11/7/06 Back in ER

Tonight 11/6/06 at about 9:30 Nathan's abdomen started just killing him. He called the nurse and she blew him off. Told him that it was probably just organ trauma. Said that she'd had an accident once and hers didn't show up for 2 months. She's the nurse that told him to go without pain meds for 2 to 3 hours and let his endorphins kick in and see if they took the pain away. She also has been know to withhold them. Needless to say, he called me about 10:45 really upset about the pain. I called the nurses station and she told me he told her the pain was better. Hm... I'd just hung up with him. He also told me she said she'd check back in 15 minutes and then call the Dr. I asked her about that and she told me she never said she'd call the Dr. and basically they would watch him through the night. I told her I was on my way since it was fairly obvious they didn't care. She said "okay". I got there and he was resting. Not so comfortably but resting all the same. So, I laid down and about 1 hour later 12:40 he was crying out in pain and pleading for them to do something. So they brought him more pain medication, which he told them wouldn't touch it and that this pain was unlike anything he'd been experiencing. She told him he'd just have to wait. Finally at 1:10 the jerk of a nurse, who just happened to be the supervisor tonight and the same one who took the catheter out came in. He said to wait 10 minutes for the pain meds to kick in. Nathan then asked him what would happen in 10 minutes if that didn't work. The guy just walked off. Couldn't believe it! So, I let that go and when 10 minutes passed I was out at the desk informing him it had been 10 minutes so he came back in and took his vitals. Which all seemed normal. He also took his own and told us what those were. Nathan says to him, "Yeah, and that helps me how? What are you going to do?" He finally broke down and said he'd call the Doc. So of course we had to wait for him to call back which ended up only being a few minutes. Then he came back and told us that he would call for transport back to Denver Health. He hadn't bothered to call yet, he just had to tell us he was going to.

So we waited until about 2:20 until they showed up. The paramedics were great. It was interesting that they said when they walked in, the guy nurse basically handed him the paperwork and left it at that. Except to say that they thought Nathan was going through drug withdrawals. Which is really ironic since they are the ones who prescribe it and dole it out. And they've changed it but Nathan said he actually thought he was getting more. Beside the fact that yesterday he was actually able to skip a dosing. Which to me doesn't indicate an addiction....

So, I guess I will be doing some additional "Skilled" nursing facility research and we will most likely be leaving Monaco. I feel so bad for Nathan. The day crew is wonderful. And if we have Julie in the evenings it's great too. She would never have left him in this state.

I figure that Blessed (his nurse this evening) was getting close to being off shift and she just didn't want to deal with it. Sad, but most likely true.

Now in the ER and they are having him drink 3 450ml. of Readi-cat Barium Sulfate so they can scan his digestive track. That will be about a 3 hour process to get all that down. That should be fun, since I can hardly get him to eat things he likes.

So, it looks like they'll do the scan around 7:00 AM MST.

I'll let you know more as soon as I can.

Keep those prayers coming. Thanks again for everything. Love to all, The Mellon's