Another one of those days where I end up with all the energy I needed at around 2:00 this afternoon now, when I'm supposed to be going to bed. So I've spent the last three hours in a flurry of computer-based activity, including (in no particular order):
Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Taaaaantalizing, perhaps? Whatever could I be up to?
All in good time, dear reader, all in good time.
As expected, mom was not quite as cheery today as she was yesterday, what with the narcotics wearing off and all. A brief bit of confusion about the exact timing of her move from the medical/surgical wing of the hospital over to the skilled nursing facility that will be her home for the next four weeks sent her into tears, apparently (she hates that). We'd spent a lot of time with the doctor emphasizing that a) she needed to be moved into in an assisted living situation directly from the hospital on Friday, and that b) acute rehab, once the sling came off, would happen after that. Which of course resulted in the doc sending a discharge planner into her room to talk to her about moving her to acute rehab tomorrow. All straightened out when I got there and spoke with yet another discharge planner, but I'm often amazed by the propensity for people--intelligent people, busy, yes, but generally on top of things--to completely forget very specific conversations and set processes in motion that are the exact opposite of what's just been discussed.
I have a great deal of empathy for people who are routinely caught up in the medical system. My mom's a former RN, and sharp, and I'm quick with the thinking on my better days, so between the two of us we're able to muster up the knowledge needed penetrate the Medicare bureaucracy and make sure that she gets the care that she needs, when she needs it. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who don't have the inside track that we do, or who are constitutionally unable to march up to the floor station and politely demand to speak to the charge nurse, or to have a doctor summoned when necessary because the appropriate level of care is not being given. My mom and I make a good team: stuff gets done. If she's upset because there's confusion among the staff, I'm perfectly capable of following the discharge planner into her office while she's on her cell phone, and getting things straightened out. I'm sure that most people just get shuffled through the system, hapless and sick, without an advocate to help them navigate the medical maze.
Because my mother was a medical professional, she's afforded a certain degree of professional courtesy. It's subtle, and it shouldn't be that way, really, but it is, and we take full advantage of it. It also helps that she's not afraid to write letters when things have not gone the way they were supposed to: she's old school, with high standards, and is able to speak the lingo, so when she writes a letter to the hospital ombudsman and cc:'s exactly the right people on the board, things change. They do actually make note of such communication: notes go into your patient file and accompany you on your trips through the system, and I'm pretty sure that my mother's file has the equivalent of a sticker on it that says Do Not Fuck With This Woman.
Which is yet another reason that it's so profoundly unjust that shes been stricken in the way that she has. We shouldn't have to do these things, to make these arrangements so that she'll have the right people around her to help her walk and go to the bathroom and all of the other tasks that I, and probably you, just take for granted, because our bodies mostly do what they're supposed to do. She's only 66, and she's been robbed of what should have been a graceful and active retirement by her clusterfuck of an immune system. It's fortunate that she's always had black sense of humor; often it's the only thing that's been able to see her through an intolerable situation.
So tomorrow she'll move to what she's been calling "the home," which is by all accounts a nice place to be if you have to be in such a place. I'll see her tomorrow there, but probably not Friday, because I have to go down south to have cocktails with my partners and some potential investors.
Which, if you'd asked me six months ago, is not something I thought I'd ever be doing. Funny old world.
- Designing production schedules for several books
- Setting up a Google Books account
- Revising a document about royalty schedules for authors
- Setting project milestones and an all-important launch date
Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Taaaaantalizing, perhaps? Whatever could I be up to?
All in good time, dear reader, all in good time.
As expected, mom was not quite as cheery today as she was yesterday, what with the narcotics wearing off and all. A brief bit of confusion about the exact timing of her move from the medical/surgical wing of the hospital over to the skilled nursing facility that will be her home for the next four weeks sent her into tears, apparently (she hates that). We'd spent a lot of time with the doctor emphasizing that a) she needed to be moved into in an assisted living situation directly from the hospital on Friday, and that b) acute rehab, once the sling came off, would happen after that. Which of course resulted in the doc sending a discharge planner into her room to talk to her about moving her to acute rehab tomorrow. All straightened out when I got there and spoke with yet another discharge planner, but I'm often amazed by the propensity for people--intelligent people, busy, yes, but generally on top of things--to completely forget very specific conversations and set processes in motion that are the exact opposite of what's just been discussed.
I have a great deal of empathy for people who are routinely caught up in the medical system. My mom's a former RN, and sharp, and I'm quick with the thinking on my better days, so between the two of us we're able to muster up the knowledge needed penetrate the Medicare bureaucracy and make sure that she gets the care that she needs, when she needs it. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who don't have the inside track that we do, or who are constitutionally unable to march up to the floor station and politely demand to speak to the charge nurse, or to have a doctor summoned when necessary because the appropriate level of care is not being given. My mom and I make a good team: stuff gets done. If she's upset because there's confusion among the staff, I'm perfectly capable of following the discharge planner into her office while she's on her cell phone, and getting things straightened out. I'm sure that most people just get shuffled through the system, hapless and sick, without an advocate to help them navigate the medical maze.
Because my mother was a medical professional, she's afforded a certain degree of professional courtesy. It's subtle, and it shouldn't be that way, really, but it is, and we take full advantage of it. It also helps that she's not afraid to write letters when things have not gone the way they were supposed to: she's old school, with high standards, and is able to speak the lingo, so when she writes a letter to the hospital ombudsman and cc:'s exactly the right people on the board, things change. They do actually make note of such communication: notes go into your patient file and accompany you on your trips through the system, and I'm pretty sure that my mother's file has the equivalent of a sticker on it that says Do Not Fuck With This Woman.
Which is yet another reason that it's so profoundly unjust that shes been stricken in the way that she has. We shouldn't have to do these things, to make these arrangements so that she'll have the right people around her to help her walk and go to the bathroom and all of the other tasks that I, and probably you, just take for granted, because our bodies mostly do what they're supposed to do. She's only 66, and she's been robbed of what should have been a graceful and active retirement by her clusterfuck of an immune system. It's fortunate that she's always had black sense of humor; often it's the only thing that's been able to see her through an intolerable situation.
So tomorrow she'll move to what she's been calling "the home," which is by all accounts a nice place to be if you have to be in such a place. I'll see her tomorrow there, but probably not Friday, because I have to go down south to have cocktails with my partners and some potential investors.
Which, if you'd asked me six months ago, is not something I thought I'd ever be doing. Funny old world.
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