Should I Be Pi**Ed Off?

With my most recent hospital stay, I got the Fall Risk tag as explained in the ER due to the fact I'm over the age of seventy!  Really, I mean seriously, who the hell do they think they are?  Long ago when I was working hard to be the best drunk in the world I didn't fall down, well just once and that was due to a long neck Bud bottle to head.  And to add even more fuel to my ranging fire of outrage my discharge diagnosis lists my noncompliance as seventh !!! I'm not sure if they really understand all the work I've put into that title over the last nearly sixty years.

Thanks for listening, I'm not really upset, everyone was very nice and I had excellent care while there.  I just wanted to vent a little about the age thingy and have a laugh or three.

Peace

Hi Deane,

I have no idea as to the organization you were at, but it might help to learn their definition of the word “fall”.    Now to me fall means to go “splat!”  But due to various reasons “fall” might mean what I would call a stumble.   I hired a new nurse who, on her first day on the job, reported 30+ falls.  That was more than we normally have in a year.  She had come from a place that had a very broad definition of  “ fall”.

Deane Adams wrote:  I just wanted to vent a little about the age thingy and have a laugh or three.

When I was a young driver and another car seemed to be being excessively cautious, I'd look at the driver and jokingly categorize some of them as LOL's or LOM's.

This was before LOL was an internet thing. What they meant to me was, "Little Old Lady" or "Little Old Man," which automatically in my mind excused that cautious behavior.

Sigh... somewhere in the last five years, I now qualify for the LOL title. Yes, part of it is that I do much less driving to begin with, and much less "busy road" driving, but I have had to admit that my reflexes simply aren't as good as they used to be.

Apologies to all you young whipper snappers, but I'd like to arrive alive, and I'd especially not like to feel guilty about ruining someone else's day or life. So yes, I get it Deane about the "age thingy," but laugh and get over it. My friend slipped and fell and broke her leg and 7 months later, she's still paying for it. Just be thankful you're over 70 and still breathing. I know too many people who didn't make it that far!

What do they do if you have a “fall risk”? Restrict your movement?

John I once had a medic type person tell me that anytime one ends up with their keester touching the floor, it's a Fall!.  This is a regional hospital with a mostly busy ER and fair trauma center.  My night nurse when she first allowed me to get up and walk around some, as she left the room said that when she returned if I was on the floor she would drag me over to closet, roll me inside and shut door,  it made me laugh!!

Jay in the late 60's and early 70's I had a number of times that I wondered if I was breathing my last breath.  I've looked death in the eye a number of times, and today I may no longer be able to kick his ass, I'm still able to piss all over his boots and laugh while doing so as he helps me on the way.

I'm in no hurry to reach the Summerlands but when the time rolls around I think I'm ready to go.

Peace

The beds have alarms built in so that if the weight of a body lifts it will sound and the nurse will come running.  I know it works because I kept doing so out of pure noncompliance once, until they turned it off!!!  That made me smile and laugh.

Peace