June 10. 2008 started like any other day. I left for work and so did my wife. She is a designer for Thomasville Furniture and was excited about moving to a grand new store.
We spoke about 2pm and made plans to have dinner with our son. As we set down at the table she excused herself and said she was going to lie down. She felt sick. At 10 pm she was doubled over in pain. She asked me to call 911.
By the next morning she was in surgery to mend two perferated ulcers. An acute and painful surgery, but nothing out of the ordinary. But for her, it was just the beginning of a long journey that hasn’t ended yet.
She was moved to ICU. She was not coming to consciousness and fell into a delirium coma. She had TTP, a usual fatal blood disorder that sometimes happens after surgery. While she was comatose the doctors ordered massive steriods to be given to save her life.
This treatment seemed to work and after four days she became conscious but she didn’t get any better. In fact, she became worse. She was dying. We were told there was a ‘leak’ somewhere.
Her surgeon went in again. This time on a hunch. He was right and found flesh that had deteriated due to the steriods. He removed several inches of the dead tissue.
For awhile things seemed to get better. She was moved to a step down wing. She seemed to respond to treatment. However a low-grade fever came and we got the bad news that it was caused by two hospital based infections, MRSA and VRE.
The infectious disease doctors were called. Nothing worked. She did not respond to any drug she was given to combat the iinfections. In fact the new-age drugs caused an abcess to form that was a big as a melon.
More surgery was needed to drain this abcess and pin row tubes were inserted into several incisions on her side.
She was in the hospital for 8 long weeks and begged her way out to be released to go home. Her doctors were still dubious about her recovery. They finally released her to Suwannee Home Care. (An excellent choice by the way!)
Between our wonderful private physician and Jane at Suwannee she finally started getting better. Our doctor ordered shots of an old fashioned antibiotic to get rid of the MRSA and the VRE. They were painful and had many side effects (loss of hearing was just one) but the daily shots worked.
However the multitude of surgical tubes were inside her for 4 months. The inside tissue started to heal before they could be safely removed.
Now she has 5 hernias. It is 18 months later and she is still fragile and weak. We were told she is not a good candidate for surgery. In fact, before Christmas last year she was admitted into the hospital twice with blood poisoning and the hospital infections became active again.
My wife is a very young 58 year old. It’s hard to tell her that she will be an invalid. We took matters into our own hands and got in touch with the Mayo Clinic.
She didn’t expect to hear from Mayo, as no doctor referred us, she simply wrote them a letter explaining all the complications she was facing.
Now she is recieving treatment at Mayo and things are looking up as far as her prognosis for her needed surgery and recovery.
However, this time Mayo is out of our insurance network so there is no ‘case manager’ assigned. The wonderful case manager at BC-BS that helped us through the 8 week hospital stay and okayed anything the doctors requested was released from our case. (The bill from Shands was a quarter of a million dollars by the way!)
Out of network means out of pocket expenses. A lot of them. And Ginger has not been able to work since that day in June when this all started.
Now we are manuvering ourselves through our insurance company. We feel like we are adrift on a rowboat in the middle of the ocean.
Now several procedures and various medications have to be approved by a ‘group’ that are not medical professions. They are bureaucrats at BC-BS and they deem whether a medication or a test is ‘medically necessary[’ even though it is ordered by a licensed doctor.
Naturally it seems the most expensive treatments and medicine are the ones they disallow. One has to go through a appeal process that takes months.
Health care reform. A few minutes ago there was a huge banner on MSNBC “What Health Care Reform Will Mean for Your Family”. I just read it and I still don’t understand what it means.
I have one question and many concerns. Does it mean that my wife will be able to receive some of the care she needs without having to go through the administrative hoops set forth by Blue Cross-Blue Shield?
There are so many more points to talk about and understand. This is just one of the concerns I have. So stay tuned. I suppose we all need to just wait and see.
“What Health Care Reform Will Mean For Your Family”
March 23rd, 2010Conversations of Caring
December 15th, 2009My Christmas is going to be a little different this year. My youngest son and brand new daughter-in-law will be in the Domincan Republic from the 19th to the 2nd of January, honeymooning and visiting Claudia’s relatives who didn’t make it to the wedding. And my older son and his family are back in Malta. I was feeling very sorry for myself for a while until I realized that it gives me the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do. My husband was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and never celebrated the holiday until we were married 11 years ago; now he’s making up for lost time and lighting every inch of our yard!! but we thought that instead of buying things for each other that we really don’t need we would take some money – and some time – and spend it in one of the many shelters in Hernando.
Christmas lost a lot of meaning through the years and maybe this is a chance to gain some of it back. We have all given up a lot this year but… we have jobs and a great company that offers us a lot of support. There are a lot of people out there who will have nothing this year without some help and even the charities are suffering. If each of us reading these blogs were able to give even $5.00 to a shelter or charity we might be able to make a difference. Just a thought.
Vicki Sidlauskas
Health Care Reform
September 29th, 2009Boom or bust for temp staffing companies. First lets examine the options. Government option healthcare = socialized medicine similar to Great Britain or Canada. This option appear unlikely, it was quickly exposed and failed to garner real support.
Senator Baccus, Democrat from Montana has a plan that has some bipartisan support.
It promotes non-profit co-ops as competition to private insurance companies. The problem with this plan is that it adds 900 billion dollars to our already burgeoning deficit.
Here are two viable options that might garner enough support from moderates and thus pass in some form:
Place continues on insurance carriers to get their act together or a government option will kick in 2012. This option has promise because most Americans want affordable access to quality healthcare. If the insurance companies were held to task, to pay legitimate claims timely the providers would be willing to take care of more members at a lower cost per patient. Conversely if they lowered premiums or resisted significant increases more companies could afford to offer healthcare benefits.
From all places to come from:
George McGovern wrote a editorial printed in Sundays New York time offering a solution to the reform question why not just offer Medicare to everyone, whoa George you would have to raise taxes dramatically for that to fly and I can not go along with that, however, maybe he is on to something. The current Medicare eligibility age is 65 how about we lower that to 60, this would help older people that is still in the workforce but struggling to maintain insurance benefits or are in need of more preventative medicine.
Working class families have a difficult time paying for or maintaining health insurance. Sometimes both parents work full time at minimum wage jobs and cannot afford coverage. I suggest we raise they amount of annual income a couple can make and still qualify for Medicaid benefits. The change would support families that hover around the poverty line without creating an entirely new government run healthcare program.
Now lets bring it full circle:
What will be the impact on medical staffing companies? Things are going to get better! no matter what plan is initiated, the outcome will be more dollars spent on healthcare per American. For that past two years, hospitals in States like Florida have been struggling with low patient census. When more money is pumped into the healthcare system, demands will go up!! Hospitals will recover and their improvement will affect sniffs’ rehab centers and ultimately medical staffing companies.
The combination of low hospital censes and a dire employment outlook has put a crunch on staffing agencies, look for this to reverse. Things are stabilizing and I anticipate modest growth in 2010. By 2010 and by 2011 health care reform will really take root and we should see significant growth for a period of several years.
Got to go for now, waitress just brought brownie sundae to my table at Chili’s !!
“Thank You”
November 5th, 2009I recently had the rare opportunity to assist with a Health event in Kentucky for the National Guard. We processed 540 troops preparing to deploy. Our team was awake for 21 hours on Friday, we were able to get 4 hours of sleep and we worked 15 hours straight on Saturday outside in the rain with 40 degree temperatures along with a moderate to brisk bone chilling wind. We returned early Sunday morning in a dense fog and 34 degree weather to complete the remaining troops requirements.
Throughout the event, there was no way possible not to overhear the conversations of the troops as they waited patiently in groups for their next screening process. The stories were heartbreaking to hear as these brave people talked about how many times they had been deployed (some up to 5 times already), missing the birth of their son or daughter, loss of a friend while in service of our country (some actually witnessed such tragedies), the pain to be so far away when a family member passed away and they could not be there for the final services, missed holidays, birthdays and other tender family moments. What an incredible sacrifice these men and women make every day!
We have all seen the emails that show photos of our armed service personnel as they try to deal with the day to day oppression and suffering, and to those family members waiting for the return of their loved ones, my heart goes out to you. Seeing these emails, though heart wrenching, it is another story to actually hear the pain in the voices of the actual people who have experienced all that we have seen in those photos.
And to end the event, we were “Thanked” by the troops for our services and commitment through such extreme conditions. Thank me? I have never been so humbled and proud to have been able to be present to help these brave Americans through the required processes before deployment and I will never pass an Armed Forces service member again without thanking them for their sacrifices and services that they provide every day for our safety and security!
Please view the link below and remember to say “Thank You” to our Troups every time you see them!
Kyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSfFYxSdKdo
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