Around 3:30 in the morning, Brian woke up complaining that his belly hurt. I kept rubbing his stomach, but he continued to complain for the next hour. It didn’t seem like the cramping he had in the past (his belly felt soft), but he kept fussing, sometimes crying. He then needed to pee. After he was finished, I went to wash my hands … and he started throwing up. I noticed some blood in his vomit, and so I pushed the nurse call button several times – nothing. I ran into the hallway to the nurses station, and no one was there. I saw two ladies further down the hall and asked for help (I assumed they were nurses). I went back to Brian and started to clean him up with some wipes. The vomit was all over the front of him, all over his neck, surrounding his neck, on the pillow, and all over the back of his head – it was a mess! Still no one came. I went back into the hall to see if anyone was coming. A nurse came out of one of another patient’s room, and I asked her for help. She said that she would page our nurse for us … back to cleaning Brian up. Finally, our nurse came in. She didn’t do anything! She saw three drops of blood on the pillowcase and asked me what it was. I told her that was the first time I saw it. I told her there was blood in the vomit. She said it probably was from a nosebleed. She then went to the computer and started typing. I got irritated and told her to page the doctor. She spent several minutes on the computer while I cleaned continued to clean up Brian. I then told her that I needed more wipes – she still didn’t move from that computer. I went around her and started using paper towels and wetting them in water to use to clean Brian up. She finally got up and said that she had paged the doctor, and the doctor was in admitting with another patient. She would page the resident doctor.
The nurse then went out of the room (I’m still cleaning up the mess with paper towels), and comes back in a minute or two, with bed sheets. I tell her once again that I needed wipes. She says, “Oh yeah,” and goes back out to get some. I take Brian off the bed and keep wiping him clean, while she proceeds to change the sheets. She throws away the vomit that I had collected in a pink hospital bucket-like thing. I’m really irritated at this time, because I’m thinking that the doctor needs to see the blood in the vomit. She changes the bedsheets, still never checking Brian. She did ask Brian how he was doing once.
Twenty minutes after Brian throws up is the first time she attends to him. She replaces his pulse oximeter (I had pulled off all the leads and pulse ox because they were covered in vomit) and takes his vitals. She goes back to that computer. She then starts to leave and asks if I need anything. I tell her to bring me a small basin just in case Brian throws up again.
Brian does throw up again at 5:30. I don’t even bother to call that nurse, and take care of it myself.
The resident doctor comes in a little before 7 am, and I ask what today’s plan of action is. She said she would return with the rest of the team, and we would discuss it together.
At 9 am, the whole team (doctors, nurses, attending and residents) meets outside Brian’s room. They ask me questions, and I tell everything that happened. The charge nurse apologizes for what happened, says that she will look into it, and speak to the nurse that was on duty. I told her that I didn’t want that nurse to be assigned to Brian again.
At 10 am, the day nurse comes in with another dose of IV antibiotics. She notices that the IV site is leaking and needs to be changed (the reason why Brian was screaming during the previous IV drips). She calls in an IV specialist – thank goodness. (In the ER on Saturday, there was a young nurse who tried starting an IV on Brian. She blew two veins – Brian screaming the whole time - before calling in the head nurse, who had no problem in starting an IV.)
A little after 11 am, the IV specialist comes in. She has a lot of syringes, gauzes, swabs, tapes, and even a special light that shows where bruises are. She is very careful, takes some blood for a blood test, and puts the IV in with no difficulty. She even put a special plastic cover over the IV site. Yes, Brian screamed and cried, but not for too long.
So, we are now waiting to see if Brian throws up again with this next dose of antibiotics. We’re also waiting on the results of the vomit/blood culture, and the blood test.
