A heart attack has a remarkable way of stripping life down to its essentials…read more
One moment, you are moving through an ordinary day. The next, you are entrusting your life to complete strangers, hoping they possess not only the clinical skill to save you, but the humanity to care for you while they do it.
In the beginning, they did.
The paramedics were extraordinary. The surgical team was exceptional. My first night nurse was everything a frightened patient could hope for, attentive, reassuring, and fully present. They explained. They listened. They made me feel safe.
Then I was transferred to the Critical Care Cardiology Unit.
That is where my confidence in my care began to erode.
Ironically, the newest nurse on the unit was the one who restored some of it. While the experienced nurse she shadowed seemed far more invested in conversations about Pilates, weekend plans, and shopping, the newer nurse was focused on me. She noticed subtle changes in my condition and recognized an allergic reaction to a medication before I even understood what was happening.
If experience alone guaranteed excellence, their roles would have been reversed.
As the day went on, the pattern became impossible to ignore.
Medication scheduled for 3:00 p.m. did not arrive until 3:53..after I asked for it five separate times, to five separate people.
A technician stopped in the middle of inserting an ultrasound‑guided IV because his wife was calling. He walked away mid‑procedure to answer his phone, leaving me lying there while he discussed "material issues" at home. I can only assume she must be quite the conversationalist.
Somehow, an entire day passed without anyone realizing I had not eaten breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I was not fasting. I had no dietary restrictions. No one asked. No one noticed. It took the evening nurse, just beginning her shift, to recognize what everyone else had overlooked.
The following morning, during my first MRI, I was scared. I had never had one before. Instead of preparing me for what to expect, my nurse seemed far more concerned with where to leave her Starbucks cup, her phone, and her earrings. She made the moment about her first‑time experience, not mine and then spent the procedure in the control booth visiting while I lay in the tube alone.
By then, I had reached my limit.
I told them I was leaving.
Only then did people begin appearing in my room, one after another, urging me to stay.
And I could not help but wonder:
Where was that urgency when my medication was nearly an hour late?
Where was that concern when no one noticed I had gone 36 hours without a meal?
Where was that attentiveness when I needed reassurance more than anything else?
I can advocate for myself.
I can ask questions.
I can say, "Something isn't right."
But what about the patient who cannot?
The elderly woman with dementia.
The man recovering from a stroke.
The patient on a ventilator.
The frightened person with no family sitting beside the bed.
Those are the patients I have not been able to stop thinking about.
One nurse made me feel protected.
Another made me feel invisible.
That is more than a difference in personality.
In a Critical Care Cardiology Unit, it is a difference that can change outcomes.
To the paramedics, the surgical team, my first night nurse, the newer nurse who recognized my allergic reaction, and the evening nurse who realized I had not eaten all day ..Thank You! You reminded me what healthcare should be.
The rest of my experience reminded me why patients, and their families, must never stop advocating for themselves. Why we the have social media platforms, to inform,to warn and have awareness for ourselves and our family.
#PatientAdvocacy#HealthcareAccountability#QualityOfCare#PatientSafety#CriticalCare#CardiacCare#NursingExcellence#Lynchburg, va #centrea#Centralynchburg Generalhospital
