The lifeguards did not carry me on a stretcher, but ordered me to go down the stairs. And so, bent in half, in slippers and in a bathrobe, I climbed the 25 steps of the staircase … step by step …
1.
Intestinum tenue, the longest section of the gastrointestinal tract, in both you and me is 5 to 6 m. As much as the Warsaw Mermaid. With Danuta Łuniewska much less. How much? 80 cm – not much more than two Wrocław dwarfs. The drama that caused her to lose most of her small intestine started with the apple pie, but it is not because of a piece of cake that she is crippled.
2.
The 59-year-old does not leave the house without a diaper. She is in the toilet seven to twelve times a day. Five nights a week, she sleeps with a catheter connected to a 2-liter feeding bag. She planned not to retire and has not worked for three years. She had a ticket to Crete but never made it to check-in. During the conversation, he says that he wants cherries, but ends up eagerly. Today and for the rest of my life … What happened three years ago at the Provincial Hospital Nicolaus Copernicus in Koszalin that her “now” is vegetation? THREAD. For six hours: one big nothing …
3.
February 21.02.2017, 7.30 Danuta remembers like yesterday. Around XNUMX my son Michał left for work, and she started to prepare breakfast for two sisters who came to her for holidays with their children. There was an apple pie on the kitchen counter. Homemade with a crispy crumble. Who among us would resist? She tasted a piece and began to choke. – When I tried to clear my throat, it felt like my gut was sucking into the hernial sac. As if you were trying to pull a thick string through the keyhole. The fifth time I felt a strong contraction, then an excruciating pain. I knew immediately that I had a hernia. And I have little time …
4.
There is indeed little time left. If there is a bowel entrapment, the disease progresses rapidly and urgent surgery is required. Danuta had an explosive charge in her stomach, and the detonation time was no more than four hours. This was followed by intestinal necrosis, followed by perforation, peritonitis, septic shock and death. Nevertheless, the chances of disarming the ticking bomb were high, the “future patient” lived 3 km from the hospital. A stone’s throw.
5.
– I couldn’t even scream, but with the last of my strength I blurted out: Agnieszka, Agnieszka. After a while, both sisters appeared in the kitchen. They took me by the arms and helped me to the next room. I lay down on the couch. At eight o’clock they called 999.
- Also read: For 16 years they have not been able to recognize my illness. Symptoms? As it turned out, they were bookish
6.
– The P-type ambulance arrived in 20 minutes. I immediately told the rescuers that I had a hernia and showed a large bumblebee on the right side of my abdomen. They tried to convince me that I had pains after ordinary poisoning. Lifeguard asked if I could get up. I said no. He asked to rate the pain on a scale of 1 – 10. 20 – I quit. I got four painkillers. The lifeguards did not carry me on a stretcher, but ordered me to go down the stairs. And so, folded in half, in slippers and in a bathrobe, I climbed the 25 steps of the staircase …
7.
To the Provincial Hospital of them. Nicholas Copernicus in Koszalin, the patient arrived a few minutes after nine. As part of the triad, it was marked in green. Waiting time up to 120 minutes! She was to survive regardless of the help provided. – I was placed in the so-called “Emergency Department”, one of the three positions separated by a curtain. My sister Agnieszka, a physiotherapist and masseuse by profession, who followed the ambulance, approached the nurses and asked when the doctor would come. Wait – she heard. And he came, but not to me. He didn’t even look at me – he took care of the patient next to him, then disappeared. I was 50 kg too much. Medics don’t like obese patients – maybe that’s why …
8.
– Around 11:XNUMX the doctor showed up again and passed me by again. Agnieszka ran after him and asked for help. She said: – Doctor, your sister does peritoneal pains. Maybe additional research is needed? – If you are so well informed, let you examine the patient yourself – he said and went. She was devastated, returned to the reception desk and demanded an immediate medical consultation.
9.
Twenty minutes later the doctor became interested in the patient who was lying like an embryo and vomiting into the kidneys. He touched the bottom of my stomach, ordered an x-ray of my abdomen, and left without a word. I was sure someone was coming to pick me up. This “right” lasted 40 minutes. The nurse told me to sit on the wheelchair. I was not able to, so we went to RTG in bed. On the way, we stopped by the toilet. Please believe me – I wasn’t vomiting, I was splashing my bile into the toilet. I remember that the x-ray was taken while sitting, but the card says: standing. After all, we went downstairs.
Photo Danuta’s “First Aid Kit”. – During the first two years, my world was closed to medicines, dressings and syringes
10
The next stop was an ultrasound of the abdominal cavity, performed four hours later at the ER. This time the nurse got his way and took Danuta in a wheelchair for the examination. – The ultrasound was a nightmare. Every time the doctor pressed the transducer against the skin, I felt pain. I could see from his face that it was bad. I was aware that intestinal necrosis is a complication of a hernia entrapment. I just didn’t know how much time I had. Today I know: four hours. At 13:XNUMX p.m. it was gone … The card read: “Intestinal loops and visceral fat are visible in the hernia sac. Intestinal loops without peristalsis, with a thickened, concussive wall, with no visible vascular flow (risk of ischemia). Urgent surgical intervention indicated. “
11
After returning from the examination, Danuta faced a verbal scuffle instead of the operating table. The nurse needed a wheelchair and told her to get down to the chair in the corridor. The refusal upset the medic. – What do you mean you won’t come down? On the chair, please – he shouted at the entire emergency room. At that moment, the nurse appeared, accompanying her colleague. I grabbed her hand and pressed it against her stomach. He was as hard as stone, as big as a ball. She was scared and told him to bring the bed. Moments later, two doctors came. They meditated on me, they meditated. One of them started calling another hospital. All I heard was: you need to operate, a young woman – 56 years old.
12
– Before three, a doctor came to see me, who had treated me like air before. He said: – We will take you to the Regional Hospital in Kołobrzeg. – Do you agree? He didn’t even use the words: for surgery. I tried to digest his question and he turned and started walking away. I screamed I agree to his back. Why didn’t they operate on the spot? I don’t know – apparently they didn’t take place, but I think they were scared …
Photo – If the HED doctor examined me and I was operated on within three hours, my life would be normal
13
After six hours at the HED, the patient “in need of urgent surgical intervention” was discharged from the hospital. At 15.10:30 PM she was transported on a bed to an ambulance standing in the driveway. There she spent the next XNUMX minutes. – The lifeguard went back inside for my paperwork three times. They couldn’t find her. At that time, I was lying like a bunny next to the patient after eye surgery. 70 years old, a loud voice and a broken record: I want to smoke, I have to smoke… The rescuer initially protested, but finally gave up. They left together when they returned in the haze of smoke the documents were still gone. At 15.40 I heard: – I have your papers, we can go.
14
– The road from Koszalin to Kołobrzeg is straight: Łękno, Będzino, Słowienkowo, Uliszki, Borkowice, Tymień, Bagicz. 42 km – out of season you can get there in 40 minutes. It took us almost three times as long. It turned out that we would go through Mielno to Gąski to pick up the second patient. And we drove along the coastal road over these bumps. The ambulance shook like a washing machine. All the time I was holding my belly and praying to survive … I started vomiting outside her house. I said: God, I’m going to die soon. The driver was terrified: – I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you were in such a condition. We will go faster …
15
— We arrived at the hospital before 17.00. I was taken from a stretcher to a hospital bed. Before I reported to the Emergency Room, I spent twenty minutes with the rescuer from Koszalin in the toilet. After so many hours, I was unable to get to the toilet, I was splashing brown bile on the walls. Over the white tiles, 1,5 meters high. I was ashamed that I had so dirty.
16
A quarter of an hour later Danuta was admitted to the Department of General Surgery. The fight began not for the gut, but for life. – I felt as if I had come from a dark night to a white day. The head physician came up to me and introduced himself. By name, surname, function. He asked if I knew why I was brought to their hospital in Kołobrzeg. I replied that I had no clue. Nobody informed me about anything. He asked for documentation from Koszalin, I pointed to the gray envelope of the lifeguard. It turned out that there was only a discharge from the hospital. Morphology, USG and X-ray results were missing. He did not hide his nervousness. The research was commissioned again.
- Also read: Doctors gave her several days to live. She showed them how wrong they were
17
– For the following hours the doctors did not go around me, they were running. They even quarreled. The anesthesiologist said I would die if they operated on me. The head physician shouted that I would die if they were not. Their hands were tied… A third surgeon, a woman, was called. She said: – Please, Lady, I don’t know if it will be like that, but probably when you wake up, your intestine will be exposed to the bag outside. I would like you to be prepared for this. I am very grateful to her for that. Around 21.00 p.m., after thirteen hours of pain, vomiting and vomiting, Danuta felt a stab and fell asleep …
18
The operation lasted 90 minutes. A hernia sac was opened with a longitudinal incision in the abdomen, from which the necrotic lesion of the entire ileum and half of the jejunum was removed. On the left side, a jejunostomy was found. The left section was 90 cm. – When I woke up, I had two plastic containers on my stomach and a small intestine bag on the side. My new anus. Traumatic experience … All the eaten pulps passed through the stomach and, together with the bile, ended up in the bag, which detached, flooded shirts and bedding. I was so tired. My brother – Wojtek, who lives permanently in Silesia, used to come from Koszalin to the hospital for the whole month. He brought fresh towels, clean shirts, forced them to talk, read newspapers. He left his own family to help me.
19
– After three weeks, the head physician came to me and said that he would not leave me like that. He proposed an operation to restore the continuity of the digestive tract. The team was divided – not everyone thought my body could handle it. But to live like that, what is this life? On March 14 at 11.55 Danuta was put under the knife again. During the operation with a stapler, a section of the jejunum emerged as a jejunostomy was cut off, and what was connected to the transverse colon. After all, her small intestine was 80 cm. Apparently, there are two such patients in Poland.
20
– Even before the operation, the head of the clinic warned my family that if it was bad, it would be worse now. It was… I was removed almost 85 percent. small intestine. I had nothing to digest, nothing to absorb. I visited the toilet up to 24 times a day… For the first days after the surgery, I couldn’t even get to it. It was my sisters who washed me, they changed every week. I experienced a mental ordeal – our mother died when I was 17. I raised 7-year-old Kasia and 2-year-old Agnieszka, and now I had to expose myself to them in bed and in the shower. This is one of the few things I can’t forgive myself. Great humiliation.
21
In the Regional Hospital in Kołobrzeg, Danuta spent the entire month of March and mid-April – 50 days in bed. 12.04. she was taken by ambulance to the Clinical Hospital. Heliodor Święcicki UM in Poznań. In the department of gastroenterology, her panel of nutritional tests was performed and a new, easily digestible, lactose-free diet was established. She came home at Easter, but it was no longer Christmas … Instead of sour soup, carrots, instead of herring in cream, poultry meatballs, instead of mazurka an empty plate.
Photo – Five times a week, previously seven, I hook up to two-liter food bags
22
At the September inspection in Poznań, Danuta appeared thinner by another 23 kg. In total, she had been lighter by 39 kg since February. The doctors had no choice but to qualify the patient for total parenteral nutrition at home. During the procedure, her Broviac catheter was inserted, a silicone tube hidden under the skin of her chest, connected to the central vein entering the atrium of the heart. – Five times a week, previously seven, I hook up to two-liter food bags. Even before bedtime, I hang the bag on the hanger and do not go out until 10.00 the next day. I read, knit, look at the ceiling and it is dripping like this, drop by drop. Apart from infusions, I eat little: boiled potatoes, carrots, white bread. No fun for three years and the rest of the days …
23
– For the first two years I did not see the meaning of life. I did not answer the phone, I did not receive guests, I did not leave the house. My world is closed to drugs, dressings, syringes. I do not wish anyone pain – as if the broken glass was put inside. I had such states that I wanted to lock myself in the closet and disappear. I had days when I came back from the post office or the store in wet underwear. Now, without a diaper, I don’t leave the house. The first question I ask in a new place is where is the toilet?
24
– A year ago I moved out of Koszalin. I rented an apartment in a town near Warsaw where my sisters live. They cook, clean, wash and iron me. I am not able to lift a kettle filled with water by myself. I only cook myself for a glass of tea. I had little dreams – we planned to travel with my cousin. Two pensioners and a map. I’m not going anywhere anymore. The four-day bags weigh 10 kg – I won’t take them anywhere.
- Also read: Marek has an appetite for life. It eats through a tube in the chest
25
In 2018, Danuta submitted an application for access to medical records from the hospital in Koszalin. Weeks passed and no answer came. – I decided to collect the documents on my own. I started with the ambulance station in Koszalin. The manager copied a medical emergency card for me. About two weeks later, the hospital sent the paperwork. I looked at it after a few days – four pages were missing and the rescue card was forged. In the copy, which I received from the emergency station, in the comments of the team leader, it was written: no doctor at the HED. In the copy the hospital provided me, this space was empty. Cleaned … Both documents have been certified as true copies of the original.
26
In March 2020, the Ombudsman for Patients initiated an investigation into the violation of Danuta Łuniewska’s patient’s right to healthcare services. In the course of the case, a specialist opinion was obtained by the Consultant of the internal Office of the Patient Ombudsman. We can read in it: “Hernia trapped it is an indication for immediate surgery for vital reasons, it is not an explanation for the lack of places. If the hernia surgery was performed in the shortest possible time, it would probably be possible to limit the scope of the small intestine resection and provide the patient with a better quality of life. ” “(…) Proceedings of the medical staff at the Hospital in Koszalin on February 21.02.2017, XNUMX was inconsistent with the current medical knowledge and without due diligence (…).
27
05.06.2020/XNUMX/XNUMX The Ombudsman for Patients found a violation of the rights of the patient – Ms Danuta Łuniewska to health services by the Provincial Hospital of them. Nicholas Copernicus in Koszalin, and also formulated conclusions as to how to settle the matter. The “medical entity” complied with the recommendations – as part of corrective actions, the medical staff was presented with the content of the decision and training was conducted to remind the provisions governing the patient’s right to health services. The director of the medical entity indicated that the staff regularly participates in periodic training, improving professional qualifications, as well as interpersonal training aimed at developing soft skills and communicating with the patient.
28
With questions about why the patient was not helped, I turned to the hospital in Koszalin. I did not receive an answer to any of them: “Currently, there is a court proceeding brought by Ms Łuniewska v. The Hospital. All the circumstances of staying in the hospital will be investigated during the trial. “
29
I asked the lawyers from the Law Firm “Lazer & Hudziak”, representing Ms Danuta, for comments. – It is hard to believe that the story of Ms Danuta really happened. And yet… therefore we believe that the hospital must take responsibility for what happened. The civil suit has been filed, we are waiting for the first hearing – comments legal counsel Małgorzata Hudziak. – For Ms Danuta, we demand compensation and a life annuity. We hope that the Patients’ Ombudsman will stand on our side in court – adds Joanna Lazer.
30
– What hurts me the most? I guess I was 3 km away from the hospital in Koszalin. As you young people say: “a stone’s throw”. If the ED doctor examined me and I had an operation within three hours, my life would be normal and I could still do my favorite job …
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