Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Patient Advocacy

I'm hoping (and praying) that I'm finished with a very tough job. No, it's not setting up a Google Campaign, or brainstorming a logo design with a new  client. What's the job, you ask? It's not what you'd expect. It's the  full-time job of advocating for my husband, who was hospitalized twice  in six weeks. After not feeling well on and off for about a month, I  came home to find Jeff writhing with stomach pain, a pain that would  take days of morphine drips to get under control. It's taken me a few  weeks to sit down and write this; admittedly, I took better care of my  family than I did myself during the ordeal. But it's important that I  share this with you, in the hopes of preventing future frustrations for  my friends, family and clients.

Our first visit to Westerly Hospital was in the early evening hours,  and getting information from the staff was like pulling teeth. I found  myself asking over and over "Where are you taking him?", "What's next?"  and "Any results yet?". Not a single bit of information came freely, and  answers would come in days, not hours. The doctors seemed like ghosts  to me; my visits in the ensuing days came too early or, more often then  not, I had "just missed" them. I made some critical errors though: I was  trying to take care of Maia as much as I could, trying to keep things  normal for her. But there was nothing normal about this situation; I  should have relied a lot more on my family.


To be continued...

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