June 2017 - I went to the hospital after my water broke for an epidural because I was in so much pain. The nurses changed multiple times while I was there so there was no continuity of care. One of them pushed the button to release pain meds, which only I was supposed to push. The epidural did not work. They put 2% in me and that froze my whole body so they turned everything off and I went back to being in excruciating pain.
While I was frozen and had been told to rest a new nurse came in and kept asking me questions that were unnecessary like my age, etc. They already had all of that information so I did not get any rest before the pain started. It got so bad that I ended up needing a C-Section and to be fully knocked out. The anesthesiologist was very rude and spoke to me like he was disciplining a child instead of talking to a traumatized person in pain.
I felt like no one could help me and that I just wanted to escape. The communication was often abrupt and cold. After my baby was born there was a wonderful nurse the first night but the next day they were pressuring me to walk down the hall because that is protocol and they didn't know what I had gone through. In some ways some staff were great but a lot of the time I felt like many things happened to make the situation worse and I kept feeling like no one would really listen.
I say that my child's birthday is also the anniversary of the worst day of my life. I am very sad that it is how I feel.
I gave lots of feedback and they responded well and seemed to want to improve. The anesthesiologist is the only one who really didn't seem to understand the negative impact he had and kept trying to deflect blame.
