A Beth Israel Visit
Hi Marge,
We came back from B.I.D.H. on Friday and I was really glad to get out of there. The doctors and nurses were really nice, but the service was horrible. Mordi had to wait far too long for his pain meds and the unit secretaries were sometimes incredibly rude. I ended up making a complaint to the ombudsperson (a social worker), who seemed like she was going to take some action. One other thing that you might want to include is when visiting hours are. I never got an orientation packet for families. They were out of them in the pre-op waiting room, only had them in Spanish in the operating waiting room, and the ombudsperson said there should have been one in Mordi’s room, but there wasn’t. I never saw visiting hours posted anywhere and one evening, when I went out at about 7:30 P.M. to get some dinner, when I came back the doors were locked and I had to go through this very slow line and show my driver’s license to a security guard to go back and see him. They also don’t tell you that you can have your parking validated. I remembered it from the last time he was there, but I didn’t know what to do that same night when the secretary was already gone. I went to the garage, who informed me that I needed to go back and have the security person validate my parking ticket. Otherwise, I would have had to pay $29.00 instead of $12.00---little annoyances that are unnecessary.
Mordi is doing o.k. He probably should have stayed in the hospital a couple of more days to get his strength up, but he was adamant about wanting to get out of there.
Take care,
Sara
Been There - Done That
As you travel to Boston or to Baystate, you will,
in time, acquire of "must haves" to help you get thru the long
trips. You will already be in a state of flux and
anxiety and these hints will help ease the situation a bit. Inevitably, the medical
system will be running behind schedule. Your Dr. maybe overbooked or
tending to a needy patient or an emergency. Bring your Dr.'s office
# with you so you can call ahead and see if things are running on
time and smoothly and get an estimated time of when you will be
seen. Most facilities ban cell phone usage ,so invest in a prepaid
calling card to make inquiries and easily contact friends and family
while you are there without being harassed by the staff to turn off
your phone. A small cooler is a must for a
long day of traveling to office visits and testing. There is a lot
of "hurry up and wait" to be experienced. They make great small
coolers on wheels you can drag behind you. Into the cooler, place
fruit, cheese, crackers, peanut butter, bottles of water, tissues
and juice. Plastic utensils and foam plates, a paperback or several
Tylenol or Motrin will always come in handy. Vending machines are
expensive and often do not offer anything nutritious. A sweater or
sweatshirt ,small pillow ,blanket can be bungie corded to the cooler
for those chilly places. When things run behind
schedule, know that the staff is not off drinking coffee and eating
candy-they are attending to another patient who needs them and know
that if you ever become that needy patient, they will be there for
you too! Patience is a virtue and you will learn this. "Boston's Best Bagels @
Coolidge Corner"
GREAT idea. my husband read about it in the republican (i refuse to do
anything having to do with republicans) and passed along the article to
me. it was especially interesting to us because i am another Amy who had
to schlep into Boston for treatments. i went to the Faulkner breast
centre in Jamaica Plain (just a skip down the
We added a map to help you get there
JUDY FOREMAN
Faulkner Breast Centre
Riverway) and also had reconstruction surgery at mass general and BI.
so, i am quite familiar with the parking, driving, eating etc. in
Boston. I am also an artist.
We really love to eat at Zaftig's in Coolidge corner when we get to
town. Kugel's has the best bagels in Boston! I also love Rami's across
the street - they make the best felafel outside of Israel.
my husband found that the best way to get to the hospitals was to take
the pike to the prudential (same as Copley exit but different fork in
the tunnel) and then stay on Huntington Ave which is where you end up
when you come out of the tunnel. stay east on Huntington until Longwood
avenue and then turn right.
my story has a happy ending - other than being cancer free after 2
diagnoses. we have a foster daughter who will become legally ours next
month!!
stay strong!!!!
Amy
Every Monday the Boston Globe has a section entitled Health and Science. It seldom disappoints. This past week, Nov. 28,2005 carried a piece entitled "Friendly Fire" that discusses the immune system and how T-cells may fight more than one infection. New thoughts - well worth reading.
Also worth noting for your web site is a column by Judy Foreman called "Health Sense". Her piece is entitled "A Web of Information Untangled" as she gives her favorite sites saying " the ones I use frequently and trust for carefully vetted, understandable information"
To find the basics in a few hours she recommends www.nih.gov run by the National Institute of Health. She also likes Consumer Reports Medical guide at www.consumerreportsmedicalguide.com .
She says if you're looking for drug information skip the FDA site and go to www.PDRHealth.com .
Many more sites can be found in that same article.
I hope this is a help to your web visitors.
A Boston Globe Reader