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Any Advice? Pul-leze? Or should I just go off a bridge?

Mon, 03/07/2005 - 12:35
I am BEGGING for guidance or your wisdom. I shouldn't need any, I should know myself...but I do need help. I shouldn't need any help by posting here if people were doing their jobs but anyway....this could be real long but I'm going to hit just SOME of the high points to give you a flavor.Set the Scene:I walked into my doctor's office just as someone lifted the copy machine lid up before the cycle was finished, FLASH OF LIGHT, good by me - status seizure. I was transferred from my doctor's office to a small town hospital to a big city hospital. I have NEVER been so soundly out. I was transferred from beginning of the sz about 30 minutes later to the big city hospital when they couldn't get it stopped.I woke up in the big city hospital and I "knew" a lot of time had passed. Okay I'm just going to list some of this nonsense:---I was naked from the waist down, my bed was parallel to a glass wall, and a lot of people were going back and forth, of course everyone was galking at me, and I was UNCOVERED! Probably for about an hour. I was shivering, freezing, begging to be covered up and finally a visitor got me a blanket but that was after about I'd say an hour of being naked for all to see for that long and I feel sexually violated. Quite frankly I was brutally raped 2 years ago. I've been recovering from that really well but this has really plunged me back into those horrible feelings and thoughts I have had to recover from that rape. I think that's a large part of why I'm currently having some really terrific and worsening depression right now.--The nurse I had, male, was a butt. Sarcastic, confronting, abusive, sexually inappropriate. He told me I didn't show any sz activity in the ambulance or in the ER. Furthermore he said, I wasn't post ictal. Huh? THEN I find out the time and realize my appt with my doctor was at 11:00 when this began and it was then 3:30 or 4:00. He insisted I'd been there only 20 minutes and subsequent charting shows me - nowhere for about 3 hours. People didn't chart ONE clock time in the city hospital. The ambulance states it took them 10 minutes to make an about 40 minute drive. ALL the charting from the city hospital is puredy fiction and a lot of things that should be in there - aren't. My doctor, the other ER, the ambulance charted my sz activity though very succinctly. --Everything seemed off, wrong, threatening. I asked for help to the bathroom, he said no you're not going to be steady on your feet enough yet you can barely talk (I didn't have a sz he says?) So he goes for a bed pan. He didn't come back for a long time or for too long, and my bladder started letting it go. He comes in finally, as I'm peeing ON the sheet, really blitzed, I asked him later to please change the sheet? He THREW me a sheet - said do it yourself. I finally got on the bedpan, filled it, and he didn't come back, my butt and legs went to sleep, I finally got off of it myself, spilling more onthe sheet and then I'm left holding a full bed pan. It didn't occur to me to set it down on the bed I guess. Instead I decided to try and dump it in a bucket a long way away from the bed, of course missed, poured it all on the floor and the male nurse comes back in, I apologized and he just blasted and blasted me about the mess I made and threw some towels at me and said - clean it up! Walked out. I was stunned, confused, getting very frightened.--I'm still really blasted, he's still insisting I didn't have a sz (whatz the point in saying that?) and I'm confused why he's saying that, thinking well maybe it was a nonculsive sz - like a drop - which looks like fainting or...huh? He said no, he knows all about epilepsy and seizures and I showed no signs of either and I can now "knock off the post ictal acting sh**", he wasn't buying. --THEN the nurse said I'm getting you clothes (at last) get up - you're going. WHAT? I could barely put 2+2 together, I was alone, in a city where I didn't live. I didn't have my purse with a long distance card to call my husband, I didn't know my husband's work number nor could figure out how to get it, I had not been on my feet yet and about a week later I realized I also walked out with no admission, discharge papers, I woke up with NO IV which has never happened and I never had a hospital bracelet, which has never happened. I protested I wasn't stable. I felt I could still sz. He got a little mean, told me I had insisted I was going AMA (against medical advice) which I knew I hadn't said. Over and over I protested I'd never said that, wouldn't, I felt very unstable. I was alone. Didn't live around there. I NEVER signed an AMA form yet a copy of one came with my records with my supposed signature on it. I remember waiting for him to present me to sign out AMA and I was going to refuse. I never one time remember signing one thing nor did I walk out with any paperwork, I always do. I asked him why I'd never seen the doctor. He said you were unconscious, you don't remember but earlier said I had never been unconscious which I definitely had. Then a doctor showed up acting very nasty, remote. The doctor, in a dark room, asked me two questions. Never touched me. Couldn't have even seen my pupils. Walked out. I had gone through a crazy, unbelievable experience the day prior and the doctor asked me something like why do you sz or why did you have a sz and I said - I as kidnapped. Which I don't think sounds like a REAL intelligent intact response. He ignored it. --The nurse comes back, I think I'm getting this order close to right, was still INSISTENT, really demanding, I get out of bed and literally get out of the ER because, he claims, I had kept saying I wanted to got AMA, which I know I never once said, never. I protested I was alone, it was cold, I wasn't stable, I hadn't even tried walking yet and wasn't sure I could, I was scared, all kinds of protesting and he said - you're leaving, get up, I'm getting you c lothes. He said many times - You keep saying you want to go AMA and you are outta here. I started getting combative. I said okay - fine - I revoke I said I want to go AMA. He said - "eat sh**". I AM NOT KIDDING. I remembered that about a week later. I said I'm reporting that, and he said and who are they going to believe? You? Or me? Then I got really scared but mainly I was just so confused.--As I stood partially naked this male nurse tried to hug me "good bye", I shoved him away, almost fell backwards, and he stood very close to me, handed me a diaper, some pants and watched me dress! I was so embarrassed, so unsteady on my feet I fought back tears, had a very hard time standing and trying to pull on pants, asked him if I could sit down, asked if he'd please the room, and he refused. --After I was FINALLy dressed, he took my arm, literally forced me out of the ER and outside, forced me holding my arm down a long walkway and pointed across this busy street and said if you want to smoke - cross the street and go smoke over there. I also asked him where the phone was, if he'd help me dial my husband and he gave me the TV remote control in the lobby and said it was a cell phone, walked away. I had to walk back uphill on this walkway to use the "phone" to call my husband, I could just barely walk up the slight hill I was so weak and unsteady. Some teens in the lobby finally helped me call my husband, told me that they had been watching, the nurse gave me the remote control as a joke. They were angry about it. I remember trying to dial and dial on it and looking for the little holes where you listen and talk and couldn't find them. THAT'S how blitzed I was when I was discharged, alone. *** I want to say this - there were a lot of adults who just stood there watching me trying to dial out on a stupid remote control, weaving around, tears streaming down and ignored me. It was teen aged people who were compassionate. Didn't laugh at me. Helped me get to a phone and placed that call for me. I despise it when teens are made out to be incompetent, thugs, and uncaring people. Some are, most aren't. Same for adults. My children weren't degenerates as teens they were very caring, these teens were saviors! GO TEENS!*****--So I'm outside my husband figures alone for about an hour. It's freezing cold. A man who had brought a visitor for someone else was watching me in his car in the parking lot and twice ran out and grabbed me from walking straight into traffic. Picked me up numerous times he told my husband when he saw me fall straight to the pavement and lay there. Thought he had me planted on a bench where he said I went soundly asleep, at least for awhile, inside the breezeway and later saw me wondering around across another street in the stacked parking. He ran over there and brought me back. He thought he finally got me planted on the bench again, complained he told my husband multiple times to the ER about the condition I was in and this male nurse would come out and tell him I had insisted on being discharged. That is a FLAT OUT LIE! They wouldn't take me back in. THIS parking lot man was also a savior. Further he somehow got my name and number, probably from my husband, and called me the next day to see if I was okay. Blessed be the good samaritans I swear!--My doctor had called that ER and asked to have two specialists see me and where those orders are or what happened to them? No one knows.--My husband finally picks me up and I'm out cold and jerking, again, on the pavement, now in a drive lane in the parking lot. I get in the car and start telling him what I could. He is furious. Drives back to that ER, confronts this nurse whose only response was, if I wanted to be readmitted, that's all he could do. The thought paralyzed me. I can't even remember most of that conversation I was studying so hard to just stay on my feet and paralyzed with fear of being in that ER again. My husband refused. I got in our car, went back into a status seizure, he took me to another hospital and eventually I was transferred to another STATE to an epileptology center because I was still sz'ing, no one could get it stopped, and admitted and I was in such a deep sz - I do not remember one minute of a long multi hour admission to two hospitals and a long transfer by helicopter and land ambulance. I woke up in this new to me epileptology center, kept thinking I was in my old one, and thought did they get new curtains? All new staff? The CT machine is pointed the wrong way. VERY confused or asleep the entire time I was there. NOW, the most aggravating thing, I'm so aggravated I feel like going off of a bridge. I'm an RN. I have worked in an ER. I KNOW RN's can't diagnose, RNs ASSESS and give their assessments to the doctors who DIAGNOSE. The male RN I had diagnosed, obviously gave his diagnoses to the "doctor" who didn't credit the RN and used the inappropriate, inaccurate diagnoses as HIS observations, and fictionalized his entire dictation, which is now in my record. I know I had dangerous treatment. I KNOW what charting I should have had. I requested my records? They are TOTAL fiction. Furthermore about 1/2 of what should be charted is left out. Keeping in mind the doctor asked me two questions in about 2 minutes and that is it? HIS dictation is the worst thing in my chart. For instance the doctor says since I didn't appear to be drunk or under the influence of drugs, my intellect seemed intact because I could discuss "epilepsy terms" which had to have been gotten when I said maybe I had a nonconvulsive sz to the nurse, that I could be discharged and he makes it clear he thought I was faking because by exam I didn't appear to have had a "cortical event" and this man NEVER touched me or got close to me and I was well documente dby 3 other sources of szing for a long long time. This "doctor" came into my room when I said I had never seen a doctor before I was discharged to my knowledge, the nurse agreed, got me a doctor, who came in and asked me "why did you have a sz"? I couldn't figure out what to say. A long story why I said this but I told him, trying to capsulize some stress I'd had the day prior, "I was kidnapped". I don't consider that a REAL intelligent sounding intact response. I even remember thinking - whoops, that was kind of stupid. That's okay - he ignored it. He asked me one other question. Stayed clear across a darkened room from me. Never touched me once and charted this LONG description of his "physical exam". He couldn't have even seen my pupils! He charts I was "symmetrical throughout, reflexes intact". I am NOT symmetrical throughout, I have a partially paralyzed FACE on ONE side from Bells Palsy 7 years ago and that he should have gotten from just observation! If anyone hits one of my reflexes my arm or leg flies up and someone is in danger of getting hit or kicked. My reflexes have made several people chuckle I'm so hyper reflexive. My epileptologist always has a sign hung above my bed - DO NOT TEST REFLEXES because doing so has often sent me into a sz. If he would have checked my reflexes he would have had to chart I am extremely hyper reflexive. He didn't. But the deal on no alcohol or drug impaired apparently, intellect therefore intact? He's not a human breathalizer for one, so I doubt seriously he could say what my blood alcohol content was, and he should have perused my chart and read I had 60 mg of Valium, 10 mgs of Versed and 11 mg of Ativan IV push recently. That is a LOT of mind impairing drugs! Versed I've gotten as a preoperative drug when I haven't sz'd and it's lasted the whole blasted day long! I WOULD call that at the ver least " potentially drug impaired". And wow did I feel like it. I could barely stand, walk. If I stood in one place I started falling so I had to stay on the move once I was on my feet. RARELY does anyone get that many benzodiazepans which ARE mind impairing. They're sedatives, anti anxietals!I complained to the pt representative. I get the run around and I can tell, something's not right. I don't know what though. I've placed phone calls, left messages to people in that hospital since then who should know about this, should do something about it, no one calls me back. The pt rep I did get ahold of I asked to have my chart locked up, she didn't do it, she said she'd call me back in 2 days as I asked for a meeting with that doctor, the nurse, several other hospital officials, she never called me back. I called her and my case got transferred to her supervisor. Now I know why I think - she's the best at totally double talking, passing me off. I started getting frustrated. I called and talked to two personnel in the ER, both remembered my admission and the admissions clerk said I HAD to talk to the unit coordinator, sounded very cryptic, begged me to call her, she wanted to talk to me, she wasn't in, is now gone until the 15th, but if she wanted to talk to me why didn't she call me. And what is THAT all about I wonder? When I asked the admission clerk who remembered me - what in the heck was going on? She said - you tell me! I asked her was all that just very weird? She replied - she definitely wanted me to talk to the unit coordinator. Today I called and tried to talk to the unit coordinator's stand in and when she heard my name her sweet demeanor turned straight off, she said she couldn't discuss anything with me - SLAM. So in short? I'm getting stone walled - by everyone there. That's just a flavor. There's a lot more but it'd be way too long. I have become depressed, anxious I'll get transferred there again. I have a feeling I was sexually molested after being left naked in front of a window for so long, him watching me bare from the waist down when I was unconscious and conscious for at least an hour, being hugged by him when I was partially naked, eyeballed very close getting dressed plus all the people who passed that window sure weren't averting their eyes. I feel flat out abused in every way but predominantly - sexually and it's really bugging me, getting worse. I'm having a very strong emotional reaction to this. But the hospital is stone walling me. The pt representative and I have talked several times and one time she just totally lost it - clear out of context and she raised her voice way up very angrily said I had no idea how much she had gone through on my case. She had never had to go "so high in the hospital administration on any complaint" and she did not one more time want to hear that I was left half naked for many to see and my embarrassment was still just killing me. I realized? I had not ONCE told her that. I can't let this go. I am really sinking in depression over this. I feel extremely violated and victimized. Where to now? Any ideas? My ship is sinking. I'm thinking today? I'm going to have to seek some emergency psychiatric help andhope I can today. Some other things have also happened on a very serious level in my life too, which hasn't helped but I can deal with. THIS I'm realizing, I'm loosing my grip. Any thoughts, advice. I NEED some resolution to this. I don't know what else to do and I feel I should. I'm an RN. Disabled RN. But I know hospital structure but I can't get through to the people I need to talk to. So? Any advice?Gretchen

Comments

RE: Any Advice? Pul-leze? Or should I just go off a bridge?

Submitted by pongosmommy on Fri, 2005-03-04 - 23:19
Please do not go off a bridge I would miss you very much.

RE: RE: Any Advice? Pul-leze? Or should I just go off a bridge?

Submitted by stinchcomb on Sun, 2005-03-06 - 12:46

Dear Gretchen-

I read your note and felt compelled to write back.  First of all, and most importantly, I prayed for you several times reading your note.  I will continue to have you in my prayers.  I am very sorry that all this happened to you.  I have a question for you.  How do you know you weren't violated?  I know it sounds strange but your experience is very out of the ordinary.  There are some real nut cases working in the hospital and something obviously happened that is causing you to emphasize sexual violation.  I certainly hope not.

My son, 10 years old, has absence seizures.  I can't imagine something like this happening to him.  Maybe you can wear dog tags or something for them to call your husband or a good friend next time.  It's much better if someone is with you.  I think that a lot of what happens only happens when they realize your alone. 

Keeping you in prayer,

Ingrid

Dear Gretchen-

I read your note and felt compelled to write back.  First of all, and most importantly, I prayed for you several times reading your note.  I will continue to have you in my prayers.  I am very sorry that all this happened to you.  I have a question for you.  How do you know you weren't violated?  I know it sounds strange but your experience is very out of the ordinary.  There are some real nut cases working in the hospital and something obviously happened that is causing you to emphasize sexual violation.  I certainly hope not.

My son, 10 years old, has absence seizures.  I can't imagine something like this happening to him.  Maybe you can wear dog tags or something for them to call your husband or a good friend next time.  It's much better if someone is with you.  I think that a lot of what happens only happens when they realize your alone. 

Keeping you in prayer,

Ingrid

RE: Any Advice? Pul-leze? Or should I just go off a bridge?

Submitted by Ladybug on Sat, 2005-03-05 - 07:09
Sounds like you've been through quite the ordeal. I would report this nurse, NOT to the ER, but to the office that hires these jerks. I'm so glad that you're OK and that you made it out of there. Take care.Ladybug

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