Day 54 - News From the Front Line

After the MRI or CT scan debacle, I'd had enough. If it wasn't dealing with real people it would make a great comedy sketch in the vein of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first!" It is utter carelessness that Bilkmore can't even get a simple scan order submitted correctly and shows the pattern of carelessness that they have now become synonymous with. After repeated calls, we think it is all settled but then again, it is Bilkmore so something can still go wrong.

By late Tuesday I'd had enough and called the "Excellent Care" number. I spoke with a very helpful clinic manager. She said she'd been with them since October and had been straightening out one mess after another. That did not give me any more confidence in the clinic. I'm now wishing we'd known about her from the beginning. This manager finally had to fax in Jan's work's request for continued treatment verification herself. All of this is after an in-person request to the nurse last Thursday, a call on Friday and a call again on Monday!

IMPORTANT NOTE - Valuable Lesson #2: If you are being treated by a nurse practitioner, you have the right to request to see the doctor instead. I wish we'd have been told that from the beginning. Jan is so afraid they will retaliate against her for complaining. She is very fearful of me making such calls. The lady assured us they would not negatively change her treatment because she complained.

As of right now, she is supposed to be seeing the actual neurosurgeon at her next appointment on March 4th at 4:15 PM! The CT scan is now scheduled for March 3rd at 2:00 PM. She will be going to the children's hospital to see the actual doctor. Don't ask because we do not know how she wound up with a pediatric doctor! Hopefully, he is used to dealing with people like me, childish and stubborn! I'm thinking since we've gotten away from the non-doctor administrative types that the real doctor will be more agreeable in person. Putting a face to an x-ray or CT scan where she can voice her own concerns directly has to make a difference.

I thought I was going to have to fight with the scheduler about the difference between 12 weeks and three months again! Months don't divide into evenly calculated weekday boundaries, either. She kept trying to make it a full week later than her original appointment. You can tell these people don't have a clue how horrible this experience is and continues to be.

Three days is 3.5% of 12 weeks. As such, three days cannot make an appreciable difference in how well the bone is healed and, therefore, when the halo can be removed. Standard practice from all accounts is to wear it four more weeks if the bone isn't healed but shows signs of healing.

Obviously, she doesn't want to have to wear it one single day longer than absolutely necessary. Pray for her! If it doesn't come off March 4th, pray for both of us!

Day 52 - CT Scan or MRI?

Day 52 opens without definitive answers and 29 days to go. Jan called the imaging company on Tuesday about "The Scan" only to be told there was no appointment. Next, she called the Bilkmore clinic and was told the scan order was sent in yesterday but they never notified us. Back to the imaging company she calls and they found an order but it is faxed in on an MRI sheet, not a CT scan sheet. The MRI tech says that even though the vest and halo are MRI safe, it may not be the best choice. She said they generally do a CT scan to confirm bone healing. An MRI can confirm that as well as view the soft tissue. THE MADNESS!

Jan and I both agreed Bilkmore cannot communicate for anything. They tell us one thing and do another. When both of us remember it one way and the nurse says something different, I believe two against one.

The MRI tech, at Jan's request, was going to call the NP and request clarification on the type of scan. Hopefully, a medical professional to medical professional phone call will not have a 48-hour turnaround. The MRI tech promised to call us back once she had confirmation on which scan was needed. That didn't happen yesterday so Jan is going to call Bilkmore one more time.

Regardless, she has an appointment for an 8:00 AM something on March 4, 2009, with the report and images going with us. Effectively, we will know the results before we even get on I-65. The radiologist is the one that reads the images and makes the report. Neuro just has to agree or disagree.

Update from last week: The doctor I was told would call me, the one that allegedly supervised the halo-sadist, is hereby deemed useless as well. Still no call from him. Jan's care could NOT get any worse. If complaining and lodging formal, written letters result in any repercussions for her, they are even more pathetic than I can possibly imagine.

Will this nightmare ever end? I have the "Excellent Service" phone number on speed dial if they sent in the wrong order. That is negligence! Is there any wonder why doctors are the third leading cause of death in America?

Sometimes I believe they are actually trying to harm her but that's just the paranoid in me creeping out. When I start thinking like that I'm reminded of this quote:

"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

On a happier note, Jan went to her floral arrangement class on Tuesday night. That was the first time since the halo she's been left someplace I haven't stayed with her. I drove her there and dropped her off with a friend that is also taking the class. The week before we confirmed Jan could get in and out of her Blazer before I was OK with it. She brought Jan home without incident. It is also the first time Jan has ridden with someone besides me since the accident.

Day 50 - The Unforgiven

I hope this Groundhog Day is not like the movie, reliving the same day over and over!

Jan's appetite returned last night after she stopped the antibiotic. She was on the eighth day of 10. One doctor, relayed through a nurse that called, said to stop the antibiotic, don't take Immodium and they'd call in another antibiotic course. Jan wasn't really happy with that since she'd already taken an Immodium on Saturday night and had already taken the Sunday morning antibiotic. The nurse could not elaborate on the reason to not take Immodium and only repeated it. I see a pattern here with nurses.

For confirmation, she called the pharmacy again. They had the same old story about stopping an antibiotic before the full course would allow the infection to come back, possibly stronger, blah, blah, blah! Well, if it is causing side effects worse than the original illness, it is time to regroup!

Thankfully, a second doctor, one she prefers to deal with, called back and said to stop the antibiotic and get the side effects cleared up before she starts anything else. In her current condition, anything too stressful on the body is harder to deal with.

She has agreed to try more yogurt in her diet, which she hates. Twice a day is what she said since it will help replenish the good flora in her digestive tract. We've already tried the drinkable yogurt. That wasn't very palatable either. She's been taking a probiotic since the first round of antibiotics a few weeks ago but the latest antibiotic was so strong it didn't seem to help.

Never again will I look at the medical profession as if they are miracle workers. That day has come and gone. Never again will I trust the word of a doctor or nurse as gospel. Their interests are not always my best interests. Never again!

Switching gears now. My sister, the nurse, says that if we go to therapy, the first thing the therapist is going to ask me to do is to forgive the people that I hold responsible. I'm not ready to do that just yet. Filing complaints makes me feel better than any therapy could. I need to stay agitated for a while longer. It helps me have the will to deal with these people. When I'm not, I'm ambivalent and I let things slide, sometimes until it is too late to do anything productive.

After 50 days without any counseling, I don't think it will make any difference anyway. We needed it on Day 1. In my opinion, that window has closed.

Day 49 - Gastric Distress and the Great Indoor Flood

First, the two items in the title are not related so don't panic.

Day 49 started just like day 48 with Jan's tummy still in turmoil with the antibiotic. Just two more days of that. She tried to contact the pharmacy and the urgent clinic that prescribed them to no avail. In the end, we decided it was better to take a single Immodium to try to alleviate the symptoms than to continue dehydrating unchecked. Hopefully, someone will call back this morning. She's still not eating much and that bothers me but she eats what she can. Toast and Jello are not very filling or nutritious.

The preacher brought over some food yesterday afternoon but Jan only ate one of the cranberry jello squares and a crescent roll. Something is better than nothing even if it does have an extremely rapid transit time.

She's not running any sort of fever. We have been monitoring her blood sugar as well just to be on the safe side. It is usually in the 90s or just over 100 so that seems pretty stable. She has some general lab work coming up this week and she wants to postpone it. She's agreed to call the doctor to see if the medications she's on will skew the results. I don't think painkillers will have any effect that can't be accounted for.

The vest is causing her a lot of pain in her shoulders. She's humping up her shoulders in a permanent shrug all the time to take the pressure off of her neck. The NP and the halo guru say it is supposed to be supported by the belly. It is amazing how these supposed professionals could care less for the secondary problems this thing causes and have no interest in even attempting to correct it. I finally had enough and took some of the lambswool we'd cut out and stacked it under her shoulder straps. At least she doesn't have to keep as much pressure on her shoulders to take some of the weight off.

I finally think I can articulate why I distrust the NP so much. She is not a doctor, first and foremost. She may be good at the basics but she does not have the knowledge of a doctor. She may have seen a lot but she is actually only parroting what the doctor tells her and I believe things get lost in translation. Her solution to everything is more pain pills without ever understanding the underlying cause. Her complete and total lack of willingness to even consider adjusting the vest tells me she has no skill to speak of. All she ever wants to do is tighten, tighten, tighten.

The Great Indoor Flood

For something on a completely different subject, the Great Indoor Flood of 2009 hit last night. Our washing machine has a very small hose, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, that senses the water level. It came off once early last year and flooded the utility room and then the kitchen while the lady that cleans the house was doing a load of towels. Once in five years didn't upset me too bad. You can guess what happened again last night.

Luckily, I had the wet/dry vacuum handy and immediately started throwing towels all over to stop the flood from reaching the hardwood floors. Then I vacuumed up three tanks of water in about 45 minutes. That's about 15 gallons! Jan called Tessa to come home and help as I would not allow Jan to do anything but tell me if water was getting on the wood floors. She sat helplessly in a dining room chair. I don't want to think what would have happened should she have slipped!

Tessa baled out the washer enough that we could spin the water out while I continued to pull another tank and a half of water out from under the dishwasher, refrigerator, washer and drier. Tessa threw some soaked rugs out on the rear deck before heading back out to be with her friends. On her way out of the house, she slipped on the wet deck and landed on her purse. She was OK but broke the LCD on her camera. Some days it just doesn't pay!

The washer hose is clear plastic and is nearly inaccessible. I can sit behind the washer and then stoop low enough to snake an arm up to get the hose back on. I'd done it a year ago. This time the hose had swelled slightly and I assume that is why it came loose again. I clipped the swelled portion off to get a better seal and reattached it.

Three hours and two laundry baskets full of soaking wet towels later, the place looks like the disaster zone it was before the flood. The only thing ruined was my back from stooping over to get all the water up. Much better today.

The repair has held long enough for me to watch it do a few loads of towels this morning but I no longer trust the attachment. I've nicknamed the clamp after the NP at Bilkmore because all I need to do is tighten, tighten, tighten! It is a five-cent spring clamp I can squeeze off and on with my fingers. I'm going to the parts store to get a worm gear hose clamp to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Two good things did happen as a side effect of the flood. I was so tired I slept without an Ambien and the floors were cleaner than they have ever been. All things considered, I rather have taken the Ambien and skipped the flood.