My mother was in Jennifer Koehler's care while recovering from hip surgery. She was 88-years-old and had her surgery on Sunday. She was in recovery on the first floor of the Hospital and on Monday and Tuesday she seemed to be doing well. On Wednesday, things changed dramatically.
When I arrived that morning, Jennifer had just given my mother her morning pills. My mother had difficulty in swallowing the larger pills, so Jennifer cut them up for her. Unfortunately, my mother emptied the whole cup of pills instead of digesting them one at a time and we had a laugh about it. Jennifer finished her duties and left the room. A short time later while talking with me, my mother sat up in the bed and began gasping for air. I hit the panic button and Jennifer responded immediately and calmed my mother down and increased her oxygen supply.
After making sure everything was in order and my mother was breathing properly, Jennifer returned to her other duties. My mother seemed fine and we were talking when suddenly, she sat up again in the bed and was really gasping hard to catch her breath. I again summoned Jennifer and when she entered she realized my mother was getting worse. What impressed me most about Jennifer is that she remained extremely calm and told me each thing she was doing to try and get my mother's breathing back to normal. After a few minutes, she summoned for help and requested a doctor. While waiting for help she continued to administer to my mother and was very attentive to her during this time.
The help did arrive in very short order. Jennifer was still by her side and with feedback from those that gathered, she continued to assist my mother while at the same time giving me an explanation of what they were doing. While all this was going on, Jennifer, from time to time, was calling out to the floor pod group asking when the doctor would be there. I am certain she knew my mother was having a heart attack, which I was told the next day that is what had occurred.
When the doctor arrived, Jennifer and the support team that had gathered there had gotten my mother's breathing under control and she was responding to their questions. The doctor complimented Jennifer and the response team on what they had done. By this time, my sister had arrived, and we were led from the room by the RN Case Manager. A few minutes later the doctor met with us and advised us that my mother was not passing the fluids through her body and she had fluids in her lungs causing her to cut off the air supply to her heart. My mother was moved up to ICU from here and spent the next couple of days on the ICU floor. I won't go into the rest of my mother's journey as she passed away on Monday.