Challenging times

As some of you know, my nephew was in a car wreck a few weeks ago. He was travelling back home from dropping a co-worker off at Ingles on Merrimon Ave. Michael, my nephew, has been through the ringer since this, and I wanted to talk a bit about what has happened and is happening. I will also share somethings that has been bothering me. I have also setup a GoFundMe fundraiser for Michael’s expenses currently and after his discharge. You will see it attached to every page of mine at the bottom.

Michael’s accident

As I said before, he was travelling back home when he came across a hill near Beaver lake on Merrimon Ave, and he remembers that he saw headlights, then nothing else. Turns out he was in a head-on collision, and the driver of the other car was a drunk CNA. He woke up with blood everywhere, and he was in an extreme amount of pain. He had to be cut out of his car, and the first responders were surprised he was still alive and conscious of his surroundings. He was able to tell them to call his dad and his girlfriend. I haven’t been told much more about this, but just thinking about this type of situation that happened to my nephew, breaks my heart.

Michael’s recovery

While Michael has been going through multiple surgeries, and now he’s going through physical therapy. I often wonder how he’s going to be after everything is said and done. While his spirits are normally high, there are low times. I have sat with him a few times for assisting him and keeping him company, but there is a double edge sword to that, I will explain later. Last time I was up there, he was not able to get the pain medication to keep him easy, and this has been an on-going issue. While I understand that they don’t want him hooked on it, it’s still something that would help the over-arching goal of getting him better. I’m not going to say all of the bones, ligaments, and joints that were damaged, but I will say that he has a long road ahead of him. One thing that I keep my mind on, he’s going to be able to walk again, and this is a HUGE blessing.

Double edge sword

When I have stayed with Michael for multiple hours (4-5), my body doesn’t like it. When I say my body doesn’t like it, let me explain. When I get away from the room, and the situation, my body starts doing the whole pins and needles type of sensation. This is due to the amount of stress I’m putting my body through when I’m up there, I think, and then on top of the situational stress, PTSD. You are probably asking, why PTSD in a hospital. I’ve been in and out of the hospital for the last 16 years with my GI issues. A lot of these stays were alone, and I was in a lot of pain.

Hospital Staff and Skill levels

Up until 2019, the stays weren’t horrific, but since the stays are down right scary due to the lack of empathy and skills of the staff. Last I heard, the number of nurses that are travelling nurses is as high as 95% of the nurses in the hospital, and one of the nurses was complaining about how much the travelling nurses are focused on the money aspect instead of the patient aspect. This is what you get when you have a hospital that doesn’t give two shits about the level of care as to the bottom line. The last stay I had, I had to explain to them how to insert an NG Tube. This is something that should be common knowledge with nurses, and then to top it off, she wasn’t able to secure the tube to my nose. It ended up falling out, and then I had to get another one inserted. Keep in mind, the first nurses were travelling nurses, and the second NG tube was done by a regular RN. The second nurse knew how to do it, and it wasn’t nearly as painful as the first.

Conclusion

While I have ranted on about my experiences with this whole thing. I don’t want to diminish the impacts this has had on our whole family. My brother has Covid, and the rest of us has at least been exposed to Covid. This means we will not really be able to go around Michael until we are all cleared. We all haven’t sleep good since the wreck.

HCA/Mission Hospital

HCA has turned a hospital into a nightmare for healthcare. There are on-going legal actions for over-charging and monopolizing the health care of Asheville/Buncombe County. We should have some other fashion of health care that actually cares about our health.