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Inspirational song: Talking Out of Turn (The Moody Blues)

On the day of my first social excursion after surgery, I received an automated phone survey about my anaesthesiologist. I was in the middle of mah jongg, and I was out of my mind on percocet. The room was noisy, and I couldn't hear the computer voice well, much less process in my drug-addled mind what the questions meant and whether I knew enough about that particular aspect of my surgery to answer a survey about it in the few seconds allotted to each question. Four or five minutes into it, I was overwhelmed, and I hung up on the survey. I have been waiting ever since for the right opportunity to tell my story to the hospital, about the anxiety- and pain-inducing problems I had while I was still an inpatient. I finally had my chance this evening.

A real woman called me to ask about my hospital stay, rather than a computer. I went along with the questions as they were asked for about the first half of the survey, averaging my experiences to provide a 4 out of 5/good but not great rating for most of them. When I was asked a specific question about "when you pressed the call button, did you receive assistance right away," before I answered, I asked whether I would be provided an opportunity to give free-form comments. She assured me that I would, so I felt comfortable rating that question at "sometimes" (on a scale of "never-rarely-sometimes-usually-always"). When given the chance to expand on my answers, I said that my night nurses and techs were angels, that most of my day nurses and techs were great, but there was someone manning that call button who did not feel the need to pass along my messages to the people who should be helping me. I gave specific dates, for the time that I waited over an hour for pain meds, twenty minutes of which was beyond a ten on the pain scale, and for the next day when I was trapped on the bed, shackled by my compression socks, for twenty minutes at the moment I was ready to test out my newly shortened and reconnected large intestine. I think I shocked the survey taker. She sputtered a little when she moved on to the question of whether I gave permission for my comments to be passed along with management. Of course I did! That was the whole reason I told her what happened. I am happy that my phone interview was recorded, so they get every detail right when they talk about it. I want them to be able to hear the part when I said that my nurses and techs made me feel safe and cared for. There was just that tragic breakdown in communication, that happened in the afternoons at the end of the week. I can't keep that to myself, sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. No one should go through what I did. Not if I can prevent it.

I took a handful of pictures today to illustrate some of the signs of spring that I discussed yesterday, but after talking about how prickly and unpleasant some of my feedback was today, I think the only one that is appropriate is of the holly bush, and the tiny hints of buds to come.