Oxygen part 2

So today my other half goes to the hospital to find Marie has been down for another set of tests to see if she can swallow food. She's back in her room and a bit groggy - and her bed is at 20 degrees despite the sign over her bed that says it is to be at least 40. Okay, so she had just got back and maybe someone was planning on coming to fix that.

Her oxygen was set at under 2. She's not totally tracking - and the question in these instances is whether her confusion is related to the sedation, the low oxygen, or both. Her fingers are bluish and cold. The chart shows no readings taken after 8:30 in the morning, and it is now after 4 p.m. So my other half gets a nurse and the blood oxygen monitor. 75%. They try another monitor. 75%. They up the oxygen to 3, which is the level which was set by the lung function clinic last year when Marie was put on the oxygen at home. Over the next few minutes her oxygen level goes up to 94%.

The low levels are what we are used to seeing when Marie is at home and someone has forgotten to turn the portable tank on. She gets dozy and disoriented - we have witnessed this several times. She says there have been times when she has passed out.

The doctor told us on the phone yesterday that she tested in the high 90% range without extra oxygen - just on room air - over a period of several minutes. I find this hard to believe, since we are seeing a consistent and different behaviour both at home and in the hospital. Perhaps he is trying to make us believe the hours without oxygen on Wednesday - when she tested at 60% - were probably not serious. He negotiated with us on the phone - I found this weird. He said he wanted to see an oxygen level between 92 and 96. He seemed to think we were concerned about this number - so he was asking if we wanted it to be maybe 94 to 98? We'd be quite happy with 92...if she was actually getting it. But why is he trying to make us feel as if we have some say in this?

The nurses say they are monitoring the levels more frequently, but we don't see the stats entered on the chart because they haven't written them in yet - they carry them around on pieces of paper in their pockets (which must be very useful if any of the medical team is at the bedside and wants to see how Marie has been doing). Apart from those early morning ones, lately the readings don't seem to ever make it on the chart as far as we can see. And I'm fairly sure you won't find the previous errors written on the file. Today my other half was asked if she wanted the incident written in the file. Since we have not been asked this before, I am assuming the other incidents were not recorded.

The staff no longer smile at us. We are troublesome. We have had to correct the bed setting six times in 11 days. Yesterday the doctor told us Marie had to start taking some responsibility. She had said the bed mechanism wasn't working properly and she couldn't reach it. The doctor told us this was not true - the bed works fine.

Except we've been there - we know the controls on her right hand side are not, in fact, working - we couldn't make them work when we were there earlier in the week. And the controls on the left side work, except she would have to use the arm which is hooked up to all the lines, and she has already pulled that one loose a couple of times. Besides, she's blind. So they expect a sedated blind woman to notice that her bed is not at the right height, to find the set of controls that works, and to correct it without disturbing her IV...

I'm afraid the staff is now trying to divert attention from their own errors. I do not understand it: how hard can it be to make sure the oxygen is on at 3, the tubes are connected properly, and the head of the bed is at 40 degrees? Those have been the instructions for more than a month - why is it so hard now?