Girl, you are getting on my last nerve!

Tim says I need to explain what happened with nurse Ruthie. I wish I could act it out for you, it is so much funnier. Basically, we irritated her by showing up in the middle of the night. (We drove down urgently from Ft. Wayne and told Nancy we would take the night shift. It had been a long ugly procedure-filled day) In all fairness, we did disregard the "only one person in the room overnight" rule- we tried to follow it (Tim slept in waiting room for part of the night) but it really took both of us to decipher his needs. It didn't help that we also caught many mistakes (a drainage tube completely smashed under the wheel of his bed, his boot not repositioned once in 8 hours, his feeding tube turned off and not restarted until we pointed it out, she tried to give him pain medicine after 1 hour and 15 minutes when the order was for every 4 hours, and she completely disregarded his ability to communicate and would just reposition him and walk away - never asking "Does that feel ok?" "Are you comfortable?" - usually he wasn't and we had to finish the job. Dad had a lot of things that he needed that night and we had to do a lot of spelling and then alerting the nurses (He repeatedly asked to be suctioned). We were nuisances, but we tried to be sweet about it. We asked politely and tried to acknowledge that we were being the "needy room."

Then at 5am, Tim peeked his head out, looked toward the nurses station, and then turned around and told me, "Flora, there is something happening out there! There are a bunch of cops!" Tim then caught the eye of one of them and asked him, "Should I stay in here? Is it safe to come out?" They said, "Actually, Sir, if you could step out here." Ha! We had no idea they were there for US!! That part of the story is never gonna get old!

Five cops were there to escort us off the unit. (It had been a slow night but something started happening while they were talking to us and quite a few of them took off) Earlier, because it was after hours when we arrived at the hospital, we had had to go through the metal detector. The cop scanning my belongings asked me, "Ma'am, do you have scissors in your purse?" I said, "Yes, I do. You never know when your eyebrows might get a little crazy!" He had smiled and let me keep them but when he saw that it was me that they were called to remove, I'm sure he was thinking, "Watch her! She is armed!"

So there we were, completely surprised that we were about to be forcibly removed from the unit by all these armed cops "so that the nurse could do her job." I start getting fired up because I'm thinking "Are you kidding me? WE were the ones actually providing nursing care tonight!" I started getting all wild-eyed and crazy looking. Tim kept putting his hand on my shoulder saying, "I've got this, Flora." He was trying to project the fact that we were sane rational people and I was definitely not helping his case. I told the cop, "We would be happy to go and get some sleep if you are willing to go stand at his bedside and slowly walk through the alphabet A-B-C-D until you get a word, then a phrase, and then let the nurse know what it is he needs."

Eventually, we talked to the resident in charge that night and he very quickly realized that we had legitimate concerns. We never saw hide nor hair of Ruthie again, and we were NOT asked to leave the unit. We also spoke in detail with the nurse manager the next day and she apologized profusely. They did everything to make it right and we were very pleased with the outcome. We told them, "We want to be son and daughter-in-law, not bulldog and nurse." We love the times when we can sit back and marvel at the caring people who are doing their best to meet his needs. We will forever be singing the praises of the nurses who do their jobs with excellence - and there are sooo many! In fact, I have a "Caregram" ready to send in for his nurse, Brittany, and his RT, Brandy, from his time at St E. They were amazing and deserve to be recognized.

So you've heard the story once but ask me about it in person. It is too fun to act out Tim's response!