I write this in 2008, April so verb tenses and current get involved.
When I read about people dying because of
hospital errors, I remember when Megan was sick at two years old.
It was obviously 1980 because that is when she was two. We had
gone
on vacation in California in the motor home. All of us.
Carole, Bree, Megan, myself. I had bought a cord-woven, cotton,
hammock and was
determined to use it in a forest park east of San Diego. I caught
pneumonia. So did Megan (not in the hammock). I got too
cold out
there while sleeping (Like Megan, I could sleep anywhere). I got
over
the pneumonia in a few weeks. She did not. It got
worse. Much
worse. Dr. Bienstock, our pediatrician, referred us to St.
Joseph's
Children's Hospital. Megan had a collapsed lung. Lungs to
not expand
back by themselves. And, no, you cannot use a CPAP machine to
make it
better. Hmm. Maybe today they can. I don't know.
In any case Carole and I spent our time at Megan's bedside.
Blood
tests, medication, respiratory treatments, pulse/blood pressure
measurement. 4 nurses. 4 different schedules. For 2
days Megan got
no sleep at all. Every time she went to sleep another nurse came
in to
do her duty. It was driving Carole and myself crazy -- and Megan
was
getting worse as she got no sleep at all. The nurses had their
schedules and nothing could change them. We could not convince
them to
do their things all at the same time. That was not fair to the
other
patients or to the nurses. Fair to everyone else was killing my
baby.
And to be sure: that issue was on the table: the last time she almost
did die. That story is elsewhere.
Carole and I started fending off the nurses when we saw Megan asleep. The nurses complained. Carole and I started getting phantom phone calls. We would hear an announcement that we had a telephone call at the desk (cell phones were not yet). We would get there and find that "They must have hung up". But when we returned to Megan's bed, they had woken her up for their rounds. Easy. No more phone calls. We stated we would remove her -- against doctor advice if necessary -- but she was going to get some sleep. Hospitals like when you remove against advice: they are no longer responsible for their errors.
We were lucky, just at the time we were about to leave Dr. Bienstock
showed up. We informed him of the problem and he signed the
release
papers. For the next 2 to 3 months Megan never left my
side. Day or
night. She went to the office with me. We saw the doctor
every few
days. A couple of times we rushed to the hospital when she was
gagging. But slowly she recovered. Miraculously her lung
re-expanded. She became healthy again. After two visits to St.
Joseph's where they tried to kill my child in order to be fair to
everyone else, we learned to never, ever, trust a hospital.
Two? The
story about Bree being born is also elsewhere.
So when I hear about hospital errors, I shiver. Our situation
was
easy: the hospital put themselves ahead of my baby. Their mistake
was
one of priorities. We fixed that. But bad medication
choices. Bad
surgery. Bad doctors. That makes my skin crawl. Maybe
the fact that
the mistakes are in the news is a good thing. I remember my
friend Amy
having serious problems when she had to put a doctor on report for
prescribing medication that he was informed would kill the baby.
I
drove her so that she could make that report. SHe was too nervous
to
drive. Amy survived. The baby did not. I hope the
doctor did not.
When you see the love a woman has for a baby, any baby, you take the
death of each baby personally. I shall never forget the love in
Marisol's eyes while she held Andrea's baby. I shall never forget
that
a hospital does not put my baby at the top of its priorities.