| Miracles Never Cease part 4 page 3 of 4 |
| Day three- Wednesday June 4, 2003 I went to the hospital, mama is still staying with Robert, she told me that the doctor came in and told her that he was sending Robert home on Friday because he was so mean that the nurses can’t do anything with him or for him. Mama was crying and I got very upset I don’t usually get mad easily and very rarely loose my temper…..but this oh this just pees me off . I went to find the doctor but didn’t find him. I was going to go outside and the elevator opened and there he was, I told him that I wanted to talk to him when he got time and he replied “I have time now if you like” so my sister and I went with him to a conference room, the social worker was in the hall and asked if she could sit in. We told her it was fine with us. I asked the doctor what he was talking about sending Robert home because he was to mean. He said I didn’t say that I was going to send him home on Friday, but mama wouldn’t have said that and she wouldn’t be that upset if he hadn’t. The doctor said “I have to protect my nurses.” All he does is runs his mouth, he hasn’t hit anyone or anything like that. The doctor said let me show you the comments from a couple of the nurses. One stated that Robert told her that if he couldn’t have a cigarette that he was leaving, one other said that Robert told her that if she touched him he would yank her bald, I questioned him about that because I did hear him tell a nurse that but what Robert actually said was if you hurt my toes, I’ll yank you bald. I told him “They keep hitting his toes; we keep telling them that he has gangrene in them and to please be careful not to hit them.” It looks like they would know by now that he has very sore toes. I told him we know that Robert fussed a lot and that’s why mama is staying at the hospital with him. I said “Look, if you were in the 82nd airborne, loved every minute of it even boot camp, got hurt in a wreck that was not your fault, hurt so bad that you could never get married, have kids, or a job, get your license taken away and had to leave the army which was your life. If you lost everything you loved in an instant at the age of 19, all you could do in life is eat smoke and watch TV and with only one good hand, no video games, no sports, no computers, you had nothing in life but food, TV and no friends, then you get your sugar and salt taken away, (all of the good food ) now you have TV and cigarettes, and truly in your mind you felt like the doctors are the reason you were sick because they never did anything for you and now you lose you smoking rights and your food all that’s left is TV in a hospital bed, WOULDN’T YOU BE A LITTLE ANGRY TOO? WOULDN’T YOU HATE LIFE AND EVERYTHING IN IT?” I was so mad……..I was crying and upset, why are the people being so heartless. The doctor said “we know all about the wreck and all Robert has been through and I know that he can’t help what he does, but I can’t take a chance on him hurting one of my nurses or possibly making them lose work due to an injury”. I said I understand that but don’t sit here and tell me that Robert is the meanest person you have over here. I know better, I’ve seen them, there are far meaner people here, I know these people can’t help how they are, but you have some very mean people walking around all over this hospital I mean come on we are at the V.A. Hospital here! I have even been told by a nurse that if you go to get on and elevator at night and a patient is on one to wait for the next one. Never get on an elevator with a patient alone, he looked at the social worker as if I shouldn’t have been told that or something. Now how do you deal with them?” he said we have medicines to give them to control them. I asked well why you can’t give Robert something to calm him down. He said that with Robert’s liver not working that the medicine wouldn’t work either. So I ask him if he was just going to send Robert home to die. He replied, he can be brought here as outpatient. So I said if your nurses can’t handle him now how will those nurses be able to handle him then? I Said “you want my mama to have to bring him here everyday, she has a hard enough time getting him anywhere as it is, she has to call someone to help lift him up to go anywhere. He can walk once he is up but not good.” He said “well, we have a nice nursing home facility here,” I said “you can just forget that right now, our whole family put houses on the same land with Mama and Robert so we could help her care for him and he is NOT going in a nursing home. He said” we can get you a wheel chair and a lift chair and anything else you need, but to order them I have to put an dismissing date on the forms, and that one reason I mention a discharge. (changed his story here didn’t he) We talked more and I ask him if you can’t get an IV in Robert and you can’t operate, he has gangrene and his bladder and liver isn’t working and his lungs are bad, then how long do you give him to live, and acted like his was so shocked that I would even ask that. He said “I can’t give you an answer to that, Robert could live a very long time.” I looked at him and said, “Look!” “I am not stupid; I know you can’t live if your liver and your bladder aren’t working and no fluid going in and none coming out. I have seen cancer to many times and I know what happens when your liver stops. I was so upset that I don’t remember what he said after that. Mama had come in while I was talking, and we talked a little more and went out. I couldn’t believe this place, dang am I in a hospital or not, what is this place for if not to help people? Later that evening, I went up to the nurses station to see if he had heard anything about the test that he had run that day; he said he would be down in a minute to talk to us. He came in the room and said well he’s got cirrhosis of the liver, and Robert said oh, because he knew what that meant, the doctor went on to say he had harden of the arteries in his legs and fluid around his liver and lungs, he may possibly have a blood clot in his lungs also, and he mentioned cancer in something but everything he was saying was just to much to take at once, I remember him saying that he wanted to send Robert to Durham or Ashville for test, we were in for that. . He said they had a lot more test to do first. I think they knew that they couldn’t do anything and they had let him get this bad in the first place. Now why did he have to tell us this right out in front of Robert, as if he was giving a speech or something, he talked loud and firm with not a speck of sorrow in his voice. This was the most heartless doctor I have ever seen. Now he just told this to a 41 year old boy, and a family that loved him very much, he might as well of walked in the door and said you’re dieing so get over it. We were all in shock…..though we knew deep down it was very bad. Day 4- Thursday, June 5, 2003 Mama asked the doctor if they can take blood two or three times a day then why can’t they get an IV in, he said good question. So it wasn’t long and someone came in and got in the IV. They started blood thinners, oxygen, and put on heart monitors, I stayed with Robert that night so mama could go home, how come just when you get to sleep that’s when they need blood? I know it’s their job but they can’t get blood from him anyway and when he finally goes to sleep they come in flip on the lights and stick and poke, for ever. I watched the man try for 40 minutes tonight, I came so close to telling him to just leave but I didn’t want to cause any problems, but it’s very hard to watch them torture someone for that long, if you can’t get it then stop and let someone else do it. He never did get the blood he was trying for. Robert has so many bruises on him it’s unreal. He better be glad he decided to stop when he did, and he should really be glad mama wasn’t here! Day 5- Friday, June 6, 2003 Mama came back about 6 am, I told her about the man trying to get blood and she said next time you tell them to get someone that can do it or don’t do it at all. Robert had pulled all the heart monitors off and his oxygen, Thank God he didn’t pull out his IV. Mama had them to shave off his mustache so his oxygen hose would lay flat on his face. They took him down for a cat scan, when he came back and woke up; he seemed to have trouble remembering. The doctor told us that Robert kidneys and bladder was fine and it would probably be next week before they moved him. They still have more tests he wanted to run. I went home for a while and mama called me and said that the doctor just told her that Robert had fluid on the brain too. I came back to the hospital. The doctor told mama that Robert’s brain scan was the worst scan that he has ever seen in his entire career of being a doctor, that Robert had way more damage than he had ever seen. Mama said that Robert had slept all day. That was the most that he has slept in months at one time, he never sleeps more than an hour or two. That night when I started to leave I ask Robert if I could give him some sugar and he said “no, I can only have Sweet Thing” (A sugar Substitute) even as sick as he was has still had that since of humor. I rubbed his hands and told him his hands were as soft as a babies butt. He grabbed my hand and gripped his fingers into mine and I said “do you want to thumb wrestle?” He grinned at me and shook his head yes, he still cheats on that too. I said a man as sick as your and you still cheat he grinned at me again. I never know if I’m ever going to see him alive again when I leave and I cry all the way home. Nancy stays with mama at night at the hospital. Day 6- Saturday, June 7, 2003 There is no change in Robert today, Ronnie went and got mama a new tire for her van it was leaking, and had the old one fixed. She knew if they sent Robert to Ashville V.A. that she would have to have good tires on her van to travel there. That would be a very long way from home but if they could help him it would be worth it. They told mama that they are going to do a lung test on Monday, and in a month they were going to do a bone test, mama told them that Robert would not be here in a month. They were talking about moving him to another hospital. Don’t they ever talk to one another, one said this and another says that and neither one knows what the other has said, and they always contradict themselves. This is one crazy place if you ask me. Day 7- Sunday, June 8, 2003 No doctors have came in, Robert is same but I did notice that he is having trouble breathing now even on his side and yesterday he slept good on his side. Teresa, David, Sadie and David Brown came to visit. Robert told mama to take him the hell home. He is getting so down now, he knows what happening. He is so pitiful just laying there; he ate one bite of vanilla pudding today. Mama called me at 11 pm scared me so bad, nothing was wrong but she had talked to a surgeon about Roberts feet and about taking him to Baptist. He told her to tell Robert doctor exactly what she told him because he understood that she wanted to help her boy and she had to do everything she could. He told her that Robert’s liver had been like this for a long, long time and the nurse told her that it wasn’t just his seizure medicine that caused this it was many of them. Day 8- Monday, June 9, 2003 Today we met Janice and Kathy from respiratory therapy, Robert loved them, they picked with him and didn’t take anything he said serious. Like nurses should do anyway. He had some great people to help him but some acted like it wasn’t their jobs or they were too good to do things. His favorites and ours too were, the assistants Deborah Walker, Kim Fleming, Roy Vinson and Donald Miller, they were great, they didn’t mind doing anything for you and they checked on him every little bit to see if he or us needed anything. Mama went to the doctor to talk to him about getting Robert moved to the Baptist Hospital in Winston Salem. They had worked with Robert so many times before. He told her that he would talk to the social worker about it. She came in and told mama that she has found out the Robert’s insurance would pay but 75% of the bill for Baptist hospital. Then Robert’s doctor and the acting chief of staff came in and the chief….said a lot about nothing and then he said that he felt that Salisbury VA was doing as much as any other hospital could do for him, then he said I feel like Doctor Height is doing a great job. So he could not recommend that Robert be moved and the VA pays for it. He told us that Robert has a lot of problems and many of them were caused by smoking and the seizure medication for twenty years. I don’t believe this. Robert didn’t smoke that much and it was their fault that Robert stayed on the same medication for twenty years. He said that Roberts’s oxygen was 40% and anyone else with that kind of oxygen level would be on a ventilator. He also explained that Robert’s toes had gangrene but it is a dry gangrene, he said that it wouldn’t spread up your legs like some does. He explained that a lot of time the toes will rot and fall off by themselves. He said that sometimes we just have to decide just to keep them comfortable and that Robert proteins were going out in his urine. The Doctors left and later Dr. Height came back and said that he had spoken to a Dr. Witson at the Baptist and a Dr. Alexander at Durham and that they refused to take him because there was nothing specific that they could do for Robert that the Salisbury VA. couldn’t do. Mama said” They both refused him” and the doctor said yes, she looked at me and said “What can we do now” I replied “I don’t know mama I don’t know.” Robert told Teresa that he was tired of fighting, and that he was dieing, She looked at him and said “What?” he replied “dieing.” Later I was standing at his side and he said well, I’ve had my last beer, I said beer? and he said “yep, I been without for four days now” and I said brother “you have not had a beer in 22 years” he said “oh” I really think he was talking about his cigarettes, but was confused on what he was craving. He put his hand out like he was handing me something, and I said “What brother” he said “take it” I repeated what because I didn’t see anything and he got sort of mad and said your newspaper; take it. Then I think he realized that he was day dreaming or something and he looked at me a grinned really big. I would always tell him I love him and he would shake his head yes. Day 9- Tuesday, June 10, 2003 Robert seemed good today, we found out that his liver is putting out pure ammonia in his body and this can cause severe brain damage or death. They have started giving him pure potassium. He is really yellow today, but he is happier than I’ve seen him in a long time. He told mama that he was tired of fighting and he told Teresa that he was going to Heaven. He has been seeing things, he was drawing in the air with his finger and mama say what you see Robert and he said tires, and she said how many do you see and he said two. He told us to go get him a blonde and we could go out and shut the door, and mama said yeah and when we came back you would be dead because you sure ain’t strong enough for that. He laughed really big. He had a good day today. Day 10- Wednesday, June 11, 2003 Dr. Height came in today and said that he could put a needle in Roberts side to drain the fluids out of his lungs but he could not pull it out when he sleeps, and he couldn’t numb it, and he was willing to put a feeding tube down his nose but I said he would pull that out the first night. He said if there is anything Robert would eat that he would get it, he said I have put people on pizza diets, chocolate diets, watermelon diets, anything he wants but he really needed to eat something. Mama told the doctor that she was not going to put him through the needle or the tube. I went home to come back and stay the night so later I called her and told her I was coming back as Nancy did, and she said she wanted to talk to us when we get there. When we got there she told us that she had talked to the doctor and he told her that Robert could have a heart attack at anytime, he was is real bad shape and she told him that if he did that she didn’t want them to revive him and he said the by law he has to unless she signs a living well since she has his power of attorney and is his legal guardian. That’s what she wanted to talk to us about, would we blame her if she signed the paper and Robert died. We told her “no mama”; we would not blame you, why should he be brought back to die again. Mama went home and me and Nancy stayed. Day 11 Thursday, June 12, 2003 Robert had some kind of nuclear test ran today and he has been very ill since then. The Dr. told mama that he was just going to keep Robert comfortable now. If his IV came out they were not going to put it back and they was not going to take blood unless it was very necessary. Robert will not wear his oxygen, he says it smothers him and we really have to sweet talk him into taking his medicine. He stays really cold all the time now. I brought his quilt that mama had made for him and Aunt Sadie sent one that she had made for him to use. Day 12- Friday June 13, 2003 Crystal and David came up to see Robert, Teresa and Samantha came. All the others came also. Mama went home tonight Nancy and I stayed, He kept having bowel movements 3 or 4 times and then he went to sleep at 3am. This was a first for this. He has not had anything in or out for a long time as far as food or the other. He was back awake at 4am. He was lying there looking at me and we talked a little, he looked up at me so serious and said “kill me” I thought I had heard wrong and I said “what brother?” He repeated “kill me” and took his pillow and tried to hand it to me, and then he put his hand over his face to show me what to do with it. I said “brother! You know I can’t do that!” He nodded he head yes. I nodded back no! I held his hand and told him I loved him. He nodded back as to say yes. I said Robert do you know where you’ll go when you leave this world and he shock his head yes again and said Heaven, with Jesus. I said that’s right brother. And I sat there and held his hand most of the night. I slept with my head laid over on the rail of his bed. Then I woke up and got on the chair. He was still sleeping. Day 13- Saturday, June 14, 2003 Nancy got up with Robert, he was sick, she hollered for me; I jump up to help Robert started throwing up so fast we couldn’t dump the pan quick enough. It looked like fluids and blood; it had pieces of (what looked like red skin in it.) He filled up the pan that they bath him with. He was so sick, we felt so bad for him, and I had to go to the bath room and was gagging myself, I told Nancy to come hold this pan or I going to pee and throw up myself. Then the nurse came in and helped. I ran down the hall….there were no bathroom in the room. They gave him a suppository and cleaned up his bed and washed him off. When they were done he told me that they raped him, I told him what they were doing and he remembered then. Me and Nancy were standing at his bed and he was just laying there looking up at the ceiling and smiling, Nancy asked him what he was looking at and he said Angels, we both looked at each other and my heart just stopped for a minute I think, then we both turned and cried very quietly. I went home at 3pm. Robert didn’t sleep at all tonight, mama said. He was complaining with his back hurting. This was a very scary day; I think we knew he wouldn’t live long now. (cont...) |
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