As Big as a Pistachio!

Luke got his Eagle on Sunday and my dad was super sad about missing it. In fact, when the rehab people told him he'd be staying about a week, he said, "Sure. Except that I need to leave for 90 minutes to go to my son's Eagle ceremony." They said that wasn't possible. My Dad didn't like hearing that and in his words, "pressed her a little to see if she would budge." In my words, I'd say he was getting pretty ticked and wasn't about to take no for an answer and this conversation was escalating at an accelerated rate. But they talked through it and he said he understood and it all ended friendly. (But I was sweating bullets... Just kidding. No, not really.)

Basically if you leave the hospital, insurance presumes you're well enough to leave. So you can't come back and have them pay for it. He was pretty dang bummed. And that was heartbreaking.

But technology is awesome so we helped him FaceTime the ceremony. Dan went to the ceremony to FaceTime from there and I went to the hospital to receive the call with my dad. And it went perfectly. It was awesome that when Luke got his award, the phone got passed to him and my dad could congratulate him real time.

That was the cool part of the evening.

The not cool part was that my dad had had a miserable night the night before. With prostate cancer comes prostate problems. In fact, they came before the cancer. So when my dad was trying to pee and he couldn't, he assumed he had a blood clot like he's had before. He said he was in a ton of pain beginning at 8 in the evening. After an hour. he called Diane to come back to the hospital. The nurses said there was a urologist they could call, but wouldn't call him unless he had 400 ml of fluid in his bladder. They did a scan and he only had 200 so THEY ASSUMED HE WAS FINE! In fact Diane had to beg them for pain meds for him. Believe me, if my dad says he has pain, he has serious pain! (We have a super high pain threshold in our family!)

And at 1:00 a.m. after being in intense pain that he said the meds didn't even touch, Dad passed a kidney stone the size of a pistachio! Um, Yeah.

Not a pistachio.

So on Sunday, I was trying to help him get comfortable before I left and he felt the nurses and aides hadn't been very attentive throughout the day. He would ask for something and they'd forget to do it. Well right then, last night's nurse shift came on and came in the room to work on the computer. So I asked if we could get a few things. Tim mumbled something and then I realized he was getting an aide. I politely said the aides hadn't returned previously when my dad asked so could he make sure my dad was taken care of?

And then Tim and the other nurse got super defensive and weird. He said they were perfectly attentive. I said they weren't. And my dad chimed in that they weren't. And I said, in fact, Tim, you haven't been here all day to know. And I said it was neither here nor there now, but now he needed some attention. And also, Tim, what's the plan for tonight if he gets in pain and has another kidney stone?

And Tim said, "It Wasn't a Kidney Stone. And we kept checking his bladder and he didn't have much urine and so we couldn't call the doctor. We only call the doctor if its an emergency and his bladder is distended. And his wasn't. So he couldn't have been in that much pain. And we did give him pain meds." (Yeah, after Diane begged you to because you didn't believe he was in pain!) And the other nurse is nodding away.

"Tim," I said, in my super firm, very 'I mean business voice,' "What is this then?" I held up the specimen cup that was still holding the large kidney stone (still sitting at his bedside table... what?!), and thrust it in his face. "I don't care what this is! No man wants to pass this giant rock trying to pee!! Are you kidding me?! Of course he was in a ton of pain! Everyone knows that kidney stones cause tons of pain! So what's the plan for tonight?!"

And Tim is an idiot nurse and didn't have a plan and quite frankly I think he was bugged that he had to work at work.

"Tim, I want clean sheets for my dad."
And lady-nurse says, "They aren't dirty."

"Well, you know what? My dad thinks they are and he wants clean sheets. So get the dang sheets. I'll do it myself if I have to! It takes about 10 seconds to change his sheets and if he wants new sheets, and a new brief every hour on the hour, it's your job to get him some! Geez! It's not that hard!"

So Tim did agree to send an aide in and she was smiley and darling. So that won some hospital points. But Tim didn't. He was a jerk.