My Mom passed away recently, when she was in ICU one day there was blood on her bed pad. It never happened again, is this normal?
My mom was injured in her nursing home. She had huge hematomas to the front temporal area and back of head which resulted in 3 brain bleeds. She had a couple of bruises on her shoulder and broken ribs too. The nursing home did not seek send her to the hospital for 16 hours. By then she had brain damage that would have left her a non responsive person.
We spent every minute with her from Sept 9th to the 17th when she passed away. During this entire time, she never had a bowel movement. One day they were changing her bed and the pad had blood on it. This is the one and only time this happened. Would that be something normal? Her coumadin was up to 5 when she was admitted so they began pumping her with vitamin K and fresh frozen plasma.
I have been going over Mom medical records and I personally do not see how my mother could have just rolled out of bed during the night and sustained such severe injuries. Anymore, everywhere I turn, I am hearing about an elderly patient who "fell out of bed" and died from the injuries they sustained. This sounds like a convenient excuse to me.
The nursing home decided to "hold" Mom's bed at no cost while she was in the hospital, I asked them the other day if I owed them any money and the girl would not even turn around and look at me, she just shook her head "NO." They have not billed Medicare for her two weeks in their facility either.
It seems like they are telling me they are at fault by their actions, but no one is going to tell me the truth either for fear of losing their job.
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Those are the questions you need answers to. Blood on her bed pad? Notsomuch. I mean, really, she could have had a urinary tract infection and produced that.
At the end he began going through all the ins and outs of going to court...it is very expensive, each deposition costs $2,500 and we would need at least 10, etc. Cases like this are normally taken on "Contingency" so if they do not win, they do not get paid and we could be liable for the other sides attorney fees etc.
If you can only prove "Negligence" by a doctor or hospital the maximum you can get is $250,000, therefore they want to find "Abuse" which cranks up the amount you can recover greatly! After he was telling us what everything costs, I can see why they do not want to take a "Negligence" case......It probably costs more than $250,000 once you add everything up.
We decided to see other lawyers because although we did like this man, he wanted us to provide him with all Mom's medical records so he could read them and if necessary he might have to hire a doctor to help decipher them. For this he charged hourly $375, and I asked what his estimate would be that we might owe and he said he was unsure, it would be hourly, as fast a he could power through them.
I did have one attorney that told me he would look them over and see if we have a case for free. The problem is that if I do have a case, his offices are about 6 hours away from us. Unless he refers us to someone here, I do not know how his offices could handle the case from that far away.
I am becoming more and more aware of how many people are dying in nursing home situations, I am hearing it on tv, saw it in a movie the other night, it's in the newspaper and almost every person I know is telling me of a family member that also died from a "fall" and head trauma in a nursing home. This is extremely disturbing to me. It seems like our frail and fragile loved ones are being confined in nursing homes that kill them then blame it on the patient. I even heard it on the news 2 days ago about the number of nursing home injuries and deaths and they said they believe that about 80% of injuries ARE NEVER REPORTED! 80%? Can you imagine that figure?
The last thing my mother ever said was.."Not safe, not safe, get me out of here, it's dangerous here, Mary get me out, Sharon help me get out of here, it's not safe, it's dangerous here!" These are her last words to her family as she is trying to crawl out of her bed in ICU. No one could ever make me believe she was not talking about "the accident/fall" that had happened to her in the nursing home.
I cannot let my mother's death be forgotten nor let her become another statistic. Someone needs to answer for her death!
Stressed, I wonder if it would be worth visiting your mother's doctor, the one she'd had the longest, and asking him to read through your document and comment on it.
The reason I think you might find this helpful is that you mention the powerful image of seeing blood on her bed pad in ICU. Clearly, that sight is burnt into your brain; and with everything else that happened you must be enduring one sleepless night after another.
But I believe that many of the most frightening things you witnessed during that awful time are likely to have had - not good, but at least comprehensible medical reasons behind them. Getting a lucid explanation of exactly what was taking place in the ICU might very helpful.
However, it will not clear up the question of how your mother came to be injured. This is an awful question to ask, but have you thought how you will feel if the truth is that the NH staff don't know?
It is natural to want answers, and at the very least I think you should feel entitled to a detailed, transparent report of every action undertaken by every member of staff connected with your mother during her last 24 hours at the NH. But please keep in mind that it may be that nobody was with her when she fell, and nobody saw what happened.
I'm so sorry for your loss, and sorry for the manner of it. I hope the people you approach in future will give you the honesty and respect for your mother that you're entitled to.
nh is a new ( and learning ) experience for me . it reminds me of apu and his wife on the simpsons trying to care for screaming octuplets . busy people - unbelievable work load .
I never heard back from you.
NO GOOD attorney charges YOU for the cost of depositions and such and you would NOT be required to pay the oppositions legal fees. The attorneys lay out all those costs, and deduct them if you win. If you loose, he or she EATS that laid out money. Thats why a good attorney only takes a case he thinks he can win and must have the money to lay out for expert witnesses etc.
If you still need help, go back and read my previous posts and message to you.
If you want some FREE professional advice via e-mail It has been offered.
The following day when they finally sent her to the hospital, my sister and I were both getting phone calls and we heard 4 versions of what happened and at what time. We knew they were lying to us that day. My sisters and I wanted to go over there and beat the crap out of them, but we knew that we couldn't. There is still one complete set of clothes of Mom's that went missing from that day at the nursing home. We have asked for them repeatedly, her name was written on everything with black marker about 1 inch tall. It is not that we have to have that set of clothes, but we wondered if they were torn or had anything on them that could prove or show that Mom did not fall out of bed during the night. They have never shown up. A woman my sister works with said, "Her clothes were burned that day." She refused to say anything further all we know is that she use to work in a nursing home herself.
I am fairly sure that the blood on Mom's sheet that day was due to the coumadin level being too high, it was just shocking that from the 9th to the 17th there was never a bowel movement and then when they were straightening her up one day there was a bloody mass on the pad. The nurse quickly pulled it out and took off with it. My sister was asking her where it had come from but received no answer.
I just found out yesterday when reading a CT Scan report that Mom actually did have diverticulitis and it said a "partially collapsed stomach." Two things we did not know, nor were we ever told. I have tried to find info on the stomach via the internet but not found anything. I had never heard of a partially collapsed stomach before.
My Dad was on Coumadin, he kept falling in his house or out in his yard, and one day he fell in his driveway and broke his nose. While in the hospital the doctor on duty felt Dad was more of a risk of falling and bleeding out then he was for having another heart attack, so Dad was taken off of Coumadin. That was several years ago, so far so good. But I wouldn't sue my Mom for not calling 911 immediately when he broke his nose and had trouble trying to stop the bleeding.... I was told about this hours after the fact, and I called 911... goodness sake, Dad could have bled out.... [sigh]
I don't know how things must have got crossed but I did appreciate your offer of help!
I know at the nursing home where my mom is they check in on her at least once an hour. My mom is very stubborn about using her walker even though she is very unsteady on her feet. I know if I were to find bruising on my mom I would assume immediately that she had fallen on her own cause they are very gentle with her and treat her like glass as captain said with his aunt.
What will that do? one thing you can do is report the incident to your State Health Board and they will do a thorough investigation and insist on changes in protocol if appropriate.
i think it is time to let this rest for your own peace of mind. By all means have Boni's brother check the records and take his advice on if you should proceed. Email information is quickly removed by the admins so you may need to go through the admins to exchange emails.
Post a message for BoniChak (5000 characters left) [/] Private Message?
Their story changed 4 times and they kept telling me Mom was fine until they called and said they were sending her to the hospital 16 hours after the fall. The clothes she had been wearing "disappeared" and we asked for them numerous times. We wanted to see if they were torn or showed any signs of a struggle but they were missing, including her shoes!
I love my mother and I do think that someone has to answer for what happened to her because the nursing home has done nothing but lie to us. They have even decided not to bill Medicare for the two weeks my mother was in their care. Although I think they are trying to make it look like they are sympathizing with us and this is how they are showing their grief, it really looks like they are not reporting her as a patient because they do not want to have to report her injury which led to her death.
Look at the statistics that tell the number of fall injuries and those that lead to death in nursing homes, it is an epidemic. Knowing this and knowing my mother walked perfectly, I feel that I owe it to my mother to at least stand up for her and if there is a wrong here, try to "right it" for the others in her place.
It is up to what you really want to do. Do you want this to drag on and I mean drag on, or do you want to grieve this, try to forgive, and "I would personally, pay one attorney 3 hours of time to show up with me to the facility" unannounced to ask them questions. Many of you will say that is illegal. But… what if that person is a friend?
I don't know, it is very sad and I am very sorry for you and your family and your dear mother, and my heart goes out to you, but when I hear 80% go not told, that is a "crime". This is different than being in bed. We are responsible for them in bed.
The Nursing Home is responsible for them, we are paying them, or the State is paying them money.
Much Love,
I went back and read some of your old posts about why she went into care in the first place, and absolutely that needed to happen. It is possible that the one staff member got abusive to your mom, possibly because she could not let him change her when she needed it. My MIL was hit by a staffer in her first placement, and even though she in a way provoked it because she made horrible racist remarks (she really was racist, even before any dementia set in - without any "filter" I can only imagine what might have been said...), the place where this happened had to finance her being moved to a different, more expensive place...I do not know all the details, but my niece Donna was an eldercare attorney at the time and if they had tried anything, they would have been rattling the wrong cage and they knew it. It is NOT possible that you could have predicted or prevented this. I know your heart aches, but do, above all, remember this is NOT YOUR FAULT OR FAILING in any way. Pursue justice as far as you can, and if they do manage to cover it all up despite your best efforts, my hope is that you can be at peace for having tried your best.