Tuesday July 20, 2010

Day 5

The day from hell starts as any other.
Out of bed and waiting for 9:30 AM to come for the insurance appeal hearing. I do get a call: to notify me that the hearing has been postponed until 10:30. Mean time nurse is having trouble controlling my pain.

Hearing starts at 11:15 AM with Diane (my wife), my doctor, myself and the insurance company all on the conference call. It lasted 25 minutes and with my doctor making numerous points about why acute care for at least 2 weeks was the best placement for me. I spoke a little and that was it. Insurance company said they would go over the information and get back to me by 1 PM. Got a call around noon and, shock, the insurance has denied my appeal.

Since I wasn't going to an acute care facility, transportation from the hospital to the sub-acute center would not be covered by my insurance. What am I supposed to do, call a cab?

The hospital tells me they can arrange an ambulance for $85. The ambulance comes at 2:30 PM to take me to the"sub-acute" facility. Ambulance ride was brutal with all of the bumps. I get to the sub-acute facility and the first thing I notice is that it smells like old people and other than the staff no one is under 80 years old. One good thing is that I got a private room.

While moving me from the strecher to my bed they forgot to put the side rail down and rolled my back across the siderail, that was fun! I start to get situated and the nurse says she will be right back toget my vitals,etc. She comes back and starts with blood pressure, pulse and then my temperature. Well my temp is 100.8 degrees and she tells me that "that's a problem and I need toreport this to the director right away". The facility director comes into my room about 30 minutes later and tells me that I am being sent back to the hospital because they don't deal with elevated temps. O goody, another ambulance ride.

They take me back to the hospital ER. My pain level is now at a 10 + and they start an IV and give me dilaudid. Pain starts to get better, about a 7. ER starts all kind of tests to see why I have an elevated temp. All of the sudden I hear a nurse say "I'm just going to lower you head" I was still on a strecher and I responded Please do it slowly. Well, the strecher slipped and she dropped my head about 12 inches and oh my God, the pain was incredible. I'm screaming, Diane is screaming and my son Matt is looking to kill somebody. I am in so much pain I can't even breath. The nurse that dropped me had the guts to say " I need some cooperation from you now". I lost it and stated screaming that I have done everything that has been asked of me but now you people are trying to fucking kill me". With that the nurse left the room. They had to give me more drugs to try and reduce the pain level.

Then they did an ultra sound of my legs to check for blood clots. Results were negative. They also took urine and blood for more tests.

Oh, by the way it is now day 5 without a bowel movement!