[RNguy]

My moms been feeling not well for 10 days and I take her to the e.r. at a hospital in Kentucky yesterday evening .
She was telling me she's been short of breath with new onset of epigastic pain .
They take her back promptly with her symptoms and hook her to the monitor and her heart rate is in the 50's, her sbp 150's 160's and she has a sat of 88 on room air .
Prior to taking her I listened to her lungs and they were clear and took her bp and pulse which were consistent and the nurse says to me does she have copd and I said no ma'am nor any history of heart problems , no hypertension etc...
She says oh well the doc says to give her 2L bolus .
Ummmmm....... Well gee lets just make her bp shoot up higher with fluids.
That's what I was thinking to myself .
Meanwhile they are sticking blood and iv on her and I said well does anyone mind if I place her on 2l of oxygen since she is desatting to 86 ???
The nurse says ohhh no we have to wait til the doc writes an order for oxygen .
Shakes head well where I come from we don't wait for a pt to decline and become more hypoxic while the doc may not come in for another hour geez.
The doc comes in and says her blood gas is picture perfect so she doesn't need oxygen .
20 min later the nurse comes in and says her blood gas says she is hypoxic and places her on oxygen bc they looked at the wrong pts gas result .
Lord !
So the doc asks me what I do and I said I'm an RN I work in trauma and she is yakking to me
About wanting to work in a trauma facility . I'm thinking um first you should master the art of looking at right pts lab values and be ok if a nurse places oxygen on a hypoxic pt .
She comes back and says I'm gonna release you Mrs H bc your cardiac enzymes are negative .
Ummmm wth!!! I said I really don't think that is a good idea doc bc .. the doc interrupted me and said well what do you think she needs then ????
I said well how about doing a CTA of her chest and rule out a PE since she is hypoxic and vert short of breath and complaining of dizziness and upper abdominal pain .
Also, the heart enzymes can be negative and show up positive on the 2nd or 3rd set .
She said well I don't believe she has a PE lets check her glucose .
I said I checked it before I brought her here bc my dad is a diebetic and it was 83 when I checked her and besides you ordered a chem panel which has glucose result on that . She said oh did I order that ?
So she appeases me by ordering the CTA per my request.
How about that , she had a PE in her lung . Geeeee
She is going to be ok but this whole ordeal made me sad .
Think of how many people out there do not get proper care . This is sad .