The Hospital Needs Help

Tuesday and Wednesday, I was successfully able to have chemo. It was just actually getting the chemo that was a drag. This is my third admission into the hospital for the 30+ hour infusion. Well, LGH is three for three.

Let me be clear, the nurses, aides, and staff are wonderful, diligent and take very good care of me. However, there's a very serious problem getting the chemotherapy to the floor. The first two times it took more than 5 hours to start the infusions. This last time, in an effort to speed things up, I arrived an hour earlier. This was no help and simply prolonged the start of therapy. I sat for 6 and a half hours before chemo started dripping.

I am going to try to explain what happens. I don't really know myself, but it's a good job for an investigative journalist. Lancaster General Hospital doesn't mix the chemotherapy drugs at the hospital. I think I've mentioned before, LGH used to stand for Lancaster General Hospital, but after a marketing update, LGH now stands for Lancaster General Health. That way all of the affiliated buildings and doctor's practices it now owns can all be under one convienent umbrella. They didn't even have to change the initials, so a white, oval "LGH" bumper sticker, like an "OBX" one, is still valid. Why people have bumper stickers for a hospital as opposed to a vacation destination is beyond me. But to each their own.

One source told me, the hospital used to mix chemo in the actual hospital but someone made a mistake. In an effort to make sure there were no more mistakes, apparently the hospital moved the mixing operation to the Lancaster General Health Campus - a large office complex across town. Fine, I'm all about checks and balances - and getting the right kind of chemo - but this across town part seems to be part of the six hour problem.

It takes just minutes to mix chemo. I know because I watch Kristin do it at Dr. Evans office all the time. Like minutes. But let's just say it takes 30 minutes to check and re-check and check again, that still leaves a 6 hour delay. The next problem is getting the chemo from the Health Campus to the hospital.

I just google mapped it. It's 3.2 miles from the health campus to the hospital. An average of 9 minutes with traffic. It should actually take more time to drive the drugs from one location to the other than it takes to mix it. Marcia has been by my side all along for this hospital admission. She's as flabergasted at the delay as I am. And she's a spitfire when it comes to doing the right thing. The very first week, Marcia graciously offered to drive to the Health Campus to pick up the chemo to get it to me faster.

Mixing and moving the drugs seems to be the first problem. Then, there's Pharmacy. Apparently, the Pharmacy Department has to sign off on the chemotherapy before it makes it up to the 8th Floor. Again, I don't want to die, so please "protocol" the shit out of this transfer. Just speed those protocols up.

Do you want to know how much "protocol" Kristin has? I show up at 9am, she accesses my port at 9:02am, the chemo starts dripping at 9:04am. She's prepared, thorough, detail-oriented ... and fucking speedy.

Kristin had even anticipated that the hospital would continue with this delay. That's why she sent the chemo order on the Friday BEFORE a Tuesday admission. Yet, when I showed up, they couldn't find the order. First assumed it must have be a my oncologist's office's mistake. What's the first thing to do? Call Dr. Evans. When in doubt, bug the doctor - even if she did everything right the first time.

When Pharmacy says it needs to know where we got the chemo recommendations from, I nearly lost it. The nurse said to me Pharmacy needs an article where this dosing is listed. I am sitting in a hospital bed, still not hooked up to chemo and now Pharmacy wants me to dig up a fricken New England Journal of Medicine article that says this is this and that is that. How about this? My oncologist ordered this dosing. The buck stops there. Just fucking fill the order and get. it. to. the. floor.

Alright, now I need to take a deep breath. Chris steps in. He's on the phone, in the hospital library looking up a god damn article, then down in pharmacy trying to get answers about this massive delay. What do patients who do not have doctor husband's do?

Marcia brings up good points with such class. She asks, "Do all the patients who come here have to wait this long for chemo?" Good basic question. No answers. "Well, you are three for three. This has happened all three times. That's 100%."

You know what else is 100% though? The love and laughter of my family. I would sit for days in a hospital bed if Chris and Marcia and my sister Ashley and her husband Arty were with me. There's a long list of people who could keep me occupied. And thankfully a lot of them have helped me laugh my way through this. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have taken a long walk off a short pier by now.

Thank god for a sense of humor, because I needed it two weeks ago. Let's just say, it was a shitty situation. :-)