Sweet As Cherry Pie

What happens when your blood sugar is controlled with no or next to no insulin for a month or more?

Well, if you are staying at ECMC’s Nursing Facility your blood glucose level shoots up 150 mg in one day.

Could it possibly be caused by all the stress the staff creates?

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How To Crack A Coconut

What you need to do is move a patient’s wheelchair then move it back but don’t put the brakes back on on the chair so that when the patient gets out of bed the wheelchair goes flying and the patient falls and cracks his skull.

If a patient is quick-witted and fast of reflex he may if he’s lucky not fall.

Sorry, Kim, keep denying you were even near the chair I’ve no doubt they’ll believe you since responsibility and professionalism are unknown here.

P.S: Aide with Kim actually said, “She was trying to help you!” RN on duty said, “We’re doing our best.”

God help us all!

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Drug Wars

I was told around 2pm yesterday that I would be coming to the Erie County Medical Center Skilled Nursing Facility for some physical reconditioning after a stay in hospital. I was brought here after 7 PM.

The times are important because it means they knew for at least 5 hours that I would be coming.

After a couple of hours I asked when my meds would be coming. I was told soon.

In fact, as I was to discover they didn’t have my meds, or so they say. I asked one ‘nurse’ why she was testing my glucose when she had no insulin to give me. WHAT? No insulin for a diabetic!

At 1 AM I discover that my drugs came in at midnight. 30 minutes go bye and still nothing. So I go down a long corridor with no oxygen huffing and puffing and find the nurse chatting with her fellow employee and friend.

Now, she then says she can only give me the hydrocodone, that I couldn’t get the neurontin for neuropathic pain, the ranexa for angina, aspirin, acting as a blood thinner because I would be getting them 8 hours later.

And to top it off, no xanax (for sleep) because it was scheduled for 9 PM the next day.

Are you insane?

So I spent the night up all night with burning feet and bad angina. Plus acid indigestion because the zantac hadn’t arrived she said.

Almost forgot no snack to maintain my blood sugar level overnight. I asked three times I told her. Snotty answer: “Did you think they don’t have any?” Well, I said, why didn’t they tell me that, like adults do? Turns out they did have an egg salad sandwich, at 11 PM.

No meds this morning till 9:30 AM next day.

All of this to me signifies incompetence and negligence, if not neglect.

You don’t accept a patient/resident when you are unprepared and lacking critical meds.

Only a fool would give a sleeping medication at 9 PM, withhold it for 15 hours, and withhold late pain and heart medication for 8 hours.

You don’t have to be a physician or a nurse to realize these things.

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Short Sheeting The Patients

Here I am in the Erie County Medical Center Skilled Nursing Facility, 5th floor of the Grider St building.

The beds are made for munchkins not six foot males.

Take a look for yourself. The only way I remotely fit is with the bed perfectly flat. Anyone with a cardiac condition knows many of us have to sleep with the bed at a thirty or so degree angle on the head end.

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Some Drugs Are Not Happy Drugs

One of the statin class of drugs I was taking for cholesterol backfired causing me to lose strength in my legs and go into kidney failure. 18 days after being discharged from the hospital because of diabeties, I was back again for another 16 days.

The doctors kept telling me it would take a long time to get back to my base but instead it took only 3 before I could get in and out of bed and travelin’ about the hospital in a wheelchair. OK, I went to the Subway in the food court.

So instead of going to subacute I have services, Nurse, OT, PT coming to my home. This is working out better than I expected but will soon be coming to an end.

Starting with new cardiologist next week. Should be interesting.

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On The Medical Front

Another year, another hospital stay another disease.

18 days in cardiac telemetry followed by 7 days of subacute.

Prescription pricing obscene. A year’s insulin at my dosage approx. $10,000! How many people must die or go blind or suffer amputation because they had no insurance and can’t afford $1,000/month for drugs and supplies?

Ask that to republicans who want to destroy healthcare reform.

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Why Did The Politician Cross The Road?

Why is it America seems to enjoy third-rate comedians commenting on society and politics. They aren’t funny. They certainly aren’t insightful (I doubt they know the meaning of the word) but they are childish.

Is that it? Are we so scared that we want to bang our heads against the wall to be numb to reality, to the fact that no one really knows what’s going on, to our spiraling economic, political and social failure, that we need these dumb comics to distract us?

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