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The same thing happened to my dad after his second bypass surgery. The medical team gave him morphine even though his records said that he was intolerant of the drug.

For three days we fought with the physicians while my father, who was a brilliant articulate man, sat in his bed and drooled, and messed himself if you didn't get him to the bathroom. Imagine having an in depth conversation with a man regarding social science and politics and then feeding him and wiping him the next day.

Neurologists insisted that he had had a stroke. My poor mother fought tooth and nail for them to take him off the morphine and they treated her terribly up to the moment they physically shoved her.

At that point I unleashed the hounds as it were and went straight to the top using the words liability and litigation in every sentence. They took him off the morphine and within three hours, he was back to himself.

This is what we learned. Do not leave a loved one unattended in a hospital and question, question, question everything. There are wonderful health care providers out there; but there are also arrogant ignorant jacka**es.

I found that out! I was called and told to get to the hospital to say “good-bye”. Thank God, there was no DNR. That doctor was never allowed in that room again. 15 years later, we are still going strong. You have to be the advocate for you and your family. And, do whatever it takes.

Thankfully I’ve never had a situation as extreme as what you experienced, and I’m sorry you and your family had to endure that.

I’m constantly amazed at the naivté so many people have about hospitals. They seem to think Florence Nightengale will be holding the hand of their loved one 24/7. I have had to change bedsheets and sanitary garments for relatives because the nurses (or nurse techs or healthcare assistants, or whomever happened to be hired by that particular facility) couldn’t be bothered. One time a resident lashed into my mother, with much profanity, that she should be on her knees thanking him because he “got a speeding ticket” on the way to the hospital to take care of my father (post-stroke). THAT particular smug SOB heard an earful from me — still makes my blood boil remembering it.

People really need to be more aware of how “warehouse” so many hospitals are — if a patient doesn’t have a strong-willed advocate, they will fall to the end of the line.

You really have to be able to speak up for your family members. My father was in the hospital and at 86 refused chemo for acute leukemia. I was with him the night before he was to be released. He told me some doctor came in and said he needed a blood transfusion and he said no but they were going to give it to him cause his doctor ordered it...Being a nurse, hospitals and staff don't intimidate me. The resident that took the phone order from his doctor was at the nurse station. I went there and asked who was in charge of my father getting a blood transfusion and the resident said he was....I told the resident my father was refusing the transfusion. The resident said....you don't understand, his doctor ordered it......I told the resident.....NO you don't understand there will be no transfusion given.....Everyone has a right to refuse treatment and my father had gone out of another hospital AMA after talking with anesthesia the night before scheduled Kidney removal due to what turned out to be a large cyct on the kidney and not cancer.. I know that cause I was with him when he was transferred to another floor (I worked at this hospital) told the nurse transferring him to go slow, I wanted to read all the reports of tests done....including a biopsy...no cancer cells were found in any tests done...