From Bad to Worse

   Things are not well with Les. The last two days have been hell for me but especially for Les. His Hep lock (cannula in Brit medspeak) delivering pain meds started blocking up on Thursday night/Friday early am. I was told nurses flushed it numerous times, still by the time staff shift changed on Friday AM Les still had an unfunctioning cannula in his hand and NO PAIN MEDS IN HIS SYSTEM!
   Finally a bright nurse on the am shift realized the problem and put in an emergency call to the registrar on duty (Brit medspeak for doctor) but she didn't wait for him and pulled the old cannula out and installed a new one. By the time I arrived at 2 pm Friday Les looked tired and overwrought but was getting some meds into his system.
   Saturday I was really worried because he had not tried to call or text me during the day. When I arrived at hospital at 2:45 pm he looked like death, grey-faced, sitting in a chair with his eyes closed, a vomit pan in his lap. He in fact vomited twice that morning bringing up nearly 2 cups of liquid and he feebly whispered that the registrar on duty told him if it happened again they were going to put a feeding tube down his nose which scared him. Les was experiencing searing pain again so bad his diaphragm was spasming and sounded like he had hiccups--each spasm jarring him with yet more pain. It took me and Kev two hours to get it all sorted. Thank the Goddess for my daughter-in-law Joanne and my step son Kev. Without them I would be lost.
   Les didn't have an adequate amount of pain meds in his system and he was in so much pain he was vomiting from it. The anesthetist angrily apologized and said " I'm sorry, this isn't right; no one should suffer like this." Damn right and I am--as a foreigner who has had 8 operations in U.S. hospitals and not a single day of pain in any of them--pissed off, frightened and totally dismayed.
   This is what I've seen and experienced to date: nursing staff are oblivious to what is actually occurring with their patients who are stacked 6 in a ward with no privacy or peace and quiet at all; one nurse had the gall to suggest that Les was experiencing "some wind (gas)" and could not be bothered to look after my husband until I insisted on talking with the doctor. The physician finally arrived and when he said "Jump" by god that nurse finally got off her ass and did what she was told and got onto what Les needed--hours previously.
   Les was sitting up in bed, in a hospital gown bunched up around his waist-- uncovered because it is way too hot in the room, no fans or air conditioning of any kind, or any way to control the heat. He was vomiting in front of an audience of other patients and their visitors--eleven strangers all told, and the guy in the next bed over had the gall to complain to his wife about Les "Kicking off again."
   The NHS is a system which fosters benign neglect of patients who are lucky if they survive a hospital experience over here in my opinion. So many things have gone wrong from the evening of his first day in "enhanced recovery" there isn't room to list them all.
   I am a frightened foreigner watching the one I love suffer in an antiquated system. Trouble is, this system is all Brits know. Americans comparing U.S. hospital care sound like over privileged, whiners but I tell you this for a fact: U.S. Health care is some of the best in the world--what we get for what we pay is worth every penny--even bankruptcy. We don't know that until we see what goes on somewhere else.
   In the U.S. it is standard for there to be no more than two patients to a room; hospitals are quiet zones and staff are expected to behave professionally. Nurses come around and take vitals once every hour and they check the machines delivering pain meds to ensure they are working and the patient is getting the meds properly.
   As far as I know, not one nurse did this for Les yesterday. He felt ill, has had NO SLEEP in over 24 hours and so he forgot to press the button on the pain med machine. The hospital is so noisy it sounds like a cocktail party is ongoing--staff raise their voices and call to one another from room to room, stand in the doorway discussing other patients, and behave more like keepers at a mental ward, dispensing pats on the back and tea from a goddamn trolley but very little actual medical care from what I can see. 
   It wasn't until Kevin and I showed up and began questioning what was going on with my husband that anyone took notice and started doing what they were paid to do. Yet I am only allowed to be there during visiting hours. I HATE THIS!!!
   Hospital care in England is like some third world country by comparison with America. If I become seriously ill over here I want my family to find a way to get me back to the U.S. Please, please don't leave me here!!
   I am worried sick about Les who has been allowed to fill his stomach with greasy, fiber heavy foods he hasn't eaten in months (beef casserole, mashed potatoes--broccoli, sugar heavy puddings) before his intestines were functioning properly first. And the food at Watford Hospital I am told is microwaved!!! There is no nutrition in microwaved food at all which is why my oncologist told me flat out not to eat microwaved food ever again. Microwaving heats food but it also kills all vitamins and enzymes and destroys the minerals in the process.
   How can Les be expected to recover enough to come home when he gets no quality rest, his pain meds are not being properly monitored, he has no privacy and the noise level is so bad sometimes I have to cover my ears to think; he is allowed to eat whatever he wants but not offered what his body actually needs to begin quality functioning, and he is offered microwaved food with no nutrition. I am so scared for him--that he won't make it back home where I can take care of him like he needs and deserves.
   I am frequently treated over here like a demanding foreigner and ignored or dismissed with hostility. I am exhausted, scared and I feel so isolated and alone. I miss my country, and my daughters and my son-in-law Ben terribly. He is a medical surgery technician and my youngest daughter is a trained Certified Nurse Assistant. I could use someone with medical knowledge on our side...