Making a post-surgery update + rant (02/02/2024).
The Paley Institute itself is amazing, I have zero concerns with them. The surgery went better than expected as I hardly bled (around 5-10x less than average).
In terms of physiotherapy, it has been amazing. The machines really do help and the physiotherapist is really helpful and goes the extra mile to help.
Now, for clarification my concerns that you’ll see next are about a select few bad hospital staff. Most were amazing, but I’ve had 3 extremely bad experiences in my 3-day stay.
For those who don’t know, you don’t stay at the Paley Institute during your hospitalisation (in Europe anyway). You stay at the MediCare Hospital which is their partner hospital.
My first bad interaction was when the anaesthesiologist came into the room to remove the epidural pain killers. The way he took it off felt like he was waxing my back (and as I had a needle attached to my spine, let’s just say that I still have back pain from it). It should go away in a few days hopefully, will update you all on this matter.
The second somewhat unpleasant experience was removing the catheter. I don’t think the nurse did a bad job, but she kind of yanked it and it caused some bleeding. Apparently this is normal, I’m no catheter expert. Thought I’d mention it regardless, just felt like it could’ve been a lot gentler and smoother.
I’ve had some really awesome nurses who went the extra mile. As I want to keep updates brief, I’ll mention the negatives.
One of the really cool nurses who made a big difference mentioned that my IV was too big which causes a bit of unnecessary pain. I don’t think this is a surgeon issue, but more an issue with whoever made the decision to put a huge IV when a smaller one would’ve done the
same job with less pain. Something minor but I thought that I’d highlight issues that even nurses brought up.
And the final bad experience was with a nurse who was injecting painkillers in the most painful way (ironic). For the first time ever, the liquid splashed everywhere. It felt like she was pressure washing my veins. Really bad and extremely painful experience, felt like I would’ve been treated better by a zoo. Later I was able to wash myself with the IV on. Now the catch is that the nurses were just sitting there waiting for me to clean myself with only 1 hand (using the hand with the IV is painful).
I was given zero help despite only being able to use 1 hand. When the surgeon came in, they started to pretend like they were doing work and started helping. This help was momentarily, as soon as the surgeon left they basically said “Yeah good luck cleaning yourself, call us when you’re done”.
This then died down once he left, and they basically said “Yh so wash yourself, good luck, call us when you’re done”. On the first day the other set of nurses really helped me with cleaning, so this mediocre half-arsed “help” was disappointing.
I had some really positive experiences with nurses too. However, I thought I’d bring these up as I’m sure that Paley does read this diaries. Awesome surgeons and physiotherapists. A good half of the nurses at the hospital were amazing too. However the bad experiences were bad enough that they caused pain and as per the most recent one had nurses who were trying to cut corners which increased pain.
As always, I am posting disc (d) updates here with pictures:
https://-/P7eyY47C