My Dad was admitted to Lakeland about a month ago. He had been complaining of not having his equilibrium and balance, he was also having chest pain. We came to the ER at Lakeland and the ER staff was very good. He was admitted to the medical floor. The 2nd floor staff was wonderful. It was difficult for all of us, Dad had an extensive health history and the Doctors spent the first 3-4 days determining what was wrong and did not have a lot of answers for us. The nursing staff always remained upbeat and positive and that helped us.
The Tuesday after he was admitted my father had respiratory failure which would have resulted in his death if not for the quick actions of the nursing staff. He was transferred to ICU at this point. The ICU staff was tremendous, not just taking care of Dad, but taking care of our whole family. The staff were constantly attending to the needs of my Father and trying to help him communicate. My family wanted to stay close and the staff was able to get a cot for us to stay in the ICU with my Father.
In time, it was determined that my Father's respiratory system could not keep up with him anymore, he had TB as a young man and so had been living with only one lung most of his life. We were given the option of going to St. Luke's for a procedure which had a very small likelyhood of success.
We opted to stay at Lakeland and work with the Palliative Care team to make my Father as comfortable as possible. We were pleasantly surprised to have a Palliative Care team at such a small facility. The Palliative Care team not only helped us make our father comfortable but helped us make arrangements for additional care and resources for my mom at home.
Once we realized my father was terminal we made the decision as a family to keep my father comfortable and hope that he did not suffer long. The ICU staff was incredibly kind and caring. The nurses were always calling and giving us updates, they would explain movements my father was making and helped us understand what was going on from moment to moment.
My father's last day, Mary Brow was our nurse. Mary had been our nurse a couple times before as well. Mary calmly explained it could be today or it might not be, these things were hard to tell. My Mom and I were in the room all day and what struck me most about Mary was how she took care of my Mom. My Mom has short term memory loss as a result of a surgery a few years ago. Mary would come in every time and kneel next to Mom and hold her hand. Mary would assure my Mom over and over that we were making him as comfortable as possible and he was not suffering. Mary kept my Mom calm in a situation where it would have been very easy for her to freak out.
When my father died, after Mary had confirmed everything, she sat and held hands with my Mom and me. She was loving and compassionate and she told us "Stay here as long as you need to, I will take care of you." As we were getting ready to leave, my Mom mentioned her leg was very painful, she had a bad ankle from a recent fall. I mentioned to my Mom we should probably get an x-ray as long as we are in a hospital. Mary heard this and called the ER to let them know what was happening and that we would be coming down.
This was a hard experience for my family , the ICU team and Mary could not have been more helpful. To me the real difference about Lakeland is that the staff really did care about us. You don't get that same level of compassion at the larger facilities. Everyone at Lakeland really exhibited that they cared about more than the medical problems, they cared for the people...my father and my family, Thank you.