Hospitals

Kingwood is a nice neighborhood. Their Hospital? They save lives in an Emergency. But once stable, get them out.

Kingwood is a nice neighborhood. Their Hospital? They save lives in an Emergency. But once stable, get them out. And if you aren't dying? It might be better to go directly to the Hospital you want to recoup in. One the other side of the spectrum was Houston Methodist. Melissa's Hospital, and part of why we moved to Houston; best in country for what she had.

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Created: 2023-02-25

Healthcare or Health Care

Kingwood is a nice neighborhood. The Hospital (E.R.) is next to a Freeway with access to a lot less nice areas.

A lot of the clientelle weren't coming from the good side of the tracks.
The staff seems overworked, under-staffed, young, and it doesn't have the best reputation in our area -- with lots of stories of people waiting excessive time, especially if you weren't in the act of dying.
When you talked to the individuals they were nice enough and knew medicine/protocols; just lacking in bedside manner, and some professionalism (go the extra mile) to give you the warm and fuzzies.
They saved my wife's life (a little too unenthusiastically for me, and a little too eager to write her off), they had lax security, dirty waiting rooms, and they missed basic follow-up (made errors) on a few things. I wanted her out.
Being the closest Hospital, they have saved neighbors and their families lives. But once relatives are stable, a transfer to somewhere else is not uncommon.

Unless death was immenent, those with means and methods, were driving somewhere else. Waiting rooms aren't healthcare -- but there were things like a half eaten cookie on a window ledge -- I threw it away on day 3. Their coffee machine was never working, crap on the counters that I cleaned off. When we came up to ICU, the Nurse asked me questions about Melissa; Alergies, Procedures, Perscriptions, etc... I said she had a medic-alert clip on her sports watch, and gave them the number and number to call. The nurse was literally saying, "what do you expect me to do about it?" So we called Medic-Alert her, had them fax over the full sheets (which had everything) and took a photo of it on our phones. She said she'd enter it -- but never did. 2 days later when we got to transfer Melissa out, the new Nurse had to enter all that information into the forms so she could be transferred, because the first Nurse hadn't entered it, or added it to her file in hard-copy. We had to transcribe it all from the picture I kept on my phone. For Drugs (Perscriptions) I went and grabbed Melissa's day-of-the-week pill container -- which had all the medicines/suppliments/etc that she was taking. I didn't have the original pill bottles, and they sometimes modify/tweak amounts. So what was in the capsule thing was gospel. The Nurse said, "What do you want me to do with that?"... I replied, "Ask the pharmacy to lookup the codes?" She's quipped, "If we don't save her, it doesn't matter. We don't need to worry about that right now."... I'm thinking, "well YOU asked for what she was on, so I got you the stale list from Medic-Alert, and the exact list in pill form". I had told her the list was close -- but that I knew she was off of Coumadin for over a year (after getting the Watchman).

Houston Methodist is the best Hospital we've been in. And we used to go to Stanford or Cleveland Clinic. We moved to Texas partly because of Houston Methodist (and Valderrabano) in particular.

When we were looking where to move, our decisions were big-city, good Airport, Melissa wanted a view of the water (and Warm), and we'd narrowed it down to basically Greater Tampa area, or Greater Houston. We had loved Texas when we lived there in the past, and Houston had a Doctor we wanted her to go to Dr. Valderrabano (recommended by her Stanford Doctor), as well as she was working for United and could be based in Houston and avoid a longer commute, and it was a shorter trip to visit family back in Cal, Reno, Phoenix. (No brainer).

Stanford was nice, but a little too Bureaucratic and done by committee -- and Melissa's case was too complex. In Melissa's case, there was a fight over her AFIB. They couldn't get her to stay out. They'd convert her, try a drug, it would last 3-6 months, and then she'd fall back in. They knew they wanted to ablate her, but that would mean she might need a pacemaker. You had a few specialsts (Electrocardiography, Bypass, Heart Failure, AFIB, etc.) all wanting different things, so they vapor locked. They kicked the can down the road for 5 years. (Way too long. And those drugs and blood thinners were painful as well).

We saw Valderrabano, and he was like, "WTF. 5 years?"... he ablated her. It helped. We had to do it again, and put in a Pacemaker, and then a Watchman device (which prevents bloodclots and allowed her to get off of blood thinners). It was such a step up in quality of life and amount of drugs she had to take. Also Dr. V was a runner, and understood Melissa's passion.

The Hospital is impeccable, they allow/encourage questions, take time with patients (and families). It's a fantastic place.

Not ungrateful This isn't the bad-mouth the place that helped reluctantly save my wife's life. And I hear they're good for Maternity, and some other things. But if you aren't dying (or birthing) right then? Keep driving.

They weren't being aggressive enough for Mirna (the Nurse that gave Melissa CPR), nor myself. And with me, Mirna pushing, and our pulling from the other side (via contacts at Houston Methodist) we got Melissa moved. And other people I knew also suggested that I start the move as soon as possible as they found out. (But it was already in process).

Just getting Melissa transfered from Kingwood to Houston Methodist was a huge releif. And the level of care went up - we had multiple experts from their own disciplines each caring for another aspect of a complex case, that we couldn't have gotten in most hospitals.

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