No, your comments did not make me feel stupid. I can blatantly see that this isn't the RIGHT thing to be doing. But we are, or should say were victims of the circumstances. I mean honestly I can only call and leave so many messages. Surprisinly enough I do have other things to do then call their office 5-6 times a day.
And then I have to finally be a b*tch to get them to respond, by the time it's all said and done with
I need blood pressure medication.
When the nurse told him that 10 was high he gave me this terrified look and I had to explain to him YET AGAIN that his dosage will depend on how he metabolizes the medicine to get his INR up. But I know he kind of thinks well THEY should know best and that I might just be saying stuff to make him feel better. I have little to no faith in doctors, pharmacies or the medical community in general. This whole process with Ray has given me a little faith back in surgeons, but it solidified the fact that most doctors and nurses don't have enough time after they get their degrees to further their research and stay on top of the game.
I had the one nurse when we were in the hospital tell Ray to stay hydrated he should only drink 4 of those little pitchers they give you a day. No more. Or it would "hurt" him. Then the other one who came on after her said drink little water but drink lots of liquids. I asked her what she meant and she said well nothing that has sugar in it like juice but gatorade is good. I told her gatorade has high fructose corn syrup in it and she asked me what that was. I think my jaw hit the floor.
We had someone come in and start him on the plavix/aspirin regime. I was like uh, why is he taking this now. They didn't know. So I told them to go find out. Imagine this, it was a mistake. hmmm, go figure. Then they were trying to give him some cholesterol pill and I was like why. Big surprise, we don't know we just always give them to the heart patients. I was like there is nothing wrong with his cholesterol, go find out why he was prescribed this, guess what? They took that off the list of pills to give him. It was just unbelievable that I had to ask them everytime they came to give him something what it was and they didn't even know. I know they thought I was a huge pain in the butt.
Then they kept coming in to check his vitals. I asked how often they were going to do this because they kept waking him up throughout the night. We were getting up every 45 minutes or so and the nurse says we do it every 4 hours. Well I told her they were coming in every hour and a half. So they would come in before the 4 hours and I would kick them out. How the heck is he supposed to rest when they are coming in and out with nonsense all night long. I understood the periodic checks but they weren't even following their own system. It was like they were bored in the middle of the night and were finding stuff to do.
They were all very friendly and very helpful, don't get me wrong on that, but their knowledge was lacking.
Ray didn't want the narcotics, he just wasn't in that much pain. His shoulder was killing him but he was managing that with the motrin they were giving him (this was pre-coumadin). It was almost like they were street pushers. The one nurse demanded he take it. Trying to convince him that the pain was going to get worse and that he should take the meds before it got to that point because if it got to that point the meds wouldn't be able to manage the pain. Of course this is post op day 3 and he hasn't had anything since post op day 1.
OK, now I've just gone and ranted up a storm.
Anyways, we go to this new coumadin clinic on Tuesday. Hopefully we have better luck. And no we don't live in the boonies by any stretch of the matter. We are 29 miles from the nations capitol!!!
Sheepdog let me go look up where those studies are so you can read them first hand. I think you'll probably have better luck in the valve selection section of this forum. Choosing a valve really is just personal preference and what you think is best for YOU. Ray was nervous about taking coumadin at first but the more we researched the more comfortable we are if he has to stay on it. However, his choice to be in the study is if you don't have to check your INR frequently and worry about redosage then that's one less thing to worry about.
We went and saw Indiana Jones last night. It was very good. We all enjoyed it. We watched the other 3 to buff up our memories while we were off together. I actually had never seen the 3rd one. And it's FRIDAY!!! Holdiay weekend to boot!!
