Organ grinder
Nathan woke up Wednesday complaining of a sore tummy, holding his belly, and whining away. He never does this. Thinking he wasn't quite serious, we sent him to daycare anyway. Sure enough, 30 minutes after getting there he started puking. I picked him up and brought him home for the day, sure it was just a stomach bug. He seemed better in the evening.
The next day, same thing -- only no puking and he was holding his side and pelvic area. Jo had her appendix out (and nearly died before she did) when she was a kid, and has one hell of a scar to show for her adventures in 1970's British medicine. With Nathan whining, I said to Jo: "Hey, what side is your scar on?" She pointed to it -- it was the exact same location as where Nathan said he was hurting. She took him straight to the doctor.
After a visit to the urgent care pediatrician at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, they were sent pretty quickly to the emergency room at Stanford Hospital. They spent the afternoon there while doctors ran various tests to determine appendicitis. I arrived in the ER at around 4:30pm, and we weren't admitted to the hospital or given a real room until 11:30pm when we were taken to the adjacent Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Back in the ER at about 10pm, Nathan was given a CT scan which concluded that indeed his appendix was infected, and probably had ruptured. He was completely uncomfortable and had already spent the better part of the day hopped up on pain-killers.
We spent that night in a very uncomfortable shared room in the oncology ward of the hospital -- we were told it was the only bed available in the entire place. This is a children's hospital next door and attached to Stanford. The two are known locally and advertised as two of the best care centers in the area. This marks our second visit (the first was Nathan's birth) and will probably be our last no matter what ails us. The doctors and the nurses in the hospital seem to be top-notch. The facilities are horrendous and I won't go back.
Because there was no operating area available when we checked in or all day, Nathan didn't have surgery until about 1pm Thursday. So he was in the hospital for over 24 hours with a ruptured appendix and they still couldn't operate on him. We bitched and complained up the nurse chain at the hospital during our long wait, and only when we did were we given a ballpark timeframe of when he'd have surgery. When Jo had her emergency C-section, we were promised a room to ourselves due to her relatively traumatic circumstances. It took two and a half days to make that happen -- Jo walked out to the nurse station in her robes and carting her IV, crying and threatening to leave. Somehow a room materialized that night. With Nathan yesterday, I'm convinced that he wouldn't have been operated on until much later had we not spoken up about it.
Anyway, the surgery went well and Nathan is doing okay and recovering. We'll be there until Tuesday at best. I spent a restless night on a hard mattress next to his bed last night, and will do it again tomorrow (Jo is there tonight). We share our rooms with other families. There is no privacy. Our cries are heard by others in our rooms, and theirs are heard by us. Of course it's no fun, but it's not really even comfortable. The nurses seem equally frustrated as they use older equipment and know that families like us are not in a better-than-adequate facility.
All this brings me to politics. What doesn't? On Tuesday, if you live in Santa Clara County, you should vote Yes on Measure A. It needs 2/3 approval to pass because it's a bond measure. Prop. 8 of course, which would change the state's constitution to ban gay marriage, needs only 51 percent, natch. But I digress.... Think of our story and please vote Yes on A. If you're not aware of why you should, I'll try to convince you in my next post if this one hasn't done the job. The Bay Area needs trauma care and more hospital beds. Nathan got sick on a regular ol' Wednesday and it took forever to get surgery. Can you imagine what will happen here when (not if) a big earthquake hits?
Comments
I'm guessing the would have to set up field hospitals just like in IRAQ, but only after a bunch of taxpayers started dying.
Posted by: Christopher Cowan | November 1, 2008 06:18 AM
Steve, what a nightmare! I can't even imagine the stress of being stuck in the hospital like that for so long.
Posted by: Phil Hollenback | November 1, 2008 08:52 AM
Please also vote for Prop 3, childrens hospital funding. As both an employee of LPCH and a parent who's child receives care there, I can completely empathize with your situation. My child and I waited for 23 hours in the E.R. before a bed became available. However, I am working with the best people I have ever had the pleasure of calling co-workers, and Lucile Packard Childrens Hospitals' planned expansion will ameleorate the existing lack of space by adding 104 pediatric beds and the soon to open surgery suites and new oncology/BMT unit. Up until next month LPCH has been sharing surgery space with the adult hospital resulting in frustrating OR scheduling conflicts. My best wishes to you and your family.
Posted by: crabycat | November 1, 2008 11:58 AM
Thanks all for your comments. Crabycat - thanks for mentioning Prop 3. I voted Yes on it already and hope others do as well. I agree that the nurses and doctors that we've dealt with personally have been very helpful, informative and caring. I do hope LPCH and others in the area are able to improve their facilities.
Posted by: senders | November 1, 2008 01:57 PM
I am an employee at Stanford Hospital & know about the shortage of beds. I have seen some of the new models for the new hospital & patient rooms. The rooms are beautiful but not practical for patient care. They seem to want to design them after hotel rooms but this is not a hotel. I don’t think the planners had much if any in put from the staff that will be working in the rooms with patients. The patient beds will be positioned where the staff will not be able to see into the room to check on the patients. My concern is there will be an increase of patient falls do to poor design. They plan on putting flat screen TV’s into each room and sofa beds for family members to stay in. So does this mean they will short staff us and expect patient’s families to care for the patient? It seems they put a lot of time and money into amenities and short us on supplies, equipment and staff….The hospitals need to have staff in put before they move forward with their plans….
Posted by: crazystamper | November 1, 2008 02:07 PM
My wife used to work in pediatric oncology at UCSF. There seems to be a rivalry between the two hospitals, but my wife swears the care and facilities are better at UCSF. So if for some horrible reason you have go through this again, you might want to go to UCSF, even if it is a lot further away.
Posted by: Jeff Boulter | November 3, 2008 11:26 AM