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mdlbearYou'll notice the cut tag is back this time; Colleen is back in a hospital (UW, this time). She's being well taken care of (finally) (hopefully), but sheesh!
Episode 6 was written just after Colleen started at Prestige Post-Acute and Rehab Center. She'd liked it the last two times she was there, but they seem to have gone downhill since then. I imagine COVID has been hard on them, but... It's not a good excuse.
Colleen spent three weeks at Prestige; there were only a few days when the kitchen sent something she could eat, despite multiple conversations with the dietician, the head of food service, and others. For some reason they could never figure out that "no high-fiber vegetables, including corn,..." implied that mixed vegetables with corn was not something she should be eating, and she ended up ordering cottage cheese more often than not.
She arrived on a Thursday, and it wasn't until the following Monday that she got any PT.
... and during her last week, her lab numbers (low urine output and potassium, high white blood cell count and creatinine) got steadily worse, postponing her scheduled discharge from Tuesday or Wednesday to Thursday, and then Friday. They stopped giving her PT on Tuesday, and didn't re-start it when her discharge got pushed off.
At which point we'd had it, and talking with her doctors and the social worker, we (mostly I) got them to agree that she'd get better care in a hospital, and transferred her to UW. Well, sort of: Prestige paid for the cabulance ride, and had her drop off at the ER. You may remember from part 3 that we'd wanted her transferred from Whidbey to UW in the first place.
UW has good people.
As we had suspected, the fistula (which you may remember from this post) had opened again. What's more they found out why -- the end of a foley catheter had been pushed through it from her bladder to her large intestine. That must have happened when they changed the foley on Tuesday to get a urine sample. No wonder she got suddenly worse between Tuesday and Wednesday!
They changed her catheter yesterday, correctly, on Sunday. Today they put in a(nother) central line (she'd had one at Swedish); up until this afternoon she'd had an IV on the back of her (dominant) left hand. She's had so many IVs that it's practically impossible to find a vein that works.
She's currently being treated for the fistula, the usual antibiotic-resistant UTI, low potassium, acidosis, the peptic ulcer, and the inflamation due to Crohn's disease. There may be some other things. Hopefully she'll start getting PT tomorrow. Her numbers have already improved.
Colleen was not happy about having to spend her Mother's Day in a hospital, that UW is not allowing visitors.
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Date: 2021-05-11 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-11 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-12 03:48 pm (UTC)the words that leap to mind (after "jfc" and "ouch" and "get well soon!") are "malpractice lawsuit" but maybe that's just me
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Date: 2021-05-12 08:39 pm (UTC)I have it on good authority that the only way to win that game is not to play. However, a complaint to the appropriate regulatory agency may be in order.
Oh dear.
Date: 2021-05-12 09:55 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry Colleen and you have had to suffer through such difficulty. I'm relieved to hear "UW has good people," and hope it's the hinge to true recovery.
The Foley fuckup is horrifying.
Sending you strength and warm thoughts.