It has been almost one month since the surgery. I spent fifteen days in Florida and I've been home for sixteen days.
There's a lot I never wrote about my experience with surgery, particularly the hospital, a small teaching hospital in South Miami, which was a horrific place.
I should have known it was going to be a shit show when they had to reprint my intake paperwork in English because they had assumed I only spoke Spanish based on my last name--and the surgical techs and nurses claimed not to speak English, only Spanish. I get it, they serve a primarily Spanish speaking population in Miami, but even the ones who claimed to be bilingual were not and not once was I offered a translator or translation services, even when it was clear that they were not able to convey information about treatments and medications adequately.
Oh, but that was just the beginning. I haven't talked about how the anesthesiologist--the head of the anesthesiology department, turns out--came in to the room where I was being held before surgery and told me he was one hundred percent sure that I was going to spend two days in the ICU on a ventilator--this was while I was sitting in a hospital gown prior to surgery. I asked him why he thought that and he said it was because I was using supplemental oxygen. I told him that since coming to Miami, I largely hadn't needed the supplemental oxygen as I was satting adequately at sea level (where I live is over 5,000 feet above sea level and at that elevation the work of breathing is much harder for everyone, not just me). The anesthesiologist refused to believe me--okay, fine, it's not like as a nurse I haven't worked with arrogant doctors who see patients as adversaries--so he sent the nurse in with a pulse oximeter to measure my oxygen saturation level.
It was 97% on room air.
That apparently pissed him off, so for his next trick he demanded that I pay $4,000 dollars as a pre-payment for the two days in the ICU before he would allow the surgery to be performed. I had to hand over my credit card to a lackey from the accounting department. The surgeon was shocked when she found this out as none of her other patients had ever had to do such a thing, even those who had stayed in the hospital following surgery. (I have my suspicions as to why he demanded it of me, but he was smart enough not to say it out loud and instead just went into full asshole mode.)
In the end, I ended up staying one night (less than 24 hours) in what the hospital is now claiming was a "semi-private" room (I was in a room with two beds, but there was not another patient in there with me) and being charged $2,000. Dave has had to call and call and call the hospital--he has more patience than I when he gets the runaround treatment--and he finally got them to at least say that they are going to send a refund for the other $2,000 of our money.
And speaking of that one night in the "semi-private" hospital room, after surgery, I was dumped in a dark room while waking up from anesthesia, nauseous and disoriented, unable to move, alone, without a call light. I thought I was going to vomit and I didn't want to vomit all over myself, so I yelled for the nurse. I yelled and yelled. The only person who heard me apparently was Dave, who heard me as he was getting off the elevator to come to my room. Even after that, he had to go out to the nurse's station and find the nurse and even then she didn't come in. Dave brought me a cup of ice chips to calm my stomach. Eventually the nurse came in--she also could barely speak English while claiming to be bilingual--with medication, but I saw her then and she did no new patient assessment or any kind of follow up care after administering the medication.
The night nurse--her English was slightly better, though she struggled--and tech--zero English, but competent at her job--showed up hours later to start their shift and were shocked that no one had been in with anything for us for hygiene or to help with anything in all the hours we had been there.
That was the worst of it while I was in the hospital, but I'm sure the infection I got was from the inadequate care I got there in that first 24 hours after surgery. I was glad to get out of that crappy little hospital the next morning as staying another day would have meant another day with the incompetent day nurse who had provided next to nothing in terms of care.
So that was my hospital experience.
