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.

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