hospital

I was in the hospital recently for a blood clot in my arm. and it was a horrific experience! i was sort of familiar with the hospital experience from when Gordi was sick last year, but this time it was for me! i was appalled at the level of incompetence and neglect. i was at a prominent teaching hospital for 2 days (1 night) with a blood clot in my right arm. every time someone came in the room, i had to keep them from doing something detrimental to my situation. every aide tried to take my blood pressure in the right arm. i kept offering them the left arm. they kept wanting to use the right arm. i reminded them there was a blood clot in the right arm. the response was usually, oh, that would be bad. thanks for telling me. my thought was, this is why i am here. you should know this. after the first time, a sign was placed over the bed saying not to draw blood or take blood pressure on the right arm. no one looked at it. every 6 hours they drew blood. every 6 hours i had to keep the lab tech from taking blood from the right arm. i know the iv was in the left arm (because there was a clot in the right arm) i know there were no more veins in the left arm from which to draw blood -- believe me, i know that. but that doesn't change the fact that the right arm had a blood clot, and so they couldn't draw blood from it. i had to keep a lab tech from drawing blood at the wrong time. i had to stop a doctor from giving me blood pressure medicine. i had to stop a nurse from giving me a wrong iv. i totally had to be my own advocat, and i knew from Gordi's experience about that too. but i worried about people who were incapacitated (and there are people like that in hospitals) and couldn't speak up when someone was trying to do something wrong. but also, lots of people expect that the people in hospitals actually know what they're doing and don't argue with them. what if i had thought, well, the nurse (or aide or tech) is the professional and knows what to do. if i'd let them do what they wanted, i'd be in worse shape right now. i have to go back for blood work like constantly now to check the blood thinners etc., and today at the clinic that works only with people on this blood thinner for clots, the lab tech tried to take blood from the right arm even after i told her there was a clot there. she said, that won't make a difference will it? i made her get the more experienced person, who agreed with me that it would be a very bad idea to draw from the arm with the clot. i knew the hospital experience would be annoying and frustrating ( and they would not let me sleep -- they were in at 11 and midnight and 1:15 and 4:30 and 5:00 and 5:30 and 6:00 and it never stopped after that.) but i had sort of thought that it wouldn't be as dangerous as it could have been. i shouldn't have had to stop EVERYONE from doing things that were directly detrimental to my condition. it worries me.