h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Customer Satisfaction Survey

No hospital-type situation is perfect and I do have complaints now and again. To quote Mark Anthony (because pebbledrook's Shakespeare journals have earwormed me with Will's stuff), "the evil that men do lives on after them, while the good is oft interred with their bones." There are things I do not like about being institutionalized.


Privacy, lack of. Not something the staff can do much about. They must make their appointed rounds, emptying wastebaskets, delivering laundry, administering meds and so on, during the day. Icy North posted a link to a repository of classical music (#27) and I was just floating away on a piece by Vaughn-Williams this afternoon, when there was a knock on the door. Some mail for me. Back to the music, the violin singing to the cello, and there's another knock on the door. Supplies check.

Visitors can be rude. Oh, one can understand about the kids, they'll stare at anything. But some adults act like they're at the zoo, entitled to peer into all the rooms as they saunter down the hall. I glare. I make eye contact and scowl, except on Halloween night, when I put on some sort of costume. I don't mind it so much with other residents, who just like to keep up with what's happening in their facility. We wave or nod to each other.



Silence, lack of. I've said all I can say about that. You know my feelings. Eventually the whole facility will have televisions mounted on swing arms, with headphone jacks and free earbuds, and the cacophony will go away, but other expenditures have priority. Sigh.



Jeers to needles! I hate them. I just gave blood for a potassium check and now I'm told to expect a cholesterol in a few days. There was a thyroid lab just a couple of weeks ago. Why can't they save up and do all these tests in one poke? And then there's this thing called redirecting, when they reposition the needle once it's already in your arm. I still have a big bruise from the thyroid poke.

The only good thing is that you get ambushed at 6 am or so by the vampire techies, which means you're too groggy to be frightened.



Lack of space. Remember the conflict between Money and Original Design? There are a few private rooms, but the rest are "semi-private" and were designed that way. The beds were meant to sit cross-wise, with light fixtures mounted on the wall over the patient's head. Well. The beds don't really fit in the rooms that way. It can be done, but then it's difficult to open the drawers of the furniture at the foot of the bed, and you certainly can't get a hoyer lift or a scooter to the farther bed if the first one is cross-wise. And so the lights are in a less-than-convenient position. Staff bang their heads on the sharp corners when moving around the bed. The on-off pull cords all have extensions so that the patient can reach them, but the extensions can't be too long or else the pull is at too sharp an angle to be effective.



Compatibility. While the staff have an excellent awareness of residents' personalities as well as their medical profiles, there is no system for putting like with like -- and it would be difficult to put something in place. I got this bed the weekend after the former occupant died. That's the only way a bed becomes available in long term, when the occupant dies or is "sent out" (to hospital), which often amounts to the same thing. Re-arranging patients to create better matches is complicated by the fact that a resident cannot be moved without their permission or that of the POA contact.

Administration does try: the two Navajo ladies are together, for example. But across the hall there is E who only speaks English and Anna who only speaks Spanish. Or there's me who firmly believes that rooms should not be overheated, and J, who can't stand it when the temperature goes below 80°F. But even when there is an extreme of incompatibility, the combatants have to wait until staff work out how to juggle everyone around.



The things I have complained about in this journal are problems at Ladera, but they are not vices ~of~ Ladera. In the reading I've done this month, I've learned about nursing home vices, most of which seem to come from entrenched bureaucratic stupidity, and that doesn't happen here. Another thing to be thankful for.

They're terrible things to put up with because it's often the little thjngs that get you over time. I think I take for granted those things like privacy, peace & temperature control. I hope your journals will teach me to be a bit more appreciative of these little things while I still have them.

Deb

Why are you having your cholesterol tested, Lil? Are you on statins?

The majority of those who die from cardioavscular deseases (at least in Sweden) have a *low cholesterol level. Lowering your cholesterol level is not going to prevent cardiovascular desease. The statins given to lower cholesterol on the other hand have some horrible side effects, especially in the long time run.

I'm a firm believer in THINCS (The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics)
http://www.thincs.org/index.htm

I broke my fast last night because of 'orrible indigestion, and so refused the bloodwork. This is not a time in my life to be worrying about peripheral crap like that.

[Amy P]