The intern had spoken with me the next morning and told me that he was going to have Ken moved to the step-down unit. Thank goodness–that meant I could be with him in the room. He said they would call when they were ready to move him. Daddy had to get back home, so I spent the better part of the day alone, but that was okay. Sometimes it was a relief not to have to talk to anyone. Anyway, I waited, and waited, AND WAITED. Every time I called up to the unit, they said, “It will be just a few more minutes and they’ll have him moved. Well, that went on the better part of ALL DAY. Finally, Keith came to visit. It wasn’t visiting time, but since he was our pastor, they would let him go up in between times. He told me to come go up to the unit with him. We stopped at the desk to have the attendant call the unit and let them know we were coming up. They said, “Oh, we moved him already. Didn’t anyone call and let her know?” (GRRRRRRR!!!) The attendant gave me the room number and directions how to get there and I took off. (I don’t remember Keith going to the room with me. . . maybe he had to make a visiting session in another unit or something. I do know that he came by later on in the evening.)
After maneuvering the maze of hallways and making sure I got on the right elevator, I finally managed to find the step-down unit. The nurse at the desk told me where the room was. When I walked in the door, poor Ken was sitting up in the middle of the bed with the telephone in his lap, crying. When he saw me, he said, “Oh, thank God you’re here! I was trying to remember your phone number!” He said he had been up in the room for “a long time” and he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t coming. I don’t know how long he was actually up there before I found him, but to him, it was a long time and he felt abandoned once more. (GRRRRRR!!!! AGAIN!!!!!)
Anyway, he calmed down a little and I tried to convince him to try and get some rest. Unfortunately, that didn’t last very long. I don’t know if Ken was just still upset from being in the ICU, or if the meds they gave him were making him act up, or if it was just the results of the pain he was in (as usual, he was refusing to take anything for pain. They had him hooked up to a pain pump, but he would NOT push the button), but he was as ornery as I have EVER seen him. The room was long and narrow, so my chair was behind his bed. If he couldn’t see me, he was barking orders at me so that I’d have to jump up and come to the bed. He would not let me sit down for more than five minutes at a time. I was in tears by the time he finally dropped off to sleep. That only lasted about an hour and a half and he was awake and snarling at me again. One time he made a comment about me “not taking care of him like I should”. I whirrled around at him and hollered, “Oh really? Then who is that fat woman who has been running herself ragged ever since you got sick!!!!?” I know I shouldn’t have said it. . . it was so mean to talk that way to someone so sick. But I guess the fear and exhaustion had finally gotten the better of me. We apologized to each other, but that exchange between us still haunts me to this day.
Okay. . . finally out of ICU. Step-down had to be better, right? Well, not so much. First of all, most of the nurses absolutely and totally ignored us. The first one we had was wonderful. She was very attentive and compassionate. After she left, though, it was like we were in nowhere land. This was supposed to be a monitored bed, but they never hooked Ken up to any of the machines other than the little ET finger ( you know, the little clip they put on the end of your finger that glows red–reminded me of ET) that monitored his oxygen intake. His heart could have completely stopped beating and they would never have known it. I had to go out to the desk and almost pitch a screaming fit to get anyone to come and empty Ken’s catheter bag. It was so full that it was round like a basketball and on the verge of exploding and making a huge mess all over the floor. I had told them earlier that if they would just bring me a measuring cup, I could empty it, but they said, “Oh, no, we can’t let family members do that. We need to make sure it’s done correctly.” So instead of letting me take care of it, they let it get so full that they couldn’t get an accurate measurement anyway because it was pushing back up into the tube. (GRRRRRRRR!!!! ONE MORE TIME!)
Then, the guy who was supposed to be our nurse that night had the nerve to lie to me the next morning and say, “I checked in on y’all around 3:00 a.m., but you were both sleeping, so I didn’t want to bother you.” HUH?! First of all, Ken was in the hospital in what was supposed to be a monitored bed. It is the nurses' JOB to bother him to take vitals every four hours. Secondly, we didn’t sleep that night. And even if we had, I had become such a light sleeper since Ken got sick that I would have heard him if he had opened the door. He had NOT checked on us all night, I knew it, and I told him so. He kept insisting that he had, so I finally just said, “Whatever” and he left. It wasn’t long after that they called and said they had a bed ready for Ken on the oncology floor. That nurse ended up chasing us up the hallway trying to get all of his paperwork (that he should have done the night before) caught up.
All-in-all, I’d have to say that the whole ICU – Step-down experience was one big GRRRRRRR!!!!!! :(
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