Gaining strength and health means having more energy for both positive and negative pursuits. On the positive side, we have now had a couple of days where Marie was able to sit up for a period and use her magnifier to look at cards and catalogues.
On the negative side: complaints.
Today it was constipation. The original complaint is a valid physical one: when you are bedridden and have little control over your diet and movements, constipation is a serious issue.
When you are in a hospital and it's the weekend, so they are shortstaffed and you have the trainee, getting the constipation issue dealt with is also serious.
Last week Marie was complaining about being given laxatives and then not being able to sleep at night because...they worked. Of course, her wandering roommate was keeping her awake anyway. They stopped giving them to her. The result was hardly surprising.
There might have been some comical moments today as the trainee tried, with assistance, to get Marie in the sling so she could be transferred from the bed to the commode. Not comical to those doing it, though. Marie says they had no idea how to do it - she was having to direct them. Even when they did manage to get her there, they had somehow managed to get the incontinence pads hooked into the sling so she wouldn't actually be using the commode - she would be sitting on it but soiling the pad which was still attached to her.
We were there for about two hours. The complaints were about how much the constipation hurt, how much she had to fight to get medication for the pain (and this made me wonder if the staff might have a reason to withhold the analgesic, since some of them probably complicate the constipation), how she was trying to get them to cut to the chase and administer an enema but they wouldn't...
Of course, it's the weekend. An enema would mean having to stay with the patient, do the clean-up etc. With the trainee probably having four other patients to look after, it is probably a route which is seen as less efficient than the alternatives. So Marie suffers the pain all day, the indignity of the sling, the frequent attempts which leave her sweating and exhausted. From her own account, she was dismissive of the nurse-practitioner at the end of the shift. Orders to deal with the constipation were left, but according to Marie the orders were for the morning staff and not for the evening shift. I can imagine a couple of reasons why this might be. First, perhaps the effort already applied would yield results overnight. Second, staffing on a weekend night shift is probably even more skeletal than during the day, so it makes sense to wait until the staff complement is larger (getting Marie into the sling takes more than one person).
If she has the strength to complain tomorrow, that would be uncomfortable but good. If she is so exhausted from attempts to solve the constipation that she cannot muster the energy to complain...well, that will be serious.
The roses I brought Thursday look fabulous. Today our treat for her was to use the wonderful lotion Tina sent - each of us took a foot and we massaged the lotion into Marie's dry feet. She didn't complain about that!
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