First hospital Stay Recap

We are extremely grateful at the Smith household. Not only has Samantha recovered very nicely from what put her in the hospital (we are still waiting on final results on that issue), but she has rebounded so well that her PFTs are higher than when she went in and she's gained over 5 pounds! Yes, things are good. It's amazing what two weeks of antibiotics and steroids will do for you.

Before too much time gets away, I wanted to post about our time in the hospital, to sort of give you a recap in case you didn't see every day's post. If you haven't, and are just curious, click HERE to see the daily journal from the hospital.

In a word, the concluding thought is frustration. Being in the hospital is an inherently frustrating experience. At several times throughout the process, I nearly pulled my hair out. At others, I wanted to pull someone else's hair out...or scream...or worse. I had seldom-seen such miscommunication from a group of professionals before the hospital stay. Yet it was not all bad. But that's not all this post is about. I wanted to give you a real recap, so here it is:

Favorite day: My favorite day in the hospital was when we got to take Sam out for some R&R. I had no idea that families got to do this periodically. It really made Sam's day to get her hair done and eat some good food. Here is the journal entry from that day.

Least favorite day: There are so many. However, my vote for that one is Monday, the 4th Day in the hospital. The reason it's my least favorite is because it was supposed to have been the day the doctors would decide to do a bronchoscope to find out how clogged up she still was and what they needed to do about it. I truly believe, and I think the evidence proves it, that if they had done the bronch on that day, she would have been better sooner.

Favorite staff: By far, we were most blown away by the nursing staff. They were courteous, professional, and extremely knowledgable. The actual individuals are too many to count or discuss as they were simply great as a whole. I don't remember a single one that bugged me or made me angry.

Least favorite staff: No brainer here: The Respiratory Technicians. I could have done treatments better than they could have, and I wouldn't have tried to dodge the nighttime treatments like some of them did. As a complete 180* from the nurses, as a whole not a single RT impressed me, but several needed to go back to school and a couple got talked to, if you know what I mean.

I don't want to make this a crazy-long post. I just wanted to give you my impressions on the hospital stay. It was our first, certainly not our last, and it now puts me squarely in the fathers-of-hospitalized-kids-club. So it goes.