I AM SO ANGRY!

I have to vent!  I am so angry with Kaiser Hospital in Fontana.  I have been there since noon today.  For two weeks my Mom has been saying she does not feel well, her urine looks funny and she has been throwing up off and on.  Last night, my Mom said she didn't get any sleep because she was itching so badly.  When I called her this morning, she said she thinks the urine and the itching must have something to do with each other and asked me to take her to the emergency room because she was so miserable.  I went to her house, got her ready and off we went.   

My Mom had a bi-lateral mastectomy on June25h.  About a week after surgery, she started to feel like herself again.  A few days later, we went for a bone scan and she has been sick since.  For the past two weeks, she has been seen by a Dr. almost every single day.  We have told all of them her symptoms.  But today, as soon as we got to the emergency room, a nurse asked to look at her eyes.  As soon as she did, she said your Mother has jaundice!  Why in the world would a nurse tell me this and not one of the Dr's. we have been seeing.  They put her in a bed in the emergency room, took a urine sample and some blood.  When the Dr. returned, he said her Bilirubin came back an 8 and it shouldn't be over a 2.  He said it could be caused by one of three things.  1.  She has a spot on her liver that showed on her CT Scan and it could be from that.  2.  It could be from a virus or 3.  It could be hepatitis.  His thought was that it was probably hepatitis but he would not have the test results back for a few days.  He thought it would be best to admit her to run further tests.  He said he would have to call the internist Dr. to have her ok to admit her.   

When the Internist Dr. arrived she told us she did not feel it was necessary to admit her because she felt the jaundice was from a metastasis she had in her liver.  I asked her why she felt that way or how she knew the spot on her liver was a metastasis when the oncologist said it could not be determined if it was or wasn't.  I told her I didn't understand why she was able to determine it was cancerous and asked to see the actual report from the CT Scan to see if there was something we were not told.  I told her I was angry about her being sick as I have been taking her to figure out what is going on for two weeks now.  I explained my Mom is starting chemo on September 3^rd and she needs to be well in order to begin treatment.  She said she recommends we do not start the treatment because she is sick.  I asked her what qualifies her to tell me my Moms cancer has metastasized and that she should delay her chemo.  I told the Dr. we needed to speak with the oncologist on call.  

We were at Kaiser Fontana, from noon until 7:00 p.m.  They paged the oncologist the first time around 1:30 and kept trying to get him until we finally gave up and left.  My Mom's oncologist told us this past Wednesday, if you ever go to the emergency room, the first words out of your mouth need to be, I am a cancer patient so they know to call an oncologist.  What a joke!  The nurses and Dr.'s just kept coming by saying they were sorry, but the oncologist was not answering any of the pages.  When we were there, there was another woman who came in who had a chemo treatment about a week ago.  She said her cancer was in her lungs, bones and liver.  She said she was so sick she felt like she needed to be admitted.  They weren't able to reach the oncologist for her either.  She was still there when we left and I pray they agree to admit her and hope they found a bed and room for her to stay. 

I am still pissed but feel a little better after venting.  Thank you for being here.