Once at the hospital, various doctors assessed me, and every single one of them was stumped. They could not figure out what was causing me such intense pain. They had ordered various blood tests, an ultrasound as well as an x-ray of my abdomen, yet still had no diagnosis.
After some discussion with his colleagues, one of the doctors suggested laproscopic surgery of my abdomen.
A laproscopic surgery is considered "minimally invasive" since only a few small incisions would need to be made in my abdomen. Through the tiny incisions, the doctor would place various thin tubes into my abdomen, including a tube with a very tiny camera attached at the end. The camera in that tube would allow the doctor to look inside my abdomen and hopefully help him discover the cause of all the pain I was having.
The surgery only took about an hour, and afterwards I was transferred straight to recovery. Once I was considered stable, I was transferred to a hospital room. As soon as I arrived in the room, my nurse walked in and introduced herself. She seemed very nice. She then proceeded to hang a small i.v bag onto my i.v pole and informed me that the doctor had ordered antibiotics for me to be given through my i.v. I then told her that I was allergic to penicillin, I had an anaphylactic reaction to it many years ago. My nurse smiled at me and said, "Don't worry, I know all about your allergy." She then told me what medication the doctor had ordered and informed me that it was perfectly safe for me to have it.
I was exhausted from all of the pain medication I had been given, and I was beginning to have pain again. My nurse immediately gave me some pain medication through my i.v. Within minutes it eased the pain and made me even more sleepy. I then fell into a deep sleep.
A short time later I awoke. My room was rather dark, with only a bit of light coming through the window, but it was enough light so that I could see in the room. I looked to the wall at the foot of my hospital bed and saw the clock that was hanging on the wall. It was almost midnight.
I then noticed a man dressed in white scrubs standing at the head of the bed right beside me . I could see that he was doing something with my i.v. I watched him for a few minutes and then asked him if everything was okay. I then asked him if I was being given another medication.
The man looked at me and smiled and said, "Everything is just fine, I'm not giving you any medication, just trying to remove all of the air and blood that is in your i.v tubing." He explained that my i.v medication had finished infusing and the other bag of i.v fluid should have began infusing but the bag was empty. So, because of that, the blood in my veins began backing up and into the tubing. As well, air had gotten into almost the entire length of my i.v tubing.
I then asked him where my other nurse was and asked him if he was my new nurse. He smiled and said, "Don't worry, I'm here to take care of you. You can think of me as your guardian angel." I laughed and he smiled.
I began to think that it was a good idea he had come into my room when he did. I was well aware that air in i.v tubing could be dangerous because air entering into your veins and into your circulation can cause an air embolus, which can be deadly.
I just layed there in my hospital bed and watched him continue to do what he was doing. He finished removing all of the air in the tubing and had flushed all of the blood through my i.v tubing as well. He then hung a brand new i.v bag up for me and it began to infuse.
I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. When he was finished he said, "There, all done." I smiled and thanked him. He smiled back and said, "No problem, now you try and get some rest."
I immediately fell into a deep sleep again. A short time later I awoke again and saw the man in the white scrubs again. He was doing something with my i.v again. I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost three o'clock in the morning.
I turned to the man and asked him what he was doing. He then said, "Saving your life. Someone hung up the wrong medication for you." I immediately said, "What?" He then held up the small i.v bag that was hung on my i.v pole and told me it was amoxicillin, the antibiotic I had a deadly reaction to many years ago. I was mortified.
The man said, "Don't worry, the clamp on your i.v was shut so thankfully none of it infused." He then removed the i.v bag as well as the i.v tubing. He told me he was replacing the tubing just to be safe, in case any of the medication had gotten into the tubing of the i.v.
While watching him, I then saw him hang a new i.v bag with new tubing . He then looked at me and smiled. I smiled back and thanked him. While still smiling he said, "Don't worry, as long as I'm on the job I'll keep you safe." He then left my room.
The next thing I knew, I fell back asleep again. When I awoke again later, the sun was shining through the window in my hospital room. I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost seven o'clock in the morning.
Just then, my nurse that I had met from the night before walked into my room. She smiled and said good morning. She asked me if I had a good night's sleep. I told her that I had, and that I had been exhausted. She then informed me that every time she popped in to check on me through out the night I was sound asleep.
I told her that I was really grateful to the nurse that had come in to check on me through the night. I then told her about my i.v running dry and how the nurse removed all the air and blood from the tubing. I then told her about the medication error.
My nurse's eyes went huge. She said, "What? No one informed me of any of that." She then told me that she was aware the nurse that covered her on her break during the night hung up one of my i.v medications when it was due, but she told me that she had made no mention of the other incidents.
I noticed that she referred to the nurse as "she". I said, "I don't think it was the same nurse, it was one of the other nurses. The nurse I'm talking about was a man."
My nurse just looked at me and said, "A man? That's impossible, all of the nurses we had working last night are females."
I then proceeded to tell her about what he looked like, describing him in detail, and I also told her that he was wearing white scrubs. She just stared at me and then told me that they only had two male nurses that worked on their unit. And neither of them fit the description of the man I saw and described to her.
My nurse informed me that she was going to talk to the other nurses that worked through the night, about everything I had just told her. She then left my room to go talk to them.
As it turned out, the nurse that covered for her mixed up my i.v med with another patient. She gave another patient my medication and gave me that patient's medication. As for the male in the white scrubs, no one had a clue about who he could possibly have been.
Fearing that this "nurse" in the white scrubs may have simply been someone that came on to the unit, portraying himself as a nurse, all of the nurses asked each of their patients if they too had seen a male nurse in white scrubs pop in to check on them through the night. Every single patient said, no, they had not seen anyone like that. No other staff member had seen him either.
When the nurse manager informed me of all of that later that afternoon, I couldn't help but think, 'Great, they're going to think I hallucinated and imagined the entire thing, or they're going to think I am crazy.' When I told the manager that, she smiled and said, "Not at all."
She then told me that she believes very strongly in that sort of thing. She said that when she was a clinical nurse, she experienced many patients reporting everything from seeing angels to seeing their deceased relatives.
"These things I warmly wish for you
Someone to love, some work to do,
A bit o' sun, a bit o' cheer,
And a guardian angel always near. "
~An Irish Blessing~
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