des1954
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2007
Phyllis- I'm so sorry for what's been going on with your dad. I could tell you a novel full of stories about events with both my parents.
One time when my dad was hospitalized for CHF hallucinated on the morphine. He thought he was back in combat during WWII & literally destroyed the room he was in. Thankfully, there were no other patients sharing the room with him at the time. It took 3 huge orderly's to stop him and get him calmed down.
Then there was my mom - wow - I could make millions on real-life stories about her. She was hospitalized for CHF & pneumonia, and her Dr. who knew she was an alcoholic - didn't order any type of meds to deal with what he knew would end up to be the DT's. Well, mom went into extremely serious DT's for a little over a month. She had to be placed in a private room with a 24 hour babysitter because the state law in Fla is no restraints without State Attorney's intervention. It was about 20 days into her hospitalization before anyone told me that - and then it was an acquaintance I ran into at the hospital who informed me. The next day when I spoke to her Dr about restraining her he breathed a big sigh & said he was waiting for me to ask for those. He could not recommend them - again due to laws. It seemed too many nursing homes and hospitals were restraining people without justification - but just so the staff didn't have to be bothered by them. Once I requested she be restrained he was "Johnny On the Spot" and gave me the phone number to the SAO and a name of a person to speak with. He also recommended that I start procedures to have her institutionalized because he honestly didn't think she would truly recover from the DT's. The term he used was permanently "wet-brained". Ultimately she came out of the DT's & back to being a cognitive, fully functional person - and that was about 1 week before she was going to be transferred to the mental institution.
A few years later she ended up with lung cancer that spread through her entire body and about 10 days b-4 she died she was on so much morphine that she started hallucinating. We lived in a different county by that time & I had a friend at the SAO who pushed thru the order for restraints - cause mom was trying to get up and entertain people, falling, put back into bed, getting up, etc... The nursing home only had to make one call to me about the hallucinations & I knew exactly what to do. After mom was full body restrained (a vest tied to the bed rails), she had a night nurse who felt sorry for my mom (who could be a very good actress) and mom convinced her to untie her due to discomfort. This tender-hearted (but not thinking straight) nurse took the restraint off out of kindness. Well-at 2am I'm getting a call from the N.H. saying mom fell out of bed and I needed to get there pronto to evaluate if I thought she needed to go to the hospital for x-rays etc. WHAT?? She was restrained!!! How the heck did she fall out of bed? I went to the NH & the nurse who undid the restraints was crying uncontrollably. (She was young.) Ultimately mom didn't get hurt, and the young nurse learned a very valuable lesson. About a month after mom died I got a letter from the nursing home concerning a possible lawsuit about that incident. Yeah...I probably could have sued - but for what? Over someone having compassion but making a wrong choice?
Anyhow Phyllis....know that there are a lot of us who have gone thru these things and can really sympathize with you - and may even be able to give you some sort of direction. Sometimes you need all the advice you can get!
- Deb
One time when my dad was hospitalized for CHF hallucinated on the morphine. He thought he was back in combat during WWII & literally destroyed the room he was in. Thankfully, there were no other patients sharing the room with him at the time. It took 3 huge orderly's to stop him and get him calmed down.
Then there was my mom - wow - I could make millions on real-life stories about her. She was hospitalized for CHF & pneumonia, and her Dr. who knew she was an alcoholic - didn't order any type of meds to deal with what he knew would end up to be the DT's. Well, mom went into extremely serious DT's for a little over a month. She had to be placed in a private room with a 24 hour babysitter because the state law in Fla is no restraints without State Attorney's intervention. It was about 20 days into her hospitalization before anyone told me that - and then it was an acquaintance I ran into at the hospital who informed me. The next day when I spoke to her Dr about restraining her he breathed a big sigh & said he was waiting for me to ask for those. He could not recommend them - again due to laws. It seemed too many nursing homes and hospitals were restraining people without justification - but just so the staff didn't have to be bothered by them. Once I requested she be restrained he was "Johnny On the Spot" and gave me the phone number to the SAO and a name of a person to speak with. He also recommended that I start procedures to have her institutionalized because he honestly didn't think she would truly recover from the DT's. The term he used was permanently "wet-brained". Ultimately she came out of the DT's & back to being a cognitive, fully functional person - and that was about 1 week before she was going to be transferred to the mental institution.
A few years later she ended up with lung cancer that spread through her entire body and about 10 days b-4 she died she was on so much morphine that she started hallucinating. We lived in a different county by that time & I had a friend at the SAO who pushed thru the order for restraints - cause mom was trying to get up and entertain people, falling, put back into bed, getting up, etc... The nursing home only had to make one call to me about the hallucinations & I knew exactly what to do. After mom was full body restrained (a vest tied to the bed rails), she had a night nurse who felt sorry for my mom (who could be a very good actress) and mom convinced her to untie her due to discomfort. This tender-hearted (but not thinking straight) nurse took the restraint off out of kindness. Well-at 2am I'm getting a call from the N.H. saying mom fell out of bed and I needed to get there pronto to evaluate if I thought she needed to go to the hospital for x-rays etc. WHAT?? She was restrained!!! How the heck did she fall out of bed? I went to the NH & the nurse who undid the restraints was crying uncontrollably. (She was young.) Ultimately mom didn't get hurt, and the young nurse learned a very valuable lesson. About a month after mom died I got a letter from the nursing home concerning a possible lawsuit about that incident. Yeah...I probably could have sued - but for what? Over someone having compassion but making a wrong choice?
Anyhow Phyllis....know that there are a lot of us who have gone thru these things and can really sympathize with you - and may even be able to give you some sort of direction. Sometimes you need all the advice you can get!
- Deb