I’m sure by now you may be wondering if I have abandoned this site and thrown in the towel. I haven’t. It’s just that I’ve been dealing with a family crisis that’s about to become a messy legal battle which has kept me away from the computer, and literally my home.

Allow me to explain. On January 20th, my mom went to see her doctor for a routine appointment. Her doctor was out of town, so one of the assistants took care of her checkup. Everyone at the office knew my mom was having difficulty walking, has arthritis and bursitis in both her knees, and was therefore supposed to be examined while sitting in a chair, rather than on the examination table.

Despite this, the doctor who was filling in for my mom’s primary care physician (since he was out of state for a medical conference of some sort), told her to get on the exam table. After giving her a brief checkup (according to both my mom and brother), she was told to get off the exam table by the physician, who then walked out of the examination room leaving only my mother and brother present.

As my mom was stepping down, both her knees buckled, causing her to fall to the floor. My brother reached out to grab her, but she slid past him and they both ended up on the floor. My brother called for one of the nurses, and an employee (I don’t recall if he said it was the doctor or one of the aides) came in and said something to the effect that they were going to call 911 - and then walked back out.

After being transported to a nearby hospital via ambulance, my mother spent the next five hours in the emergency room. They took X-Rays of her left side and then gave her a prescription for Symbicort - an athsma medication, saying it would help her breathing. The thing is, my mom does not have athsma. Once the X-Ray results were in, they told us that she had an upper humorous fracture in her left arm, put her in a sling, gave her a prescription for 800mg of ibuprophen (basically Tylenol), and sent her home. Not only did they fail to X-Ray her right side as well, but they also did not take an MRI to see if there were any hairline fractures or other injuries that often times do not show up on X-Rays (an MRI taken a few weeks later revealed a lateral tibular fracture in her right knee, plus a bone chip lodged between one of the ligaments and muscles in the knee).

Mom was in constant pain, unable to sleep, and had to use “adult diapers” in order to use the bathroom since a bedpan was not available (who’d have thought they don’t sell THOSE anymore) and she was literally unable to walk, much less move (two busted knees and a fractured arm). I called the paramedics two days later when she started complaining of dehydration (despite her taking in plenty of fluid - it was going out just as quickly as it was going in), chronic pain which prevented her from sleeping, being light-headed and dizzy. They refused to take her to the hospital “because they lacked her doctor’s authorization”, and with no one to take her in, she had to stay home another couple days. Her condition worsened over the next two days, despite a change in her prescription from the 800mg of ibuprofen to 50mg of Tramadol (which did help with the pain, but not much).

That prompted another call to 911 (emergency services for those outside the US) and this time they took her to another local hospital (after again trying to refuse her transport - I told her she doesn’t exhibit signs of dehydration like most people do, and her doctor was already well aware of that fact). She arrived via ambulance just after noon US Central time, spent 9 hours in the emergency room and was finally admitted that night.

It didn’t take long for some asshole (I apologize for the foul language, but it was the most accurate word I could think of) doctor to start calling for her immediate discharge claiming that she was fine and able to return home. We argued with her over the phone and told her that the nurses did not feel she was fit to come home due to her inability to walk. While fighting to keep her in the hospital, the staff tried to get her on physical therapy for her knees, which the doctor finally agreed to begin on January 26, 2009.

That didn’t work, since as soon as Mom stood up (with the help of a nurse and a male tech), her knees buckled again nearly causing another fall. One of the nurses looked at the lab results and noticed her hemoglobin levels (blood) had been falling rapidly, so she put my mom in for a blood transfusion. Of course, it didn’t take long for “Doctor Dumbass” to start pressuring us to discharge her, and I even had to deal with the discharge office over the phone trying to explain to them that she was NOT leaving.

Now, as for the retard that apparently got her degree from a box of Cracker Jacks, she even tried contacting my brother and me via my mom’s cell phone number (the phone was with her) instead of using the emergency contact numbers (my brother and myself) that I had provided to the hospital. The idiot even kept asking us what WE WANTED TO DO instead of explaining my mom’s condition and treatment options.

The hospital (which I won’t name) claimed it had “done all it can” and discharged her on January 27th, 2009 to an assisted care facility for a week so she can get some physical therapy and rehab. That “week or two” has turned into a couple months. And yes, the place sucks. The day after she was admitted there one of the aides refused to help her unless she finished eating her lunch (let’s just say that “nature called” and wouldn’t leave a message). Another aide left a soiled latex glove on her serving tray (this was photographed), and that aide’s assistant threw some soiled bed clothes (including a blanket) on top of my brand new leather coat - remember, my mom has been immobilized because of the fall at the doctor’s office, and can’t walk to the bathroom. My brother and I talked with the administration about this and got the whole situation resolved (I heard afterword that one of the employees quit in protest that day; I also heard that the employee got fired) - but they’re not too happy that we have pictures. The assistant administrator also didn’t look too happy to see the used latex glove that were sitting on my mom’s tray for hours on end either - the asst. admin. personally picked that up and threw it in the trash.

They’re not adhering to her cardiac (heart healthy) diet, they’re constantly giving her milk (she’s lactose intolerant, so I drink it when I’m there), and her medication has been doubled (not to mention mixed, which is causing some serious side effects; however these meds were issued by the idiot doctor at the second hospital I mentioned previously). The first time I walked into the nursing home, my sense of smell was overwhelmed by the smell of vanilla flavored air freshener - turns out the hallways on the second floor reeked so bad of human bodily waste (primarily urine) that I could actually taste it on the roof of my mouth even though I was breathing through a stuffed up nose.

Her primary care physician says he has no “staff privileges” at the nursing home and as such says he can’t see her there, the doctor on call at the facility only saw her once since she was admitted (and that was the day after they gave her a cathoder so she can urinate, despite the fact that she’s going every 1 1/2 to 2 hours like clockwork), the staff initially couldn’t seem to pull their heads out of their collective back-sides and figure out what to do, and she’s on so many pills that some of them are even interacting with each other (more than one combination has been known to be fatal in previous cases).

Heck, on February 3, 2009 the assistant administrator called me to let me know that my mom had an outpatient follow-up appointment for her humerus fracture (upper arm, by the shoulder) at 10:30 the next morning and that she was scheduled to leave the nursing home at 10 AM. At around 9:15 I got a call from my mom telling me that she was leaving RIGHT NOW (at the time, of course), and that I had to meet her at some place I had never heard of before. I told her to tell the staff there that if they left before I arrived (I was told to accompany her), I’d call my lawyer and have him meet my mom at the nursing home when she got back, and would have the resulting lawsuit filed first thing the next morning. (Note: my attorney is in Chicago and specializes in consumer protection law; not personal injury, elder care, or medical malpractice/negligance law.)

Yeah, it was a bluff, yeah, I was royally pissed off, but I already had enough to get JCAHO and the state health department on their back. Anyway…

Fortunately (or so I thought at the time), they were having several “technical issues” with the medical oxygen tanks which prevented them from transporting her. It turned out several of the tanks were already empty (but were mixed with the fresh tanks), and one of the oxygen regulators was broken which caused the fresh tanks to leak pure oxygen so rapidly that they ended up running “out of air” rather quickly. They did manage to “fix” the problem, but they apparently used a USED tank because the darn thing was empty by the time my mom’s follow-up was finished.

The medical van driver also failed to correctly secure my mom (and the oxygen tank) in the wheelchair - I found this out from the other driver who came to pick us up afteword; he ended up reporting his coworker to both the nursing home and his employer. As it is, I’m looking at three, possibly four (or even five, if the idiot doctor can be dragged into this independently of the second hospital) lawsuits being filed before this is all done and taken care of.

On February 11th, my mom said she started having “panic attacks” and was feeling terrible. Two days later, on Friday February 13th, the on-site physican showed up (he only comes in once every month or two) while she was eating lunch. He did not perform an on-site checkup (such as checking blood oxygen levels, heart rate, blood pressure and so on) or even check out her knees and left arm. He simply said that the pain may have been caused by “sleeping on her elbow” (she wasn’t) and walked out. The staff did take a blood sample that day, and also increased her anti-anxiety medication (Alprazolam, also known as Xanax) from 0.5mg to 1g per dose. (It turned out the air mattress they gave her to sleep on had sprung a leak.)

She said she lost her appetite due to the pain, so rather than treat the pain, they put her on an appetite stimulant, and then gave her a bunch of food she couldn’t have for dinner that night. For example, she’s being treated for acid reflux disease, yet they gave her a chili dog, tomato soup, and a half-pint of milk (despite her being lactose intolerant). When I came to visit her that night, there was a triple pack of anti-biotic ointment cremes on the floor, busted open and oozing their contents all over the place. (I took pictures of this, and more.) So I grabbed a hand towel that was also laying on the floor, picked it up, and then tossed in the trash.

But wait, it gets better! Some of the aides that work there keep trying to get my mom to walk and put pressure on her right knee despite the doctors at the orthopaedic institute she’s going to for her outpatient checkups ordering that NO PRESSURE BE APPLIED WHATSOEVER. They don’t say or do these things when I’m around, but when she’s by herself, they start slacking off. They also took some of her clothes, washed them and then “donated” the clothing to those residents who don’t have their own clothes. (We do all the laundry ourselves.)

And that isn’t even the half of it.

Anyway, that’s what’s beein going on. I’ll do my best to keep you informed. Should anybody know a personal injury/medical malpractice/negligance attorney in the Chicago area other than Barry R. Rabovski, please forward me their contact information. I’d LOVE to talk to them.