Recent Spate of Hate Mail

Recently I have received a spate of hate-mail from people purporting to be anesthesia nurses.  I can assure you that I read every single one of them, even if I do not allow the comments to be posted.  As I have explained before, I heavily censor what goes up on the blog.  I do however save them.  Just in case, if you get my drift.

What I still find amazing is just how bad the behavior is.  Of course it's all anonymous, so the writers can hide behind that.  Very few actually have taken me up on e-mailing me.  Why is that?  Do you think attacking me AGAIN after my debacle will somehow make me and others who have been harmed by your favorite drug feel better about it?  You know what makes me feel better about crna's?  Guess.  When they say that they don't use Versed on everybody just to make their job easier or to gain that "compliance" or "cooperation" they tout.  You guys are supposed to be PROFESSIONALS.  Every single one of you uses this as an excuse for what happened to me.  It isn't professional to disregard "informed consent" laws for any reason or to surreptitiously inject innocent trusting patients with Versed, especially if they have declined it.

I have seen the posts on how impossible it is to follow the law.  It's on allnurses, it's on nurse-anesthesia, it's in posts all over the internet.  How do you think that makes me feel after MY incident?  You think it makes me full of joyous anticipation for my next encounter with health care?  My crna, the nurses, the hospital where I went, all decided that informed consent is a joke and that THEY didn't have to follow it.  They caused me great harm and then laughed it off.

I never received one ounce of sympathy for the ordeal, not one apology, nobody got in trouble, it was business as usual, except for the part in the PACU.  Even then, I was admonished that I was "upsetting" the other patients.  Really?  What about the part where I had every reason to be upset?  I was given that damn Versed without warning or permission.  I had clearly stated that nobody was allowed to give me any drug which would incapacitate me.  I never signed an anesthesia consent.  How would I know that I was going to be attacked with "vitamin v" the simple muscle relaxer?  I TRUSTED them.  I declined the general anesthetic.  I TRUSTED them not to give it to me.  Absolutely trusted them.  I had THE LAW on my side as well to prevent the very thing that happened to me.  I was such an ignorant fool.  Believe me I already feel like the most stupid person on the planet for TRUSTING the medical minions.  They took that trust in themselves and informed consent laws and ground it up under their heel.  Then I am supposed to just get on with my life, and forget about it...AFTER I PAY you for the assault of course.  I TRUSTED you people to treat me with respect and dignity, and in compliance with the law.  Instead I got a crna who figured I was unimportant, my wishes were unimportant, my previous experiences were unimportant and I apparently was just a slab of meat, a defiant one at that, which needed to be dealt with by any means possible.  That was with Versed...vitamin v.

So after dealing with the abuse of my crna, whom I discovered was a crna when I complained to the outfit that sent him, I got the brushoff again.  I didn't even know crna's existed.  This is required to be explained to me before surgery.  I have a right to have a doctor instead of a nurse.  It's the law.  I had no intentions of having general anesthetic, declined it vigorously along with sedation so I wasn't all that worried.  I TRUSTED THEM.  Obviously with my previous history with anesthesia I would NEVER have allowed a nurse to try their hand at it.  He KNEW the minute I walked in what he was going to do, I said no and I got EVERYTHING HE WANTED TO DO TO ME ANYWAY.  I GOT THE ENORMOUS BILL FOR IT AS WELL.  NOBODY GAVE A DAMN ABOUT ME.  How does it feel to be treated like a barnyard animal?  How does it feel to be given a NOTORIOUSLY bad drug against your will?  Cavalierly given to a patient with a history of bad reactions to anesthesia drugs?  I don't think you people (oh yes I did use that term) think about that at all.  The thing is, even if I had allowed Versed to be used on me, the nature of the drug is such that I would have had a bad reaction to it, like so many other people, the difference being in ALLOWING IT.  I rejected this drug and every other one with the same effects.  (10% bad reaction to Versed times the number of procedures comes out to millions of people)  I also had a bad reaction to being rendered helpless by people I trusted and treated with disdain for me and for the law.  To have it given to me by a NURSE in DIRECT defiance of my wishes and listening to his nasty, ugly chatter about me was horrifying.  The other nurses were laughing at the comments and at me.  If there was a doctor in the room, he/she ignored what was going on.  You clearly have no idea how bad this is.

So the way to keep the abuse fresh in my mind is for anesthesia nurses to come here and attack me some more.  Sure makes sense to me!  Defend your alleged superiority over me.  Defend a nurses ability to defy the patient and the law.  Defend patients getting Versed AND general anesthetic when they say no.  Defend it all.  I will post your comments for the world to see.  (and believe it or not, this blog is seen all over the world.  People from England and Australia have written to me about their bad experience with Versed.)  Somebody needs to rein you guys in.  My hope is that one of my elected officials, the crna organizations, the nursing organizations, SOMEBODY whom I have sent this blog to will pay attention.  Versed is a BAD drug.  You are exhibiting BAD behavior.  I'm calling you on it.  I think all of you nurses who leave those nasty anti-social messages for me should have remedial training.  I suggest sensitivity training, anger management classes and classes on informed consent law.