Day 41 - Pictures from the Luncheon

Here is a picture of the whole family at the Kentucky Building after attending Tessa's recognition luncheon. Jan looks pretty good, don't you think? If you could not see the bars, it would not be noticeable at all.



Jan introduced her to a few people on the hill and Tessa was able to speak to several Western people that are involved in the Honors College. She is very interested in journalism, political science and especially studying abroad.



We learned a valuable lesson yesterday. Jan has some protein powder and we tried to make a yogurt smoothie with extra strawberries to help her get some calcium in her diet. It pretty much tore up her stomach for most of Friday morning until after lunch. She's all better now.

The other bummer is she is getting dizzy any time she is on her back. Guess how we wash her hair? On her back! It was a good thing the shower attachment for the tub worked out. We washed her hair in record time.

She thinks the dizziness may be related to sinus pressure, possibly related to a sinus infection. With her history of PSVT, she is not wanting to take a decongestant. She was been putting ice and heat in alternating sequence on her face and head to try to relieve the pressure. A trip to Urgent Care may be in our future.

Day 40 - Tessa's Luncheon Recognition

You may have noticed I placed a count down timer on the right margin. It may be a bit optimistic but we have a goal! Bilkmore will surely screw it up but I have a workable timeline in place.

Day 39 began early after Day 38 ended with Jan trying the bed for a second night. At 4:30 AM when nature called, she could not get situated back in the bed so she went back to the reclining lift chair. Setbacks are depressing. Now she has sworn off the bed for the duration.

Jan slept well last night back in the chair by just taking a single pain pill and a muscle relaxer pill. She did wake up cold and put her heating pad on her feet but other than that, she didn't require any additional pain medications after bedtime. It is now 6:30 AM and she had enough sleep to feel OK about going to Tessa's luncheon.

Speaking of the luncheon, today is Tessa's luncheon with the WKU President. I'm glad she was OK with her mother attending, halo and all. WKU has bent over backward to accommodate Jan. They are allowing her to park in the circle drive right in front of the Kentucky Building so she won't have steps and such to deal with. We are thankful for that. The event hasn't happened yet but I'll update later if anything interesting transpired.

I've been looking over the medical bills in my spare time. The actual CT scans I have on CD and the billable scans don't all add up. I'm trying to figure out what is what.

The hospital charged for a thorax, abdomen and pelvis scan but it is one continuous scan. Most places charge $3,000 for a full-body scan and they charged $2,300 times three for that one. Then they charged for a cervical spine, thoracic spine and lumbar spine scan that looks like the exact same scan to me. Again they billed it as three scans. I think they are used to insurance companies paying blindly and they are double-dipping. The total for CT scans alone was $14,500. The Medical Center in BG did one whole scan for $1,850 and a head scan for $1,400 on the visit two hours before Bilkmore did the exact same thing.

Based on my reading, she was exposed to the equivalent of 15 years of background radiation (three for each scan) in just four hours. Annual exposure to radiation should be limited to 20 mSv per year. She got about 10 mSv in the four hours between Med Center and Bilkmore CT scans on Dec 14th. I don't know that it is terribly harmful but it would seem they should have sent the scans with her to Bilkmore and at least looked at them first. Certainly, one more x-ray and one more CT scan will not put her over the annual limit, especially if you are creative and count the accident imaging as 2008 exposure. All other imaging is taking place in 2009.

If there is a next time, though I hope it never does, I ride in the ambulance and arrive with her. I hope it is the same if I'm the one injured. Too bad education always comes too late to help the ones you love. I hope some of you are learning from this. I won't say that makes it all worthwhile but I wish I'd have stumbled upon something like this prior to our accident.

Even though it will be paid by insurance, I'm motivated to keep them honest because they charged for a total of seven CT scans when they actually only ran her through the machine three times tops. If I can be the one that holds their feet to the fire and makes them accountable, I'm going to make it my second priority in life after Jan.

This is yet another reason I want to have her next scan in Bowling Green. The idea is that if we can get the CT scan on Wednesday afternoon and then go to Bilkmore with the scans in hand, it will be a shorter day. Knowing Bilkmore, it will be a bigger pain to try this than it should. I'm going to be adamant that they allow us this as it should be us, the ones paying, that determine how our money is being spent and the course of treatment. It isn't the nurse's body, it is Jan's that is being treated.

I've still not ruled out requesting a meeting with the hospital administrator. I've begun drafting a letter to him. I just need to research who to address it to. There is an address on the web page but I suspect it is about as useful as the patient advocate, which we've heard nothing back from. Probably a futile thing but if we don't complain, who will? If enough people complain, word gets around and then change will happen. I truly believe one person can make a difference, good or bad. I certainly will not recommend anyone going to Bilkmore and falling victim to similar treatment that we have experienced.

Day 38 - Night Without Pain Pills

Here we are at day 38 with 36 to go. We are halfway if the CT scan is on Feb 26th and shows sufficient healing! The end is in sight.

Day 36 was the first night she tried to sleep without the time-released pain pills. She slept OK but not the whole night. The stiffness at the lower lumbar near the pelvic junction is still a problem. The majority of pain has moved to her lower back where we suspect the lack of a proper fit on the vest is causing secondary pains that have nothing to do with the accident. These pains only developed after about day 30.

She can lay on her left side but not her right due to terrible neck pain. Again, this thing is not immobilizing her neck like it should. In my opinion, pain is an indication of stress due to a lack of immobilization.

Day 37 was the first night she tried to sleep in the bed with pillows propping up her back and head. There was some success but she woke up as stiff as ever, especially in her neck. She can get out of bed by herself but I'm not sure we've found the solution yet.

The pin sites are looking better after several days of applying sparing amounts of Neosporin. I clean them completely of any old ointment at night to allow them to air and then apply a fresh amount in the morning after the peroxide cleaning. This has been keeping the scabs from caking around the pins. I read and agree that we do not want the skin to grow to the pins and start trying to cover them. They are not permanent and we want no adhesion when they come out. The one will most certainly leave a pencil eraser sized scar. As she says, "That's why I have bangs."

Another interesting development is the half-dollar sized bald spot on the back of her head where she actually contacts whatever she is leaning or laying on. No other part of her head can make such contact so this single place takes all the contact stress of her head and the extra weight of the halo.

Things have progressed well through the first four weeks. At this point, we are a bit stagnant. The improvements come slower now and the changes are not all good, such as the low back pain. Things aren't bad but they certainly won't be great until the halo comes off. I suspect this is as good as it gets until that day. Then we start a whole new phase with the neck brace and physical therapy.

Other than walking in stores, I can't get her to do much exercise. She had me get the two-pound weights shortly after the accident but she's yet to use them. I know she reads this. Perhaps it will incentivize her to use them to strengthen her arms and upper body a bit. Her weight limit is five pounds in case anyone is questioning the wisdom of this. The nurse said she could do this as well.

We went looking for some long sleeve v-neck t-shirts. Colors would be good as the joke is what color shirt do you want today, white or white? So far we haven't found any. We can get long sleeve regular t-shirts or v-neck short sleeve t-shirts in colors but not both long sleeve and v-neck, white or colors.

We settled on supporting my company by buying some jersey shirts, one with black sleeves and one with red sleeves. Not being v-neck means we will have to slit them a bit deeper down the back but it will work out. She says she hates cutting up a perfectly good shirt but it is nothing compared to what the halo costs. In relative terms, it would take a thousand shirts to come close to the cost of the medieval torture device modern medicine has concocted.

Day 36 - Sleeping in a Lift Chair

It is now day 36 in a halo for Jan. Only 38 more to go, maybe less if the appointments work out to her advantage. Maybe more if they don't.

She is still sleeping in the lift chair loaned to her by her dean. She has not slept in a bed for the full 36 days. This is hard on her because she is a natural side sleeper. I'm trying to convince her she can sleep in her own bed with pillows propped around her body and head with a gap for her shoulder. That should keep any pressure points off of her arm and still allow her to log roll off the bed. Worst case scenario, she wakes me up and I help her. That's what I'm here for.

As handy as the lift chair is, it pretty much locks you into a position for the night. She was on the love seat while I sat in the lift chair. I drifted off to sleep for an hour, maybe two, and woke up stiffer than a board. I don't usually get stiff or have that kind of issue. No wonder her neck is so tight in the mornings. We apply heat to her neck every night and every morning to help ease the tension in those unused but stiff muscles.

Between the small reheatable bean bag type packs our dental hygienist gave us and the extra padding I clipped away, the little packs fit perfectly between the collar of the vest and her neck without a lot of extraneous shifting and fishing them in and out.

Her church sent over a full lasagna meal with salad and dessert for a Sunday meal. With all the gear she has on, eating is sometimes a problem. Since it naturally rests on her lower rib cage, she gets full quickly and then experiences gastric distress if she eats as quickly as a normal person. One of the side effects of the most powerful pain medication that she takes is the slowing of the gut. Peristalsis becomes sluggish and that exacerbates the condition. That lasagna was very good and she had to go rest after eating.

While Jan's niece, Emily, was visiting, I took the opportunity to partially reassemble my 39-year-old muscle car. It has been in some form of disassembly since Thanksgiving. I ordered parts before the accident and they arrived mid-week when we returned home from Bilkmore. It isn't finished but it at least has the steering gear reassembled.



Today is MLK Day and our daughter is off. Even though she won't be up before noon, she is in the house and Jan is having a good day so far. It is snowing but I have a 4x4 truck and I am going to work for a while just to get some things done that need on-site attention.