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: Argh!
So Michelle's grandmother, who is competently living by herself at age 89 -- she is a remarkable story of eating right and exercising -- had an accident a few days ago where she was struck by some vehicle (a bike or motorcycle, we can't seem to figure out which). In the course of this she broke her hip and was forced to have surgery.
Today Michelle called to check in on her. Apparently Michelle's grandmother was rather upset, because the nurses had told her that she would get pneumonia if she didn't walk around. However, when she did try to walk around a little, her pain was so bad that she was seeing stars and she couldn't walk around.
Michelle checked with the nurses, who claimed that her grandmother hadn't complained of pain. (Grandmother says "no I shout it out to them that I'm in pain") They had her on Darvocet, which is "for mild to moderate pain," which is probably how I'd describe the kind of pain you'd expect from someone recovering from surgery after breaking their hip and being asked to walk on it.
Michelle called the doctor, who mumbled something about not wanting to overmedicate the patients "because they might get woozy and not be very aware," and then assured her that he'd "take care of it."
We'll see how he did in the morning.
In the past, it was really quite difficult to be an informed consumer of medical care. Organizations like this one were useful to create standards and licensure requirements for doctors. But there's much less excuse now to accept substandard care now than there ever was, and the tendency of people to assume that their doctors and nurses are performing in a competent fashion is quite dangerous, given the amount of information that's available and the cost of mistakes in health care.
Followup: They put her on Percocet, which is better, but some of the damage is already done, as far as a quick recovery is concerned.
So Michelle's grandmother, who is competently living by herself at age 89 -- she is a remarkable story of eating right and exercising -- had an accident a few days ago where she was struck by some vehicle (a bike or motorcycle, we can't seem to figure out which). In the course of this she broke her hip and was forced to have surgery.
Today Michelle called to check in on her. Apparently Michelle's grandmother was rather upset, because the nurses had told her that she would get pneumonia if she didn't walk around. However, when she did try to walk around a little, her pain was so bad that she was seeing stars and she couldn't walk around.
Michelle checked with the nurses, who claimed that her grandmother hadn't complained of pain. (Grandmother says "no I shout it out to them that I'm in pain") They had her on Darvocet, which is "for mild to moderate pain," which is probably how I'd describe the kind of pain you'd expect from someone recovering from surgery after breaking their hip and being asked to walk on it.
Michelle called the doctor, who mumbled something about not wanting to overmedicate the patients "because they might get woozy and not be very aware," and then assured her that he'd "take care of it."
We'll see how he did in the morning.
In the past, it was really quite difficult to be an informed consumer of medical care. Organizations like this one were useful to create standards and licensure requirements for doctors. But there's much less excuse now to accept substandard care now than there ever was, and the tendency of people to assume that their doctors and nurses are performing in a competent fashion is quite dangerous, given the amount of information that's available and the cost of mistakes in health care.
Followup: They put her on Percocet, which is better, but some of the damage is already done, as far as a quick recovery is concerned.