My promised rant

[Shard92]

As many of you know my sister was diagnosed with Cancer in July of last year. By november it had taken a turn for the worst and they told her there wasn't much hope and gave her the option to continue to try chemo with the idea that it probably would not work and she would be sick from it, or to fore go any more chemo and try to live as good a life as she could. As you may remember she chose to discontinue the chemo and then died on december 22.

As I also mentioned I was extremely pissed with the way the hospital treated her at the end. The cancer had gotten into her bones and when they took her for some test they made her try to get into the wheelchair by herself and her arm broke.... The nurses where even heard talking about how they had never heard such a loud pop!!!! Finally after that the doctor hand wrote a note to hang above her bed saying they needed to be extremely carefull and always do a group blanket type lift. ( he had said so before but the nurses wouldn't believe us> ) Still we had to yell at nurses to be careful moving her and that she was not suppose to get up and do physical therapy!!! They brought in a specialist to repair the arm with surgery so she would have some use of it again. He told us that she needed to be carefull not to move the arm so that the bones would stay aligned.... The day of the surgery some old nurse comes in to take her to some test or something and picked her up by her arm!!! When her husband yelled at her she said she had been a nurse for 30 years and knew what she was doing. Of course when she went to surgery the bone was not aligned any more so the doctor had to realign the bone.

Also the nurses had said that if the iv was stopped she wouldn't last more than a few hours to maybe a day.... well they were very slow in replaceing the iv when they ran out. We usually had to go find a nurse to replace it even though it was loudly beeping and she was right next to the nurses station. They even once had to send out for the drug she needed once bacause they didn't have anymore right there to give her! She was eventually transfered to hospice care.... that started in the hospital but they moved her to the hospice area. Not only did the nurses treat her like a human being they where on the ball and came in with the bad before it was done and when the alarm went off they were there in seconds!!!! Then one day we came in and she was off iv so we paniced and asked the hospice care person and they said that no she never was dependent on the iv they just had her on that till they decided on the right combination of pills. They were stunned when we told them we were told she'd die without the iv. They had told us there where all these things that she depended on that were in the iv that just weren't necessary.

The final kick came when we talked to a lawyer and he said we had a really good case and he would have taken it except for one thing. This type of case requires that she be alive and they said it would be 6 to 12 months to get it heard....


Thank you all for listening... I still think about her/miss her every day.... Still what hurts the most is to have seen what she had to go through before she died..... especially the stuff that could have been avoided...

[Richard1]

Next month is the one year anniversary of losing someone very close to me to Cancer. The last year of his life was a travesty. I just try to remember all the good years he had but it doesn't seem to get much easier.

[Shard92]

Next month is the one year anniversary of losing someone very close to me to Cancer. The last year of his life was a travesty. I just try to remember all the good years he had but it doesn't seem to get much easier.

Yeah, it really does suck!!! At least my sisters suffering was only a few months.... from diagnosis to death... just over 5 months.

[Damned Angel]

Wow, what can you say in response to something like that?

I'm sorry for your loss. At least she is somewhere the nurses can't hurt her anymore.

[DonJ]

Shard, I certainly feel for you. I have also lost 3 family members in the past few years and it is really hard to just forget about it and go on with you own life.

But please don't harp on how bad things were at the end.

When my mom passed away, she was really worried that my kids would only remember her that way; being on her death bed. Yes, my kids did get to see her right before she passed but I am convinced that was the right thing to do. We all hugged her and told her how much we all loved her even tho she couldn't respond. That's been almost 5 years ago now.

I still remember her standing at the front door of our house when I went off to school, the military and so on. And I still miss her so much.

I'm sure you've heard it before but try to concentrate on how wonderful it was when she was around and all of the good things you did together.

thoughts and prayers are with you

[Shard92]

thanks DonJ. i understand. More than anything I needed to get it off my chest... I'm the one who is strong for the rest of the family. I just needed somewhere to vent a little... Oh and I do remember those times....

[El_Squid]

In a way Shard, it is a blessing to be the point man for the family, somehow it makes it more bearable, or maybe its because there is not as much time to dwell on it, since you have your family to take care of.

I lost my father to lung cancer Dec. 31, 2003 and my 21 year old stepson David to Gardner's Syndrome on September 5, 2005. Both fought their disease for many years before dying and both died mercifully quickly in the end. General hospitals are some of the worst places for care and compassion, particularly when dealing with "veteran" nurses who know better than the family, how to take care of a patient. God bless you. I pray you find peace and a patient ear, whenever you need to vent, for it is easier to unload truthfully to a sympathetic stranger.

[DonJ]

In the words of the late, great Richard Pryor:

A hospital ain't no place to get well. You could die in there and nobody gives a ****!

[rgharper]

Thank you all for listening... I still think about her/miss her every day.... Still what hurts the most is to have seen what she had to go through before she died..... especially the stuff that could have been avoided...

Hang in there. I lost my grandfather to cancer about ten years ago. He was the next best thing to a father I had as mine didn't measure up well (but that's not a story for now) and even today I sometimes find myself thinking about how he might react if I could tell him what happened today ...

Someday - hopefully soon - the pain and anger of your loss will be balanced by the memories of the better times you had together.

[Shard92]

Those good memories are there already I just needed to blow off some steam....

[arch0nmyc0n]

Welcome to the healthcare system... I'm in Canada and the healthcare system is mostly government covered but it's the same thing here... My mother has fought off 3 types of cancer in the past which luckily were slow going and hadn't reach the lympnodes(sp?). Unfortunately she been diagnosed with a 4th type now and has been given the about a 5% chance of survival... just thinking about it makes my eyes water....... regardless, nurses in hospitals aren't the nicest people in the world usually... and I kinda understand it to an extent cause imagine taking care of numerous sick people all the time... it'd be extremely difficult... but the fact the ones you were dealing didn't listen to the doctor's instructions is very bad and I'd sue regardless of death... if people can sue because a nativity scene insults them and win, I'm sure there is a way to sue the hospital staff for being idiots... My mother has had to deal with a fair share of idiot staff and she shouldn't have to. She just finsihed her last does of radiation in January and has travelled back to England to be around family for a few weeks. We lost my mothers sister in 2003 and I don't know if my nana will be able to handle losing another child... she's like 90 something... I have to stop typing now or I won't be able to do anymore work today...