I tried to be proactive and tell the district that I would like to meet the nurses a couple months in advance and also like to have them do a few shifts at home with Emylie so Emylie, Dave and I were comfortable with them and so the nurse was comfortable with Emylie. They kept telling me they would make sure things would work out and they would make sure we met the nurse in advance.
I got a call the 1st of July from the special needs nurse with the school district. She left a message notifying me that the new nursing company would be contacting us by the end of July to make arrangements to meet the nurse.
The nursing company called the first week of August. They had a nurse for Emylie. She wanted to read Emylie's care plan before coming, so a time was scheduled the following week to meet. A couple days later the company called to tell me nurse #1 no longer was able to do the job and they were sending nurse #2. And that I would like nurse #2 better than nurse #1. The day came, the anxiety level was high in preparation and nurse #2 never showed up. When I tried to call the company it was after hours and they didn't even have the nurses information in the computer - she was that new to the company. I called the following day and they had not heard from nurse #2 but gave her until the end of the day to call. She never called and the following day (Aug 12) the company told me they would have to put an application out for another nurse. WHAT!!! You don't have another option?
A week after nurse #1 & #2 were supposed to show I got a call from the company informing me that they found another nurse (#3). This was Tuesday before the 5K. I had all the to-do's for the 5K, Emylie's birthday, back to school prep, a family reunion among all the regular to-do's. It was important to me to find a nurse for Emylie but honestly I was frustrated that it was the week before school and they were just sending a nurse. And I didn't really have a lot of availability to do meet. I tried as best as I could to get things in place and was told it wouldn't be last minute and here we were - - last minute. We scheduled a time for Friday morning when Dave could also be there to meet her.
Friday, nurse #3 shows up. She has NEVER changed a trach and has very little vent experience. She was very nice but those 2 things are very important things to know how to do. I NEED to know they can change her trach and take care of her on the vent as well as off. When I found this out I really just wanted to cry and say thanks for coming and see her to the door. I didn't feel like there was any reason to continue. But I continued with the list of questions I had only to find out a few more things that were a little concerning.
After talking things through with Dave we felt we knew we needed a nurse who already knew trachs and vents to feel like we could feel comfortable with them taking Emylie out of the house. On Monday we tried to see what it would take to use the company we already use for nursing care. We were told that the district really wanted it to work with the contracted company and so to try another nurse.
This morning I talked to the director and she informed me if this company didn't work out they have a 2nd company they contracted with that we could try. It still isn't the company we use. I didn't ask the director the name of the company so had to call back and ask her secretary. It took her a minute to find out and when she got back on the line and said that is was M#$%^& - I said "oh that is even worse!! I have not heard one good thing about that company!" Wow! (I don't think the secretary knew what to say)
Later in the day I called the nursing company to make sure they knew we did not want to use nurse #3. She said she already had two more applicants for us to interview. We scheduled to meet them both this coming Thursday. Apparently they both have trach and vent experience...
......to be continued......
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