saved my life. There is no doubt about that! And the nurses overworked and underpaid as I am sure they are tried. What I will say below is more of me blaming the system as a whole, not an individual person.
Introduction
Keith in the above clip talks about much of what I will mention below in the first minute or so of the video. And those that have spent any amount of time in a hospital will know exactly what he is talking about. I'll try to expand on this somewhat for those that are lucky enough not to understand.
Lack Of Communication
As I mentioned I am an anal Type A personality so lack of control is bad enough, lack of knowing what the heck is going on for me is almost unbearable. Waking up in a hospital, a tube down my throat, IVs running out of my arms, machines all around me with lights blinking and making noises, with my hands tied to the bed is like something out of a nightmare.
It would be hours before any family members arrived. Nurses came in a few times, but never said anything. It would take my parents about 15 minutes once they got there to realize the frantic movement of my right hand, forefinger to thumb was me begging for somebody to grab a pen and a piece of paper so I could talk to them.
It would also be almost 24 hours before I'd find out why my hands were tied to the bed, when a male nurse came in to see how I was doing when his shift start and told me I awoke coming out of the OR and my first move was to try to remove the tube from my throat and they he to restrain me.
I guess nobody connected the dots that everything happened so fast, thinking I just had infected Salivary glands, I might be confused why there was a tube in my throat and all of this was going on.
Over the next seven days both myself and my parents could never get a straight answer from the hospital staff. Questions as to what happened? How long would I be there? Where did the infection come from? Could I get it again, could it have come from something like my tooth brush?
In that seven days I'd only see my actual doctor for maybe a total of 20 minutes. All he ever said, looking at my chart, is you're doing, write something down on my chart, see me tomorrow. There was no information exchange.
Lack Of Respect For Me As A Person
That of course started with the total lack of communication, but it went a level deeper. I mentioned I am somewhat OCD, well I also have a little bit of an issue with germs. The place smelled like germs, or maybe more accurately "death."
Even with all the morphine they gave me I couldn't sleep and found myself just laying in bed all night sweating. Within a few days I could literally smell myself. Not only didn't they change my sheets once, I never got a bath.
My parents saved all the notes I wrote and there were ones where I just wrote out, "bath, bath, bath. Please!" There are also others that are far more depressing, like "am I going to be able to talk?"
And when I finally got the tube removed on the seventh day and got a meal, I was expected to take a shit in a unit they wheeled into the room, yet they wouldn't close the blinds to the room. I wouldn't say I am anything close to a modest person, but WTF. I mean I could tell it was going to be one of those bowel movements that nobody, I mean nobody needs to see, hear, nor smell.
The Darn Freaking Noise
Never once would they close the door to the room. Now if they couldn't see into the room from the nurses station, I would understand. But they could see in through the floor to ceiling window cause the blinds were never closed. So not only was the room always lit up, it was so darn noisy.
When you are laying in bed, unable to sleep, smelling your own filth, it isn't helpful to also start to learn the sounds of people dieing all around you. That this nurse is having sex with this doctor. Or they're all going out for beers after work.
In hindsight I should have asked my parents to bring me some ear plugs. But in double hindsight maybe the hospital should have provided them, and just marked them up 2,000%.
Conclusion
Now I am very happy I am alive. I have no doubt that if another doctor had not been in the ER or I was at another hospital I might not have lived. I will always be very thankful for that. But the experience, gosh this can't be the best we can do for all the money we spend on health care. It just can't be.
I would never out this person, but met a fellow Kossack here I know more then a few other people here also know well, which I talk with outside of Daily Kos. He has been in the hospital for more than two weeks with a serious infection in his leg, and as he updates his daily experiences on Facebook via his iPhone I often find myself crying.
This can't be the best we can do. It just can't be. When I hear a Republican say we have the best health care system in the world I just want to reach through my television and strangle them. Cause that isn't my experience.