Wonderland Challenge 2020

Off With Your Head!

         PROMPT: Create a story or blog detailing an event that made you incredibly angry/frustrated.

         

         

         

         

         

         

         I can still recall in vivid detail a day spent waiting in a Toronto hospital. My Mom, my eldest daughter and I arrived as per instructions at 4:00 a.m. To accomplish this , we'd travelled by car four hours the day before and spent the night tossing and turning. My Mom had consented to a third hip replacement. Yes, most of us are issued two hips at birth, but one of Mom's replacements needed a replacement. She expected to be the first person in the operating room that morning around 7:00 a.m.

         Immediately upon check-in, my mother shucked her street clothes for a thin, cotton hospital gown and a pair of paper booties. The nurse assigned to her wanted her to be ready to go. With this in mine, she ordered the removal of false teeth, rings, and earrings. My Mom refused to relinquish her eyeglasses just yet. All the permission paperwork passed a review.

         The time for the procedure arrived and passed with my Mom still waiting. After I demanded an explanation, the nurse informed me that Mom had not agreed to an epidural. She had never agreed to an epidural! Months of appointments and planning had not swayed her and this had been made clear to her surgeon.

          Anaesthesiologists came and went each one determined to force my Mom into accepting a spinal. She stood resolute with her choice of a local. She'd experienced many surgeries and she did not relish being conscious during a new one.

         As if to punish her, Mom saw a series of rooms throughout the day as her surgery was bumped. If I so much as left for a bathroom break or a drink run, I'd return to discover her missing and ensconced in a different room. Each change forced her deeper into the hospital. Wow, I needed my orienteering skills that day. Her last wait occurred in the basement in the recovery room.

         At 10:00 p.m. after a long day without fluids or food, a young female anaesthetist bounced into the room to discuss Mom's medical chart. Unbelievably, she too decided she couldn't administer anything but an epidural. At long last, someone begrudgingly permitted the use of a local anaesthetic, and Mom entered the surgical suite just before midnight.

         My daughter and I were committed to await the outcome and the hours passed at a snail's pace. I believe my mother returned to a hospital room around 3:00 a.m. the next day.

         For the first time ever post surgery, Mom was ill and she vomited. I had to demand that the night nurse get Gravol and unbelievably, she brought a pill and a tiny amount of water. I just stared at her. I broke the silence and suggested she return with liquid Gravol , or administer it into the intravenous line pumping a saline solution. She consulted the doctor's orders and realized this could be acceptable.

         At no time did this nurse attempt to clean Mom, or change her hospital gown. I stormed off down the corridor in search of towels and a fresh gown which I eventually found.

         I didn't think I could possibly feel any angrier about this unnecessarily grueling day, but I was proven wrong. First, the nurse refused to accept a bulging bag of mom's bottled and labelled drugs that I'd safe-guarded all day. At one point, I'd locked it in my car in the parking garage, tired of toting it around. I became livid. The express directions from the surgical team had emphasized that Mom needed to bring and take her own prescribed drugs while in the hospital. The nurse laughed at this.

         Not that she knew me, but I hollered that I could make pretty good money selling those drugs on the streets of Toronto; the bag contained powerful pain medication.

         The last straw of my tolerance crumbled when this nurse asked my mother, a senior worthy of respect, if " we needed to go peepee." My mother was not a child.

         This ranked as the worse hospital experience in my Mom's life, and it had only just begun. (681 words)