Things that surprised me at the hospital

Jun 01, 2014

1. I was never weighed in the hospital before or after surgery
2. The leak test was given to me before I left the OR so I have no idea what it entailed. No further testing for leaking was done.
3. I never used the CPAP they told me to bring.
4. The first day I was never encouraged to get out of bed. I slept the entire day away waking up here and there to look around.
5. I was released very quickly. Surgery on 5/23 at 7:30 a.m. and released 5/24 at 4:00 p.m.
6. My follow-up is not until June 18. Are they that sure of themselves about my procedure that they would not schedule me at 2 weeks like their manual states?
7. Their customer service was lacking. Not that it is the job of a hospital to feed a spouse but in other hospitals, the staff always offered food and drink to the spouse. I guess I should be glad they lent him a cot and permitted him to stay. That was wonderful because we live 79 miles from that hospital and could not afford to have him drive back and forth.
8. I had one of those spirometers but never could breathe enough to get that thing to go halfway. No one asked me how that was going though. It took until the 6th day after surgery, when I was home, to get that up to 2,000 where they said it should be.
9. I never needed the pillows they urged me to bring
10. I was surprised they could do a pregnancy test with one drop of urine. lol  I just cannot pee on demand no matter how hard I try. Also, when someone is overweight, do they realize how very difficult it is to hold one of those tiny cups in your urine stream? It is as if they never met an overweight person before. Oh! and knocking on the door every two minutes asking Is everything okay is not going to make me drip any faster!
11. They have these new things now they want you to wipe your body down with before surgery. They are like large wet naps. OMG that made me itch so bad. My panni turned bright red and itched like no tomorrow. They assumed I had a fungal infection. I never mentioned it was those stupid wipes. My back itched for days! I don't know what is in that stuff but my skin did not like it one bit. Never again!
12. Nurses, when they finally did come into the room, kept apologizing over and over for not being in my room enough. When I finally began to walk I could see why they were not in my room enough. They gossip too darn much in the hallways! Every walk I took that was my observance. I never saw one go into a room with a patient but I heard plenty of alarms going off.
13. I was surprised I didn't run into other WLS patients on that floor. I was the only one walking in that hallway.
14. I don't know if this surprised me, but wouldn't it be a smart idea to send a WLS patient home with a lot of protein samples? I know that when I gave birth to my daughter in 1992, I went home with tons of formula samples and they had me on a mailing list for samples, also. You would think companies would work their samples into the hospitals to hook a few customers.
15. No one walked with me to make sure I was steady on my feet when I began walking.
16. At the hospital in town (granted it has been quite a few years), someone would offer to come in and rub lotion on your back or your legs. This hospital had nothing nice like that offered. Not a necessity but still nice to be offered.

This is all I can come up with at the moment. Feel free to add. I am sure I have not said everything I was thinking all the way home from the hospital. lol

To be more positive:

• I have an EXCELLENT surgeon. He stuck around until I was up in my room (I still don't know how I got there! lol) and came in to talk to me and tell me everything went wonderfully. I need to send him a thank you card.
• The anesthesiologist was great. Again, I need another thank you card.
• It was a very nice hospital.
• The on-call person at the hospital obtained answers to my concerns very quickly and called me back.
• Everything in the hospital was clean
• Everyone was super friendly, except towards my husband. They seemed to be snippy towards him but he dismissed it because I was all he was worried about. Thank goodness because he has a tendency to speak up and speak loudly no matter where he is if he is being bothered. I always say he is my voice. I will get mad and boil inside but never speak up. He definitely speaks up! lol
• On the 2nd day, I believe protein shakes were delivered to me at least 3x in under 5 hours. I am going to put a picture of that in my photo section. I had to take most of it home.

If I could give one suggestion to the surgeon... Wouldn't it be nice if they sent us home with a gift certificate to get our hair done or something? I mean they already make us feel wonderful by granting our life-saving wishes and performing surgery on us. A bonus parting gift would be awesome though. Sometimes it helps to have a little something done to your hair as a pick-me-up. I spent so much money stocking vitamins and protein and other things that it will be a very long time until I get my hair done. Heck, it has been over a year since I could go. Ah, I know it isn't their problem and I am soooooooo glad my surgery was a success. I am just saying that if I were on staff (My forte' is customer service. Can you tell?) that I would add the bonus in as a thank you for your business kind of thing. Yes! Yes! Yes! It is fine the way it is....I am alive. I am healing. I am healthier. I am moving on with a brighter future now. Everything is rainbows in my eyes right now. Please don't mistake my teeny tiny suggestion for ungratefulness. I assure you I am grateful with every cell in my body. If I could I would shit rainbows but everyone knows that after WLS your shit is less than colorful and rosey! lol

Please make note that I have not been an overnight patient in a hospital since 1992 so my thoughts may be somewhat outdated.

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