…and grows exponentially. I just wrote a letter to the hospital’s Grievance Committee about it, because they responded to my evaluation of their services that original day in the ER by attempting to exonerate themselves from all responsibility and I am appealing their decision, so parts of this are taken from that letter, since I have already written it out.

Tuesday the 24th I called 9-1-1 for the third time and asked to be taken to the hospital. The APRU team showed up along with the firefighters, and then we waited for a while for an ambulance with a wide gurney to come. (See previous posts for more on that.) The APRU team followed me to the hospital, and one of its members, who had previously worked at Northridge Hospital for five years, went to talk to that day’s ER doctor to ensure that they would, indeed, admit me “immediately” and not dismiss me yet again, explaining my condition and the fact that oral antibiotics had failed.

I still had to sit in the waiting room, in the same uncomfortable restrictive chair, for four hours; at that point I was moved into a holding area onto a gurney, with about 25 other people between curtains in one big room, where I started receiving IV antibiotics, and was later (maybe three hours?) moved into a room for my stay at the hospital.

Although I received good care from the doctors and nursing staff during my stay, the hospital was understaffed and the equipment necessary to help me with recovery was missing or broken. I was admitted on Tuesday night; on Wednesday morning a bariatric bed was requested for my use, but never materialized; the department in charge of equipment “couldn’t find one.” I asked for a chair without arms that would accommodate my girth, so that I could sit up for part of the day, because being stuck in the bed was excruciating; at home I move around at intervals of 60 to 90 minutes maximum to keep everything flexible and working; but one was never found, so I was essentially immobilized for 95 percent of my stay.

The physical therapist, who saw me once on Wednesday, asked for one of the overhead pull-up bars to be utilized to make it easier to get me out of the bed with my cooperation, but the one in my room was broken. The bed did not accommodate someone with my disabilities; to get me out of it, the nurses had to lower it as far as it would go and then I had to try to wrench my body sideways using the railings while two nurses held each of my legs up in “chucks” like hammocks and tried to swing them out over the side of the bed to get my feet onto the floor. Each time I feared injury to myself or to the staff, as did they, I’m sure. Getting back into the bed was a reverse of that cumbersome and dangerous process.

I stayed at the hospital from Tuesday night to Saturday afternoon. The food was so horrible I basically called the kitchen every day and lived on eggs, oatmeal, salads, and fruit cups. Fortunately, I wasn’t too hungry. I had IV antibiotics twice a day, and spent the rest of the time dozing or watching the limited TV stations on offer. The floor I was on had the screamer, two doors down, probably suffering from dementia; an inconsiderate religious man across the hall who listened to podcasts full of fire and brimstone at top volume until repeated complaints shut him down; and a woman in the room behind me, who likewise listened to her audio book loudly enough that I could hear and understand every word over the sound of my own television

I couldn’t move on my own, beyond a little stretching or shifting; they had me on a tall bed with pillows and an air mattress that kept me in one uncomfortable position. I asked for a lot of Tylenol and bore it as best I could.

 By the time they came and told me they were discharging me on Saturday, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It had grown increasingly chaotic on Friday and Saturday as the weekday staff switched to weekend people, and it was hard to get anyone to help with anything. Because it was Saturday, I saw a strange doctor unfamiliar with my case, who sent me home with inadequate meds (only three days’ worth), so I called on Monday and got the prescription extended for two more days; the person in charge of releasing me dashed in and out and made the whole process confusing and contradictory until I finally got her to stay for a minute and answer some basic questions about home health care follow-up (which didn’t happen once I returned home until I called the discharge person at the hospital Monday morning and got her to take action).

I have currently been home for nine days, five of them with strong antibiotics. My legs are continuing to blister and weep and peel, although the redness has been steadily decreasing. It seems like the antibiotics have worked, although now that I am done with the prescription I am nervous about my continued progress and dreading a regression. I am keeping my legs elevated for as much of the day as possible, and a home health care LVN comes by once a day to photograph them and to take my vitals; that is the extent of treatment, since wound care could be antithetical to healing from the cellulitis, making it too damp or causing it to stick to bandages and thereby spreading the condition. So my legs are open to the air, draining onto towels.

I am outraged by the misrepresentations and dismissals of my concerns that the letter from the hospital expressed. It claimed, among other things, that I had been placed in an ED bed and the doctor had done a thorough interview and examination, which was a bald-faced lie. If the doctor had, indeed, examined me (to see my cherry-red legs), inquired about my conditions, and listened to my concerns on that first day (February 16^th—it is now March 9^th!) in the Emergency Room, none of this need have happened; I could have been admitted for IV antibiotics or even sent home with a stronger dosage like the one I received almost two weeks later, and that might have been the end of it.

Instead, I took up space and staff time for five days at the hospital. I also experienced great pain, discomfort, and worry, which continue. I know the word “negligence” is not a word to throw around lightly when it comes to medical care, but my perspective is that it was, indeed, negligence that caused my experience to mushroom into a two-week nightmare that allowed my condition to worsen, unchecked, and has cost me time, energy, suffering, and potentially money for the transport trips, which may be deemed “not an emergency” because of the hospital staff’s actions. And who knows if this is even over yet; I have hopes that I will continue to heal, but there is no guarantee.

I don’t know what will be the response to my letter responding to the Grievance Committee, but I am informed that if it is not satisfactory, I can take it to Medicare and to several other agencies, and I am debating how much time and energy I want to put into this. It depends a lot on my healing process.

I am spending most of my days on my recliner sofa with my legs elevated and a big water jar and some snacks on a table next to me, binging new seasons of series I have previously watched. I am able to get up and down, feed myself, and sit up for a limited amount of time at the computer; I feel okay otherwise, but one leg is still blistered and therefore painful if I sit in a regular chair with my foot flat on the floor; it needs to be elevated.

This is more or less the end of my larger experience, but I’m sure there will be more details to come as I heal (or do not). Thanks for listening.