A last lesson learned from our hospital experience:

Lesson #7: Before leaving, know what’s next

It is relatively less difficult to get updates while you are still in the hospital. For one, you are regularly visited by a doctor (it may not be the actual doctor you want, but still they can give you some information). Second, you have nurses who are (usually) willing to help you out with obtaining or following up on information. However, once you are discharged and you are back home, you will have to call these doctors individually and most of the time have to get through their secretaries first. So if you don’t know for sure what you are supposed to do once you go home, the time to ask is while you’re still at the hospital. Usually they would do this as part of their treatment, but if they don’t, do not wait until you leave before finding out.

Be sure to:

• Know if you need to take any medicines at home. If so, make sure to get the prescription, and clarify the dosage (how many times per day, and what if I miss a dosage, what do I do?)
• Know which doctors you need to set up an appointment with, and when the appointment should be. The soonest possible time that you can, set up the appointment so you can get the most convenient time for you. Also be aware if one doctor appointment needs to be earlier than another. In our case, we had to set up an appointment with our pediatrician, with the ENT doctor, and with the Pediatric Infectious Diseases (PID) doctor. The PID doctor had to come first, because he was going to determine if the PICC line will be removed. Then the pediatrician came next, because they want to follow up on our son’s condition. And the ENT doctor appointment is still to come, because he wanted to see our son after finishing the antibiotics. Because timing is somewhat crucial, you want to schedule these appointments at the earliest possible time so that you get the necessary sequence. But in case you don’t, you should get in touch with the doctor themselves and tell them if they can squeeze you in at an earlier time. Sometimes they can, if they really want to see the patient at a particular time window.
• Know who to get in touch with in case something unexpected or unplanned for happens

Hope this helps you out, but I also hope you never have to use them!

This is the continuation of my earlier post about the lessons we learned during our recent stay at the hospital.

Lesson #4: Ask and clarify

At the hospital you will likely hear a lot of words for the first time, and if you don’t ask, there is a good chance that the doctor or nurse you are talking to will assume that you understood what they said. When one of the doctors said something that contradicted what an earlier doctor had said, we kept asking and clarifying until we got a better understanding of what their plan was.

Lesson #5: Do your own research

Sometimes asking and clarifying from the doctors and nurses can only take you so far. Because they are such busy individuals and because they are already familiar with all the medical terms and concepts, sometimes when they explain something, they may miss something or they may think that something they know like the back of their hand may be something that you know nothing about. And they may use terms that for medical professionals may be common but for the layman might not be self-explanatory. A quick google of a medical term will give you a better understanding of what a procedure might involve, so you won’t be caught off-guard and you’ll be better equipped to make a decision.

Lesson #6: Don’t wait; always follow up

There was a time when all we were doing was waiting. We knew what the next step was, but they hadn’t told us when. Since it is very frustrating to just wait and not know when something was going to happen, we were always following up with whichever doctor that came to see us. We had even asked the nurses to page the doctor concerned to give them a call and ask what the status was. This really helped speed things up and at least gave us an update of what was currently happening.

Since I learned a lot about my recent stay at the hospital when Rainier was hospitalized, I thought I’d write about some of the lessons I learned along the way. Hopefully this will assist you if ever (God forbid) you are in the same situation.

Lesson #1: Don’t forget the basics

Even though we had proceeded to, and were admitted through the Emergency Room, we still had time to pass by the house to get some supplies. But because everything had happened sort of suddenly, we were understandably mostly concerned about getting to the hospital right away that we forgot about some important things like an extra set of clothes (in case we needed to stay more than one night, which was what happened) and “real” food (we didn’t get to eat a real dinner the first night).

Lesson #2: Get names

In the hospital you will meet and talk to a lot of people. And especially in a big hospital such as Albany Med, you will meet not just doctors and nurses, but medical students as well. From the time that we were admitted in the ER to the time of discharge, we have met and talked to easily more than a dozen different people. It’s easy to assume that the doctors and nurses who treat you would know the other doctors and nurses also treating you, but that is not always the case. A lot of times when talking to one of the doctors or nurses, you will have to refer to your discussion with one of the other doctors, and it certainly helps if you mention the other doctor by name, rather than “the ENT doctor who was on duty last night”. Even though I managed to remember most of their names, in hindsight what I should have done was to list each of their names (and specialty) as soon as I could.

Lesson #3: Stay on top of everything

There was an instance when the nurse on duty thought we were being discharged within the day. I knew this was not the case because we had just talked to one of the doctors and we were informed that we were staying for at least one more day for observation. It was understandable for the nurse to think that because one of the doctors had mistakenly left the signed discharge form in Rainier’s chart, so if we hadn’t kept on top of things, we would have been discharged by mistake! You cannot–and should not–rely on the assumption that doctors and nurses will read and update your chart. Of course it goes without saying that you should be responsible for your own, but what this means specifically in this situation is knowing what is currently happening, knowing what are your options, and knowing what is supposed to happen, when, and by whom.

More lessons learned in my next post