Last year I wound up near death in the hospital, only to get well enough for them to make enough mistakes to nearly kill me twice, coding once...and I saved myself on that one!! Well, in Oct 2008 I find myself having to return to the hospital, only this time for a bilateral hip surgery.. badly needed. Knowing ALL the mistakes they made with medications last time, MD's wanting to do procedures that would tie me to Dialysis for life when not required right then and all the other things I AM SCARED TO DEATH of what could happen this time. Will I wake up from the surgery? Will I come out of the hospital alive? Will they cause another problem that I didn't go in with?
I have been in and out of hospitals for a lot of my earlier life, but not in the past 25 years, and the level of carelessness has really accelerated. Its not the nurses, the primary caregivers, but the MD's writing the orders without checking other doctors' orders first, or making sure something that was supposed to be done had been done before doing the second step,etc.
Though I have tried to keep a positive attitude the past several months knowing this would be coming, the closer it gets the more anxiety I have. I will make sure my affairs are in order before I go just in case...but I am hoping it will just be a dry run!