A Week in Queen Mary Hospital

Thank you all so much for your outpouring of support and thoughts for my ordeals with GD this past week.  I tend to be a bit dramatic and I know I am making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill, in the whole scheme of things of what could be wrong, but on a personal front it has felt really awful this week.  This has not been a good mental and emotional period for me.

Aside from 15 hours that I was allowed home leave on Tuesday night, I have spent 5 entire days in this godforsaken public ward at Queen Mary hospital, pretty much pacing its fluorescent lit halls, choking down inedible paste and sulphurous eggs, working (working on an iPad and mobile phone with no WiFi I might add), stalking Lola over the home video-cam, and trying to entertain myself with whatever I can coax to download over my hotspot.  Oh, and fighting with the nurses and doctors at every turn trying to get them to release me. 

This hospital needs some goddamn WiFi.  They also have insanely strict visiting hours, limited to an hour at lunch and two hours from 6 to 8 in the evening.  They also do not allow any visitors under 2. Also, this is a general ward with no doors or walls.  Everything is separated by curtains.  And as far as I can tell, this is where all pregnant women come for ailments, including if they have started the birthing process but have not progressed far enough to get into an actual labor and delivery room.  So many times during the night and day I had had to deal with a whole range of distressed sounds, from light groaning to mid pitched moaning to loud sobbing and wailing as women began labor. I mean, is that your idea of a relaxing and calming place to rest?  When I had to do a few conference calls, I was really praying that there would not be a cacophony serving as my background noise... it would be perhaps a bit awkward to explain.

I already ranted about this for nearly half an hour nonstop to my sister while furiously pacing in the hospital parking lot this morning, but the amount of roadblocks that the hospital and fate have devised to prevent me from being discharged are, at this point, bordering on ludicrous.  I feel like I’ve checked into an insane asylum where I cannot get out, and it’s like the harder I try the more things pop up to thwart me.  Someone is having a good laugh at my huffy expense.  

Basically I returned to the hospital on Wednesday morning to be informed we were finally starting insulin.  But we missed the morning dose and so I would have to stay overnight.  I bore that with some semblance of grace and resignation, because I figured that was fair and I had understood it would take probably a full round of meals for them to properly adjust my dosage.  I started on 4 units of fast acting insulin before lunch and 4 units of fast acting insulin before dinner.  On Thursday morning, I had promising meetings with both the endocrinologist and the DM nurse.  The endocrinologist said I could be discharged after I had my meeting with the DM nurse who would teach me how to use the insulin pen and change out my needles.  He said I was cleared from his perspective but because I was in the obstetrics ward I would need the OB’s sign off.  The DM nurse taught me the technique and I was on my way back to the ward before lunch.  I was foolishly and hopefully ecstatic that I would be home after lunch, ready to hang out with my family.  

I asked to be discharged, but the nurses were hesitant to just let me go and needed a final sign off from an OB, who I was assured was doing rounds between 4 and 5 pm.  Defeated, I sat down to wait, and thought perhaps I could get sign off and still make it home for dinner.  The OB showed up at 5:20 pm, then was somehow shocked and surprised that she had the power to determine my discharge and tried to push it to the endocrinologist. When I adamantly stated (and it was in my records in black and white) that the endocrinologist had already gave me clearance to be discharged, she switched track and said that because one of my numbers was still a bit high from after lunch, she would feel more comfortable letting me go the next day, ideally after they had a general meeting in the morning and after they saw my post lunch numbers.  I pushed back so hard that I thought I was pretty much assured of a home leave.  I made some very convincing arguments, no doubt one of which was that they were not going to do anything overnight anyway except check my numbers, which I do by myself via finger pricks.

Finally, I thought.  

But in an epic fail of miscommunication, laziness and bureaucracy, no one ever prepared my insulin pen!!  How is this possible?!  I wanted to howl.  I kept asking who was responsible and where my pen was.  But apparently the obstetrics ward thought the DM nurses would do it, apparently the DM nurses thought the endocrinologists would give further instructions... apparently the DM nurses really really screwed up.  Without my insulin pen, they were not going to let me leave.  

Hope rose in me again when at a little after 6pm, they miraculously found my pen!  But I needed needles which I would have to buy by myself for the pharmacy.  I nearly ran down there to buy the needles, only to be told there were 3 different sizes and did my nurse tell me which one?  Uh...nope.  The DM nurses left no instructions and were gone for the night.  The OB nurses were clueless and had no idea.  The OB nurse and OB shrugged and said, “Oh well guess you have to stay.” I wanted to punch them in the throat. The nurses injected me with a syringe before dinner, and I settled in for the night stewing and trying not to think about the injustice of it all.  

I missed seeing Lola entirely on Thursday.

Then, this morning, Friday, finally dawned bright with hope and promise.  Honestly, at this rate, I was prepared to starve just so my numbers looked good enough so I could be discharged.  I knew I just had to get the needles.  The OB nurse already promised me that once I purchased them, showed them how I would use the pen and got a good post lunch number, I could go.  I went down to the pharmacy as soon as I could, only to see a sign that it was closed until noon.  Then I returned at noon, only to learn that the lock in the pharmacy door had malfunctioned and they cannot locate a locksmith and they “hope” to have it open by “no later than 2 pm.”.  

YOU GUYS.  Is this crazy or what?  Now I am sitting here venting, helpless, looking at Lola on the videocam, seeing the beautiful weather outside, and waiting.  The OB nurses are already trying to get me to stay until the afternoon or dinner and I just cut them off and said NO.  I am leaving as soon as I test my post lunch number.  If they still won’t let me go, I am just walking out of the hospital by myself.

I think what both disheartens and frightens me is the disconnect between the two departments.  The endocrinologists already have said that the insulin levels have to be adjusted and monitored over time.  It’s a fact that these numbers will change.  Getting perfect numbers now does not guarantee they remain perfect.  But it’s like the OB and OB department have never dealt with a GD patient before.  They don’t want me to leave until they see a full set of blood glucose readings firmly within range. Both departments pass me back and forth like a hot potato when it comes time to calling the shots.  It. Is. So. Frustrating.  

I came to QMH this week as a last resort and because it seemed the best option at the time (the private endocrinologist  I previously saw was out of town this week) and I figured it was better to get on insulin earlier rather than later.  But for the love of all that is holy, after this week, I need to get out of the public system.  I am so done.

I miss Lola terribly, and I think she also really misses me.  When I managed to make it home on Tuesday night to tuck her into bed, she was so excited that she squealed and sat up in bed clapping.  Most of my frustration at being locked up in QMH stems from the fact that I feel like I’ve reneged on a promise to hang out with her, or be there for her, like we usually get to do at least twice a day.  It’s one thing if it’s work or a work trip and I know I have to be somewhere else.  It’s another thing if I am in the hospital because I am caught in a web of bureaucracy between the obstetrics and diabetics department neither of which want to release me because they are so busy covering themselves from liability.  Probably nothing manages to get my blood boiling more.

At least there were the two times that Michael managed to come to the hospital and take me out for a walk.  One time I got to hang out with Lola at the Cyberport park and waterfront, which was great until she realized I had to go back to the hospital and nearly lost her mind screaming and crying.  That was awesome. The other time Michael came late at night and we went for a walk at night by the water, which was great - a super, much needed break from the stifling confines of the ward.

This week has been rough on Lola’s general routine as well.  In addition to my being in a hospital, she has not had any of her regularly scheduled activities due to all of the protests going on, and schools officially shutting down starting Tuesday.  I am sure Lola misses her routine and feels that things are off.  Our nanny also had a lot of trouble getting to our place given almost all of the MTR and buses are down, and all of the road closures affecting traffic.  

The protests are too sensitive a topic to take on in my blog, but suffice it to say it has now reached the point where we are concerned and scared.  It has posed beyond just an inconvenient change to traffic patterns or school closures, but gotten to the point where we worry about our and Lola’s safety while walking on the street.  Bystanders are getting beaten up, attacked, and in one instance even lit on fire.  Tear gas was openly used in Central in the light of day during business hours when thousands of people are out and about.  No one knows what the future holds, but it is clear that Hong Kong is at a point of no return.