April 2019
Hayley
Liston
,
RN
Solid Organ Transplant/General Surgery
University of Arkansas Medical Sciences
Little Rock
,
AR
United States
Hayley took the first and biggest step in saving my husband's life. He is a quadriplegic. He went in for bladder removal surgery this summer. He had emergency surgery just days later because his colon ruptured. (It was the middle of the night.) After his first surgery, he really wasn't acting right. All too often people assume paralyzed means no pain, and that's just not true. Whether she thought he was really in pain or not, she never showed it. You wouldn't believe how many times he gets put off because of it. She never once acted like he was faking or seeking drugs. She listened to all of his ailments and treated him with respect. She went through every option that was available until there were literally no options left. She consulted with the floor doctor, who had him moved up to ICU as a precaution because he met the criteria. He was never mistreated in ICU, nor treated disrespectfully. However, he wasn't handled the same way he had been handled up on the 9th floor. It took almost 24 hours for him to be checked for sepsis. A trauma had come in, plus it took a while to get someone to listen to me that something was not right. When you spend 24 hours a day together and provide 100% of the care, you know that person's body like the back of your hand. During that 24-hour period, his bladder ruptured and was slowing leaking back into his body. After this emergency colon surgery, he was back and forth between the hospital over about a five-week span. It wasn't until the end of his last stay that we were told that every new stay starts from the beginning, no matter if you were released the day before, or whatever. We understand that, of course. We are just so grateful that one person kept looking for an answer even when she could not see what was going on inside my husband's paralyzed body and that she never treated him like he was faking.