Later I was told I was Code Blue. I knew what was going on, though, when I opened my eyes. They were saving my life. I chewed out the hospital staff. I could sort of talk this time around. I went through the procedure to become DNR (Do-Not-Resuscitate). This had happened before (saving my life), but it left me profoundly disabled. Actually this time I opened my eyes before they did anything. I said to the nurse above me, "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to intubate you."
She was stunned. "Do you still want to be intubated?" She probably didn't know what to say or do.
"No."
To all in the room I said, "Is this what's done for DNR?"
Heads down, they left the room. (They knew they just broke a contract.)
Hospital staff did it...they managed to avoid me in the hospital. I didn't see a doctor for a few days. I only saw the janitor and CNAs. That was possible in a long-term care unit.
Maybe if I had sat up and started to sing...
ReplyDelete"Code Blue" is generally used to indicate a patient requiring resuscitation or otherwise in need of immediate medical attention, most often as the result of a respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest. When called overhead, the page takes the form of "Code Blue, (floor), (room)" to alert the resuscitation team where to respond. Every hospital, as a part of its disaster plans, sets a policy to determine which units provide personnel for code coverage. In theory any medical professional may respond to a code, but in practice the team makeup is limited to those with Advanced Cardiac Life Support or other equivalent resuscitation training. Frequently these teams are staffed by physicians from anesthesia and internal medicine, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and nurses. A code team leader will be a physician in attendance on any code team; this individual is responsible for directing the resuscitation effort and is said to "run the code". This phrase was coined at Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.[6] The term "code" by itself is commonly used by medical professionals as a slang term for this type of emergency, as in "calling a code" or describing a patient in arrest as "coding". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_emergency_codes