Imagine having a 10-month-old baby who can’t keep anything down, has a high temperature, and has been in the hospital for days. Would you trust what the nurse told you, or would red flags go up if the nurse went against what the doctor told you?

In this story, two parents are in this exact situation, and their baby daughter is still in the ICU at the hospital due to the nurse’s actions.

Keep reading to find out how it got so bad.

Entitled nurse dropped the ball

I will start off by mentioning that our daughter (10months), we’ll call her DD, was born last year, 10 weeks early. This required a long, but successful 52 day NICU stay.

I say this because we have worked with dozens of nurses and have never had an issue. I’d like to think we’re pretty easy going and just try to advocate for our daughter the best we can.

Last Monday, DD was throwing up and spiked a fever of 103. We brought her to the ER where they transferred her to inpatient care.

The plan was to keep up with Tylenol/ibuprofen to keep her temp down. We discussed possibly getting an NG tube to help keep her hydrated.

It got worse.

Tuesday comes and she’s coughing so hard she vomits and gets dehydrated, so she gets the NG tube and we start her on tube feeds that night.

We meet with DD’s doctors on Wednesday morning along with entitled nurse (EN) and come up with a plan for the day.

We all agree that she needs to keep on a Tylenol/ibuprofen schedule to keep her fever at bay so she doesn’t get further dehydrated, and we will try feeding her formula/or pedialyte via bottle as long as she isn’t exerting too much energy, and if she seems tired we’ll go back to the tube feeding.

Pretty clear cut, right?

Wrong.

It got even worse, and EN wasn’t following the things they had agreed on.

DD coughs so hard that she throws up every minimal amount of feed she takes. I’m talking .5-2oz max.

I can tell DD is getting dehydrated, she isn’t making many/any dirty diapers, she’s becoming lethargic.

EN insists we continue bottle feeding and won’t allow the tube feed. During this time she also told me to “let her know if she feels warm” and she’ll administer Tylenol, instead of sticking to the regiment we agreed upon earlier.

I don’t think much of it because I’m not a nurse and maybe she is right after all? I start questioning my gut.

Please note that during this time DD isn’t connected to any monitors, aka no heart rate, oxygen level, etc.

I can only imagine how stressful this must be for this parents.

In the mean time, I start logging everything. Every feed she takes, every time she vomits, what her temp is, when she gets medicine, etc.

I have this gut feeling something is off. My daughter is not right.

I knew she was dehydrated, tired and definitely getting sicker. Her cough is getting much more severe.

I express all of these concerns and I am not being listened to. At all.

Things got worse, but then they got better.

A code white is called at some point during the day when another nurse dropped in to check on DD. They also take a urine sample (pretty hard to get when you’re incredibly dehydrated) and she also has a UTI on top of whatever it is she’s fighting.

The night nurse (an actual angel of a human being, well call him NN), comes in and immediately notices DD is off.

They hook her up to monitors (finally) and her oxygen is low, temp is spiked, heart rate is very high. A slew of doctors come in to assess.

They all agree to put her on oxygen, continue tube feedings and to monitor her stats. He gets her back on tube meals and administers Tylenol to subside her fever.

She gets good meals through the night, we feel confident that she’s starting to catch up.

She finally has a diaper after 18+ hours.

But EN isn’t complying with the doctor’s plan…again!

Thursday morning shift change and EN is back.

We do rounds with the doctors and discuss our game plan for the day. We will continue with tube feeds until the afternoon to let DD catch up, continue Tylenol, keep her on oxygen until noon and if she spiked a fever we will get a chest X-ray done to see what’s going on.

Rounds finish and EN comes in and immediately disconnects her oxygen and stops her tube feeds.

I ask why.

EN’s answer was pretty unreasonable.

She says “she won’t have these at home so she can’t rely on them.”

Mind you, there has been zero discussion of DD going home and it’s literally 8am, not noon. We have no idea what’s wrong with her at this point and she continues to get worse.

But I, naively, think that the doctor must have changed his plan and I don’t push back anymore.

DD develops a worse cough and starts grunting non stop. I am not exaggerating when I tell you it is NONSTOP. She is clearly having a hard time keeping up and is having trouble breathing and settling down.

EN seems to be making things up as she goes along right now. How did she even get this job?

I voice my concerns to EN.

Her response? She comes in and SHUTS THE MONITORS OFF AND STOPS MONITORING DD STATS.

I tell her I’d prefer if she left them on. They weren’t causing any harm.

She says “not my call” and walks out.

Any parent would be furious!

I am irate at this point.

I can’t even speak to her, let alone look at her anytime she comes in.

My poor daughter is inconsolable.

EN comes in very infrequently, because why would she? It’s not like she sees any issues on her monitor because she shut them OFF.

My gut tells me something is wrong again.

Something IS wrong.

I take DD’s temp, she’s up to 102.4.

EN just gives her Tylenol and tells me to stop taking her temp.

We ask about the X-ray and EN says “we’re holding off.”

Not what we agreed to with the doctor this morning, but okay.

Thankfully, it was time for EN to go home.

Shift change happens, thank god. We get NN back.

He calls the doctor in again, DD starts coughing so hard (again) she vomits on doctor, her breathing is labored. She’s clearly breathing from her belly and having a very hard time. She’s lethargic.

NN and doctor are very upset that she is in this condition after we filled them in on the day.

We get her back on the monitor, she’s barely at 84% oxygen, heart rate is high, fever is high, you get it. Same song and dance, but we get her back on track sort of.

We requested for that nurse to be removed from our service.

She ended up getting transferred to the ICU.

Friday morning. DD’s condition isn’t getting better at all. Her body is trying to play catch up but it’s incredibly hard for her when she’s been working (unnecessarily) overtime for so long.

Theres really only so much they could do overnight before EN derailed during the day.

They call a code white again, this time the PICU team observes her and she gets transferred to the ICU, where she still is today. She is being monitored around the clock by this incredible staff, thankfully.

She is finally starting to do better, not in the clear quite yet, but we’re getting there. She is on high flow oxygen and exclusively feeding through the tube in order to let her little body heal and not have to work so hard.

EN really should be fired.

It is such a shame when you get one bad nurse.

Nurses are supposed to be your liaison between you and the doctor. They are supposed to work with you, not against you.

I can’t help but think EN was just incredibly negligent or just really bad and careless at her job.

Either way, why do you work in pediatrics when you so clearly lack empathy among other things.

She’s thinking about filing a complaint.

Our daughter has spent a total of 58 days in the hospital in the last 10 months. That’s 116 nurses, give or take.

We have never run into a problem like this.

AITA? Or do you think it is reasonable for us to file a complaint against her?

I’d hate for any other family to endure what we had those 3 days of having her as our nurse.

I’m not sure why this parent would even question whether or not it’s a good idea to file a complaint. Obviously, it’s a good idea. That nurse needs to be fired, or at the very least, retrained.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s a vote for filing the complaint.

Another person urges her to file the complaint.

She could also ask a doctor for advice.

She should also warn the doctors.

A health care worker shares some advice.

She wasn’t just entitled, she was evil.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.