@peridot Oh, I see why you are probably very upset. My grandmother had some very bad bed sores at one point, and I think she was in pain in general and didn’t point them out specifically. She was able to communicate, she was still talking, but her memory was slipping. The end was very difficult for her. I did not live hear her so I only saw her a couple days at a time, but some relatives have communicated to me how bad it was, her condition, which I didn’t even realize when I was there, and I am quite upset her last years and death were so difficult. I feel like if she had complained or spoken up more she might have been able to have it easier. I don’t know if it all a physical limitation or also psychological also. It sounds like you cared for her very much, not only emotionally, but took care of her physical well being.
I know how troubling and anxiety producing it is when it seems the health care workers are not doing there job. My sister is a nurse and there were times she would visit my grandma in the hospital, specifically after she fractured her hip, and they were not properly tending to a bed sore that was starting up (this is years before she died) and she was developing pneumonia and they had not prescribed antibiotics for her. My sister had to make sure everything happened. That is ridiculous! We were lucky to have a family member who had done that exact type of medical work.
I was in a bad accident and they never cleaned all the road rash all over my body in the ER; they missed stitching a deep cut on my elbow; they dismissed my trouble breathing as anxiety, but it was actually a small tear in my lung; all sorts of things. My husband couldn’t understand how I laid there patiently in pain for hours, I won’t bore you with the entire story. When I was inpatient my husband brought the deep cut up to the nurse’s attention on the floor, and the aides also a couple of times because it was oozing constantly and they just slapped a gauze on it and tape. I couldn’t see it really, I was not able to twist well enough in my state. He was upset about it for a couple of days, bringing it up over and over, and I was not as worried, I was so uncomfortable in general, it was just part of my pain. After I was discharged, the next day when it was still open and oozing, so now it is three, or maybe it is four days after the accident, we went to urgent care on our 8 hour drive home. The doctor there said it should have been stitched in the ER. She prescribed me an antibiotic to be on the safe side and put simple steristrips across it, and gave me some strips to take home with mel Within 24 hours my body began to mend the cut. Total incompetence at the hospital regarding that by many different medical professionals attending to me. My point is, don’t beat yourself up if you are.
I hope someone on the Q can maybe tell you their own experience to give you more information about how they were affected.