How to be an Advocate for your Loved one in Hospital | The Elevate Institute | Eva Vennari
Eva Vennari outlines ten concrete steps for hospital advocates: question medication side effects, track every dose, demand lab results, get daily physician updates, monitor IV sites, ensure hydration and nutrition, encourage walking, request daily baths, and build a relief team. She frames advocacy as balancing trauma-focused medical care with healing-focused support to accelerate recovery.
Chapters
Well, now that you've heard more about why it's so important to be an advocate and what can happen if you don't speak up and ask questions, let's talk more in detail about the what specifically you can look for and the things that I learned in the recent hospital stay with my daughter that I think can really be helpful to you. So this is Eva Vennari, and I'm founder of the Elevate Institute, here to help you question everything in a respectful way in this situation. I want to Just go down the list here of what I have. So we talked about trauma care versus healing care, and in being an advocate, it's about being aware that both are necessary in a situation. You're there to help heal your loved one with, with care and love and support. And here's how. So I mentioned before, ask about the side effects. Write down a history. Even though they have a medical history there and they're keeping track of it in their computers, Take out a piece of paper or your phone, however you want to keep track of it. Write down when something was administered, what the name of it is, what— and ask at least— ask the first time anyways, what are the side effects of it, so that you can be aware and watch your loved one. Okay, they'll appreciate it. They'll want to know that you're on top of it for them. Again, they'll feel like it's a team effort. Okay, so ask about the side effects. Ask how often this should be administered. And ask if there's anything else that can be given that's not as strong. And that's an interesting moment because I found this, I found this to be true, is they go for what they think, they administer what they think is going to work and has worked for most people. If that doesn't work, they just pull from top shelf. They go to the next, like the highest extreme possible. Ask for something that's not as strong, especially if it's pain medication, okay? Whenever you have a lab person come in, and they come in at all hours with their little, their little tray bucket of all of their, their vials and things, ask. Say, hey, what is this test for and when will I know the results of them? If you don't get the results back right away from a doctor, if your doctor is not visiting you every so often, you can ask the nurse to send the doctor a note. Did you know that you could do that? So they'll send the doctor an email or a text message. That's how they communicate these days. So you take advantage of it and say, hey, I didn't get the last results of the test, the blood test. Will you keep us abreast of what's going on? They should be doing that automatically. But if they don't, ask. Okay. Yeah, ask the doctor for an update every day. If they're not coming by every day, ask them what's the progress? What's the prognosis? How do you— how long? How much longer? Let them know that you're looking to get your loved one stable and home. And the less time that they spend in the hospital, the better, right? So every day it's a push for when— what markers are we looking for in order to have us leave the hospital and go home? So ask about those markers. I've noticed such and such is going on with my loved one. They're getting a rash, they're getting more hungry, they're getting— whatever the change is. I've noticed they need to go to the restroom more frequently. Whatever that is, make sure that that's put into Whatever it is that you notice equals progress marker, make sure that the nurse puts that into the computer system. You're always looking for the approval to go home. That's the idea. Because again, if you're able to go to the restroom, if you're able to get rid of whatever you're bringing in, you're able to drink the water, you're able to take things down, you're able to walk, they want to see that you're walking. You're now making an effort to go home. So remember that for yourself and for your loved one. Refuse pain meds as you need to. So if you notice that your pain levels are going down, again, ask for something that's not so strong. And that also is a marker that says, one, they're not addicted, they're not gonna be a return customer with, with, hey, I need pain medications, and they're more likely to take care of the pain with more integrity at home. You and your loved one, it's gonna be easier to to discharge if they're not, if you're not hooked on a drug. Okay, even if, you know, talk to your loved one about this, this moment of, do you really need pain medication, or is it just something you're used to taking now and you're afraid of having the pain reoccur? So have that conversation, especially the longer you stay in the hospital. You don't want to get hooked on the pain meds. It's a real thing. It happens. You can recover from it. But why? Why get yourself addicted if you don't need to go through all of that? process of getting it out of your system. Question the IV. So I can't tell you the number of times when the nurse would administer something in Morgan's IV and she would be in a lot of pain. So I don't know if it's just her anatomy or in a combination of her anatomy with like the size of the veins and the size of the needle and all of that, it just kept popping. So her veins wouldn't hold an IV for longer than 24 hours, and it came to the point where we just knew that and we would look for, we would say, okay, it's time, let's go ahead, we planned for it, let's have a new IV. Because the medication would go into the muscle tissue around where the IV was administered rather than into the vein. That's a problem. Keep on top of it because oftentimes the nurses, the administrators, they're just, well, it looks good, it's still in the vein, and they do something called a flush. So ask them, say, you know what, she's experiencing a lot of pain, maybe you should flush it. Or do you think maybe it's time to flush it? If you want to be less pushy, I'm not afraid of these things, but if you want to say it in a nicer way, should we go ahead and check to make sure that that's still good? You know, and that way you give them the benefit of doing the work for themselves. What else? Keep track of the meds by name and milligram dosage values. There could be a change in dosage along the way, less and less of the pain medications to be specific, less and less of any other type of medication, is a good sign that you've got improvement, and it just gives you another leg to stand on when you ask to leave. How soon can we leave? I want to get out of here. Be anxious to get out. Remember to drink water to flush the kidneys. So make sure that your loved one has plenty of room-temperature filtered water. Ask where it's coming from. If you don't see that they have good quality filtered water, it smells like chlorine because they're getting it from the tap, bring water in. Okay, so there's no law that says you cannot go out to the store and buy some Crystal Geyser or, you know, some other good quality spring water and bring it into the hospital. You want to make sure they normally would administer an IV drip with 2 liters and sometimes 3 in a day. That's great. 2 to 3 liters is perfect. You just want to also help your loved one go to the bathroom. They need to be getting that much water down. So once they stop administering the water through the IV, they need to be drinking it. So Keep track of how much they're drinking. Drink between meals, make sure they're not drinking with their food. If they drink with food, it dilutes the digestion and then you have problems with IBS or you end up with more problems while you're in the hospital. Don't do that, okay? So just drink between your meals and make sure they're getting enough water down. Let's see. Make sure that you're ordering food that's cooked vegetables and some protein. That could be chicken, it can be turkey, it can be anything off of the menu that is a cooked Protein, but you're talking about your protein should be about the size, the mass of the palm of your hand. You can do 2 of those a day. And then fill half of your plate at least with cooked veggies. Ask for more veggies. You can ask for a side of veggies. Just get the veggies down. You can put all the other stuff that comes with, like the cookie and the salad and the other junk that they put on the plate, just put it aside or say, you know what, I don't need the jelly. I don't need the Jell-O. I don't need the bread with the butter. I don't need any of that stuff. So the other thing you can do is make sure that you walk. They should have walkers, and this helps get that food that you've been eating through the intestinal tract. And they want to know that you're passing gas and that you're able to pass bowel movements. If you can't do that, you can't go home. And what helps with cramping? What helps with being stiff? Walking. You're going to start off slowly, then build your way up. And they have— usually there's the rooms on the outside. Right? And then they have the nurse's station with other closets and things around the middle, and you're able to walk around that space. Take a few laps. Start out with maybe just going a couple of doors down and then returning. And that's literally what we had to do. We'd go down a few doors, a few of the other patient doors, rooms, and then turned around and came back until eventually we were making laps around. And then she could feel better and get better. So remember to walk. And encourage your loved one to get up and walk. It's not always easy, but it's the best thing to do to get them home. Ask to be washed. Did you know that you have a sponge bath option every day? And come in at night and clean up your feet, your legs, your arms, your torso, whatever it is you need to feel clean. You cannot take a shower usually when you're in the hospital all hooked up to all these different things everywhere, these wires. So ask to have a wash. You know, it's— there's nothing wrong with keeping clean and smelling good and feeling like you can put a brush through your hair. So ask for these things. They can provide a toothbrush, toothpaste, your floss, body wash. All of these things are available to you if you ask for them. Okay, so make your stay in the hospital comfortable for your loved one and for yourself especially. Have a team of people that you can count on. to relieve you. So what I did was I had friends and her friends, my daughter's friends, come in and relieve me for 3 or 4 hours while I went home, took a nap, showered, changed, and then packed my food because, you know, I'm not gonna— you spend hundreds of dollars on food at the hospital if you do that. But I packed my own things and I brought them with me. And that way I could be there for her and have what I needed and get the rest. So rest when you— rest when your loved one rests. Be up when she's up or he's up and make sure that you're constantly in contact with what's going on. Check in, read a book, you know, whatever you need to do to be there, but be active and be there and be an advocate as opposed to just going, well, how are you feeling today? Okay, so make it useful and impactful and your loved one will get better sooner than later and you can both go home. And that's the goal. All right, this is Eva with the Elevate Institute. Hope this was helpful to you. Until next time.
