Jess N Tom Hudson

Review of UTK

My husband was taken to UT by ambulance because he...

My husband was taken to UT by ambulance because he was having trouble breathing, feverish and just feeling badly. There was a full house in the Emergency Room and the examination rooms were turning over as soon as the next was cleaned up it filled up. Thank goodness the staff is great at thinking straight during such a fast moving, crazy busy time as to reconized his condition was such that he would be admitted in hospital. They diagnosed and started treating him for severe pnumonia as well as getting an X-RAY done as they were setting up getting my husband a room. My husband was admitted in hospital and had a CT scan done as well as breathing treatments, IV fluids with antibiotics, steroids and medicine for pain from all the coughing. Ultimately when the CT scan report came back it showed that my husbands right lung had a lot of damage from the pnumonia but also lung cancer. After having a bronchial scope to do a biopsy on the mass, in which my husbands heart rate went crazy high while under anesthesia (which has never happened before with the 5 surgeries in the last 11 years he's had) put him in ICU for 2 days. He was then put in a different room where he was hooked up to like 5 different wires and tubes to make sure that the staff had every bit of information possible. He joked about feeling like an octopus lol. After 7 days in the hospital he was discharged with appointments for several doctors, COPD, Pulmonary, Cancer Specialist, Oncologist and Pallitive care. He has since had a PET scan which the Doctor interpreted as my husband has Stage 3b non-small cell lung cancer, specifically Squamous. My husband is currently waiting for the upcoming appointments to get a Port put in for the Chemo to be administered as well as Radiation treatments for the next 6 weeks. **EVERY Single person that we came in contact with at All the different locations to include the Doctors, Nurses, aides, technicians, admission, the people that brought his meals to the janitorial people treated both of us with the up most Respect, Listened to us about us, and as we were/are Human Beings. It is the best experience we've ever had at the local hospitals. IF my husband was Treated with a Fraction of the Respect 4 months earlier in October 2017 When he was taken by ambulance to LaConte, was admitted on Saturday the 14th about midnight Only to be told there was no "Medical" reason to keep him and discharged him without the Doctor even coming to the room to debrief my husband. My husband was throwing up in the garbage can and still on a liquid diet the same Doctor put him on, we were made to leave, under protest of course, and shuffled out a BACK door by a Nurse and a Security guard which was really uncalled for. We were homeless and didn't have any insurance, just an almost exact situation with 2 VERY different outcomes. We truly hope that each person that has the unfortunate event leading to a trip to UT Hospital has the same Awesome experience that we had and continue to have with outpatient appointments and treatments. God Bless them All.