Cynthia's space

Today Dakota Jaynique' and her family come home from Valley Children's Hospital where she was admitted for an infected Lympth Node that has to have surgery on to drain it. It cause quite a problem for the family while they were staying with her by her side 24/7 in the hospital. You see Dakota has never from the time she was brought home slept in a crib. We all had cribs at our homes, but she refused to sleep in them.

Well when they rushed her to the ER at Valley Children's they admitted her to a room with a crib that was metal and had metal bars on it as if in jail.  Dakota wanted nothing and I mean nothing to do with that crib, it was for babies and she does not consider herself a baby.  She thinks she is a big girl, after all she is potty trained and wears big girl panties so she is a big girl.  She is very independant and she thinks she can do for her self rather than have mom and dad do for her.  She is a well mannered child who I would be proud to take anywhere with me.  She doesn't though fits when she can't have things or doesn't get her way. 

Until she went into this hospital she was so precious.  While at this hospital that comes highly recommended by every doctor around in Fresno, Ca she had nothing but attitude.  The nurses outside her door were absolutely rude, talking behind the families back as if they were trash.  When her IV machine would go off there was a nurse sitting at the desk and I asked the nurse if she could come and check the machine because I had no knowledge of how they operated and didn't know what the alarm was for.  The nurses response was yeah.  After fifteen minutes of listening to this alarm, I again asked the same nurse if she was going to come check the machine?  Her response was rude and uppity.  She stated the floor nurse would do it when she got back.  That nurse never left that desk once. 

I went to the nurses station to ask when the doctor was coming around to let use know when Dakota was going to surgery, the nurses could not tell us anything even though the parents were standing right there.  About a half hour later the Doctor who was going to do the surgery on her showed up.  We asked alot of questions and he was somewhat surprised at the number of questions we had, but after I explained that we were not getting any answers from anyone about anything he gladly answered all questions that he had knowledge to.  Bless his heart.

Now we were told surgery was in about 3-4 hours from then.  So we took Dakota outside for some fresh air right by her room.  The same rude nurse on the desk came to the door and told us that ya all have to come in now! I and a friend of mine were telling the parents that she would probably go into surgery sooner and that the surgeon may slip her in between his other surgeries.  That the operation would only take about 30-45 mins.  Well when we returned to the room, the surgical tech was waiting to prep Dakota and take her to surgery.  I guess I know a little too much.  While on the way to the operating room, my friend and I bent the tech's ear and gave her a run down on the attitudes that were being given to the patient and the parents.  We also told her of the crib problem.  That the parent had requested a regular twin bed the day she was admitted and denied the bed.  Dakota was prepped by some very professional people and treated with the ut most care in surgery area of the hospital.  Again bless them.

We were instructed by the surgery tech that a social worker would meet us in the waiting room for a chat on the problems we were experiencing. 

Now I must give you some background on this situation before you pass judgment.  My son has always been a hard working individual and he busts his butt for 8-14 hours a day at work.  When he lost his job he and his girlfreind had no other choice but to go on welfare until he could find another job.  She on the other hand was going thru the welfare to work program when this happened to Dakota.  She had to postpone her schedule until Dakota was brought home.  Now she can go thru her program once she is brought home and then he can go back out to apply for work again.  He at one point ws working, carring a full load at City college and taking care of his kids at home as well.  His girlfreind was working too, but only parttime.  He was draining himself with the load he was carrying around, so something had to go.  He needs one year for his college to finish.

Now the way the hospital staff were viewing him and his grilfreind was as if they were nothing but trash.  They are educated individuals who believe in higher education and push that education on both daughters.  So when this social worker came in to talk to the parents infront of my freind and myself, we both were appauld at the attitude she gave them and the statement she made to them about if they were from Madera, San Diego, San Francisco, or LA they would have no problem taking care of any need they had, but because they were from Fresno, Ca they were entitled to absolutely nothing and their daughter was not entitled to anything.  The parents were not concerned about themself but about what would make Dakota comfortable. 

We fine out from several staff members at this hospital the because Fresno, Ca has not help donate as much money to this hospital as Madera has then anyone coming from Fresno will not be afforded good treatment.  If they lived right there in the town of madera they would be treated with respect and all needs would be met regardless of their social status.  When my son and my freind brought out the race card and going to the news station about this treatment and this policy that not one staff member quoted both several staff members that social worker ran out of that waiting room as if someone was about to physically attack her.  No one in that room made any overtures in that direction at all.  Sure the parents were upset, but after she left they calmed down and we talked to them and explained what they needed to do from then on out. 

Take notes and names and get ready for the press. 

When we arrived back at Dakota's room, a twin bed had been moved in and the crib out.  The nurse that sat on her lazy butt and wouldn't check her IV machine was up and playing with an IV machine in the hallway.  A Chaplain was sitting in the room and he waited til she was confortable in her bed and he talked with the parents and prayed with us and them.  Another Blessing for him.

When we arrived back at the room, the nurses had been talking amongst themselves about the meeting with the Social Worker Lori.  Word of any thing spreads around that hospital like it was a burning wildfire.  I was ashamed to know the disrespect for the paitent and the paitence's privacy and the families right to privacy, but at this hospital it is evident that no patient or family has the right to any kind of privacy when it comes to them if they are from Fresno.

Now you also have to know about the other family that was getting the same if not worse treatment than Dakota's parents were.  It was a family from Mexico whodid not speak any english and they had been there 14 days when we arrived.  They were there still when dakota came home.  They were also treated badly and disrespectfully at this hospital.  There is no call for this type of treatment I don't care who you are.  This hospital is there for children and they have a Ronald McDonald house on premises and this is the kind of behavior you can expected from this hospital if you are from Fresno, Ca.  I have known other parents from Fresno who have given similar horror stories of the treatment they recieved there as well.

Once Dakota was in her bed and sleeping so soundly and so relaxed she started getting the rest she so desparately needed.  The day after surgery, Dakota wanted to go to the play room and play with the toys.  While in the playroom a woman and her son were observed.  The woman was picking something from her son's hair and throwing it on the floor by where Dakota was playing.  When mom realized she was throwing whatever on the floor by her daughter she moved her away from the two.  There was another man in the room watching a game on the TV.  Yes there is supposed to be a nurse in there and if my memory serves me correct there was a nurse in there.  Once back in her room, some time later, mom noticed Dakota scratching her head and crying.  When mom checked her head after they had taken a nap in the same bed she found Dakota had lice in her hair.  She brought it to the attention of the nurse outside at the nurses station and they immediately stated that it was impossible for her to have gotten it there, that she must have been brought in with it.  Not so.  So when the mother asked if the doctor could prescribed the medicine to get rid of it he did so.  Mom asked for a prescription for herself as well because she slept with Dakota that day.  She was not taking any chances of spreading it to the other members of her family.  Now this gave the nurses more to chat amongst themselves about.

There was an angel nurse that did come to their rescue and gave them information and some support and she was not allowed near them the rest of their stay.  No one gave her name out and yet the hospital was out to chastize anyone giving any support or good treatment to this family.  It took other family members to get test results from the nurses and that is not permitted under hepa laws, but you resort to what you know when dealing with such menus.  My husband had to ask for the test results and if you have ever looked at my ics you will see him and he is not a small man.  Some look at him and immediate fear comes over them.  I had to ask about things and got no where, but we brought in a freind while she was still dressed in her hospital scrubs because she worked in another hospital somewhere else and she was able to get the information we had been trying to get as a courtesy.  Bless her heart on that one.

The treatment they recieved in this hospital was appaulling and down right unacceptable.  If there is a god up there, may he come to our rescue.  These parents tried to be tolerant of their attitudes knowiing they were busy and taking care of children and allowed some slack in the attitude area.  But what they gave was so unacceptable I refused to have another one of my grandchildren taken to that hospital under any circumstances.  I would not recommend that hosital to any parent or child living in the Fresno Area for any reason.  You will set yourself up for discrimination because you live in Fresno and not Madera.  I will from this day forward make it my life's mission to presuade all members of Fresno to avoid that hospital at all costs and I want Fresno City Council and the County Board of Supervisors to look into setting up a children's hospital in Fresno County.  This way our children will not be subjected to such ill treatment and such nasty attitudes of staff that think of where you reside rather than the fact you need help.  If this isn't a blaitant case of discrimination I don't know what is.  I would really like to hear from anyone and everyone out there on your thought of the treatment given and how you think this can be settled.  Bless you all and I personally hope you never need this hospital for your child's life.  If you are a supporter financially of this institution you need to be aware of what you are financially supporting.  Please reconsider your financial support for this hospital.  I urge all out there to take note of this blog and consider an alternative to using that hospital if at all possible. 

Recently I had to run my youngest granddaughter to Madera's Valley Children's Hospital Emergency room.  She had a golf ball size lump on her lower left jaw line.  No fever and she was in serious pain.  This lump showed up out of nowhere.  Three days later the lump has grown to softball size and getting worse.  She is taken by ambulance to Madera's Valley Children's Hospital again.  This time she is admitted. 

This child is 2 years old and her understanding of what is happening is vague at best.  She is terrified of every nurse who enters her room.  Her veins keep callapsing on her and therefore the IVs had to be redone.  Today she is having a CAT Scan and tomorrow she will undergo surgery.  To possibly drain this massive growth on her face.

If you have children and you have not hugged them today or told them how much you love and appreciate them, what are you waiting for?  This is a child and a helpless one at that.  We make these children and they are blesing from god, we promise when they are born to take special care of them and now when she needs love and support the most her parents are by her side 24/7.  They hurt for her when she is in pain.  She has been begging for her papa and yes, when he heard that he was on his way to her side. 

She loves swimming and in the hospital she asked to go swimming.  The nurses had to put a bag on her IV arm and tape it up, now she thinks she has a fish fin to go swimming in the bath tub in her room.  After swimming is over and the bag is removed, she thinks she has a birds wing and she can fly like the birds do in a book I read to her while in the ER.  The book is called Hamburger Tree.  To the author of that book, bless you because she loves that book.   I feel for her and is pains me that she has to go through this at such a young age.  I don't want her to be affraid of Doctors or Nurses when this is over, but that is not likely.  I ask all who read this to say a prayer for Dakota and hopefully god sees to it she is in good hands.

Just an update for all on Dakota.  She just came out of the CAT Scan.  She had to be put under to perform it.  She is headed back to her room where her papa and daddy are waiting for her.  We should know the results soon.

According to what we have learned so far, She will under go surgery about 10am tomorrow.  They have called in a specialist to go to surgery with the other surgeon.  She gets no food or drink after 2am.  She now has a bag of liquid going into her IV and they will give her her medicine's through the IV from here on out.  She won't eat anything now.  Her face has gotten so red and the mass has grown solid and very hard like bone.  She continues to run a fever now.

Today Dakota got her drainage tube taken out and she is back to being a happy go lucky little girl.  Her fever is gone, she still has to keep the IV in her arm, but she is even happier that the hospital staff brought her a regular bed yetarday and she didn't have to look at that crib with jail bars on it.  You see Dakota has never slept in a crib.  No one could get her to sleep in a crib from the day she was born.

Her swelling has gone way done and she still doesn't like the nurses who come in to take her vitals and blood pressure.  She will only have to put up with it another day or two.  All the prayers she recieved from all of you has been a tremendous bless.  When she returned to her room after surgery yestarday there was a chaplain sitting in her room waiting on her and her parents.  Now to some of you that would be normal, but of a mother who has a son who has lost his faith it was suspious.  But he listened to the chaplain and he prayed with the chaplain and he and his girlfreind both thought that chaplain was sent by Dakota's Great grandparents.  Mind you they have passed away after her birth.  They told codi she was truly loved by all.  The Chaplain ws there for a good hour and half.  He came to their room by mistake, instead of going to rm g635 he stepped into rm g603.  That was a sign from codi's guardian angels.  She has alot of them hovering around her and I have to send my thanks to each and every person out there that sent their prayers and blessing for her.  You truly know when to come thru.  I posted this blog on another website here in Fresno, called www.centralvalley moms.com and was appauld at the support from those women on the site.  So yes I was bitter and said some rude but pointed things to them and I am not sorry about it.  When one is looking for prayers and support they leave a great deal to be desired. 

When I told my husband of the prayers here he was impressed and then I told him of the lack of support on the other site and he said that figures, its Fresno at its finest. 

Bless you all so much and than you for sending your prayers and support.

I will post copies of the pictures before surgery.

While on a drive back home from an appointment yestarday my 9 yr old grandson spotted a speed boat behind a truck.  He turned to me and asked if it would be nice to have a speed boat?  I told him that with the price of gas today I don't think so.  He ask if I had ever been in a speed boat and the conversation turned into something I never quite expected.  He was asking all lot of questions on what things I had done in my life that I could remember.  While having this conversation, I found I was a very lucky person to have had all these different experiences in my life.  I was fortunate in my childhood to experience learning new things like water skiing, mushroom hunting, deer hunting, camping in every sense of the word camping, snowmobile riding through wooded areas and entering into races, motorcycle racing, and yet I also learned many other things on the other side of the coin.  I always thought of myself as being a sheltered individual while I was a child and now I see I was not as sheltered as I thought.  My parents made sure we learned so many different things, that we experienced more things in life so we can say we did that and it be over.  Horse back riding, learning the fine art of vegetable gardening and how to can the produce you reap and farming.  Driving an old and I mean old John Deere Tractor with the stack on the top covered with an old coffee can while you listened to the putt-putt of the stack.  Climbing an old extremely large tree with my brothers and eating wheat from the fields before the processing starts.  Learning to use our imagination while playing with things like old thread spools and clothes pins.  You would be so surprised at the things you can do with both.  Playing in the open fields and making forts out of scrap wood.  Gathering walnuts and different berries and knowing what is eatable and what was not.  Watching tornados as they pass at a distance from an upstairs window.   Pinics in the park and on the beach.  I now realize how many of these things were forgotten and that you rarely see any of these things happening today.  Today it is all about keeping our children safe and free of anything that would be considered inappropriate for them or unsafe for them to be doing.  I can remember when leaving your doors unlock was okay.  Sitting outside at night in your front yard and neighbors  gathering at ones house for general freindly chats.  If you do it today, you take a major chance in life of being targets for drive by shootings.  Leaving your doors unlock is a chance you may be the next victim in a home burglary and murder.  What happened to the respect we were taught as children for others.  As a child we were taught that you respect other peoples property and you did not get smart mouth with elders instead you held them in high regard and if you were not comfortable with what they had to say, you discussed it with your parents.  Discussions with done with adult attitudes that meant you discussed not fought or ran for a gun.  We had strong family values then and now those values have disappeared in todays familes.  I can rememer when you were taught that family is your number one priority in life.  Without family you have no support or values.  I don't see many people teaching strong family support today.  With the prices of everthing going up and more families loosing everything they have, where are those families that support one another today?  You brother is loosing his home or it may be your auntie, you just sit there and watch as they become the next homeless person you see on the side of the street.  We were always taught to held family with family is in need of help.  Where did that family togetherness go?  I understand tmes change, but values and common courtesy did not.  I told my grandson that no matter what he does in life to always remember that I loved him and that we are family and that will never change and family takes care of family no matter what else is happening in life.  I also told him that all I ask of him is that he strive for high education to get him a job that makes him happy, not a job that will make you wish you had taken another job.  If you are not happy, you will not be happy with anything else in life.  I told him I would be happy with whatever he choose in life as long as I knew he was happy with his life. 

We hold our children in high regards in some families and yet we also hold them to a higher standard of expectations.  We never take into consideration that those expectations we make on them may be too high for them to attain.  When they fail to meet those expectations and standards we call them losers.  Where is that family support we were taught to give in those situations?  If you are making high standards for these children and placing expectations of them that you yourself can not meet why would you expect more of them?  I expect my children to strive for higher education, meet their spouse of siginificate other halfway in dealing with family issues, maintain a clean and dafe atmosphere to raise children in.  I also expect them to teach those values and standards to their children and if those children need more stimulation then they need to at least attempt meeting that need.  I also expect them to teach that close family support system within their own families.  Today we forget that we have children or a family.  We place more importance on maintaining that job or obtaining more money that the next person.  What happened to spending quality time with the family you started?  We all like to make money, but not at the expense of our family.  If we took the time to reconnect as families, maybe some of the violence we are hearing on the local news channels might start to disappear.  Family, Family, Family.  People need to go back to some of the old basics in life and reevaluate our lives and the family we have raised and how we hold that family.  Tomorrow may never come, so make those changes today.  When tomorrow does come for us, we have the support of that family.  Bless you all and hopefully you heed this blog as a warning of things to come. 

Looking at these windows and seeing from the outside the difference and similarities of people is amazing in life.  Those of us that are similar in life are those who are interested in the differences and the similarities of all people.  I enjoy the two and get ingrossed in how we all look at things and see the same things, but in different ways.  If we were all the same and thought the same, there would be nothing interesting in any of us.  But because we see the same things in a different light, we share those differences and find we have so much in common with everyone.  Writers bring to the table an imagination that brings to light an enourmus about of fantasy and truth and yet as a mucisian you bring to light the rythums of those sights with sound.  As a publisher or producer you bring all those thing to light for all other to see and experience.  So one experiences those sight and thoughts by reading, viewing and listening.  Without our senses, we are left in the dark on all that is beautiful, lame and filthy in this world we live.  Even those who have no hearing can experience those sights and thoughts by way of different techinques.  The only person who can not experience these things in life are those who have closed themselves off from life all together.  We all work to achieve the same things and yet we doing them in different ways and still achieve our goals.  Without a goal in life, we wonder around with no real purpose in life.  If you have no real purpose in life, what are you doing?  Where are you going?  Have you ever wondered what it is you would be doing without that purpose driven goal?  Have you ever wondered where you learned those lessons in life that brought you here today?  You can't go foward until you have looked backard and gandered at where you came from and what you are forging to.

We teach our children that we all have goals in life to achieve, but the way we teach them is different and sometimes we reach them and sometimes we loose them to the purpose.  Making it clear that remembering where you come from and where you are headed is important in setting those goals you so desparately want to achieve.  I know for myself that achieving my great goal is writing a best seller and having one of the most happy families possible.  Or at least a familiy that is still together as a family.  That would take me knowing where I came from and what I came from and then determining where I am headed in life and how I propose to get there.  Making enemies of people on the way there will only come back to hurt my ultimate goals in life by bringing me back a couple of steps and that will slow the process down.  No one will be happy when that happens and defeat my purpose.  They say that family is first and foremost to any successful person, and I find that this statement is correct.  Without that family, where is your built in support?  That support is a major need in your endeavors in life.  If you don't have that, what is there?  Think about those things in life you are wishing to achieve and how you plan to get there and what is it goning to take from you, your family, and your life.  The next time you go to teach your child about goals, think about those questions and how you will present them to them.  Viewing this in different ways and seeing this in a different light is expected and some with have a very definite view on it and others may not have any views on it at all, but think about it and maybe you will come to some new realizations in your own life.