The charges...so far.

I don't know if they'll add more charges for lack of insurance or reckless endangerment or resisting arrest or fleeing the scene of an accident...I sure hope so!

Rude Awakening by a guy who was NOT sober at any party!

Keith's PCA Ken knocked on our door at 6:30 this morning and said "I think my truck has been stolen and Ruth's car is totaled" I went outside and I was speechless. Apparently, a drunk driver had jumpe d the curb, hit the back of my car and rammed into Ken's truck with such force that it was knocked into the street. His truck wasn't stolen, it had been towed by APD. With the insulation of the house and the noise of the machines back here in bedroom, we didn't hear a thing. Here's the story from the neighbors: This guy was speeding down the street, jumped the curb, lost control and wiped out the cars. After he saw what happened, he jumped out of his car, ran down the street taking his clothes off and tried to get into his house which is just around the corner. Our neighber down the street, chased after him, grabbed him and held him for the police. The driver is booked into Travis County Jail. He has a whole slew of charges including possession of marijuana, driving while intoxicated and failure to stop and give information. Oh, yeah, he also doesn't seem to have insurance. We're waiting for Progressive to call back. Here are some photos of the damage, thank God none of us was hurt.

Clipped

Just about 10 days ago the clip that supports Keith's ventilator tubes broke. It's a plastic part that probably cost less than a nickel to manufacture and, in the big picture, doesn't have a whole lot to do with Keith's breathing. However, it still serves an important function. This clip keeps the ventilator tubes at a balanced angle so that the drag on Keith's trache is minimized. This is important because that drag pulls against the tube in his throat and impacts the healing at the intubation site. We put a call in to the home healthcare agency. They told us that it had to be ordered and would take about 2 weeks to arrive. In the mean time, we have been scouring the internet looking for this elusive piece of plastic and actually found the whole ventilator tube kit but nothing would arrive before the end of the month. And, since we expect to have the part from Walgreen's by then, we are just doing what we can to keep the trache tube from moving too much.

As I'm writing this, it has occurred to me that this little plastic clip is a perfect metaphor for the problems with the healthcare system: the big things get taken care of pretty well, it's the little things that cause the most grief and can shift the balance against you. We are managing as well as we can as each of these little things show up on our health doorstep. It's a team effort and among all the tools at our disposal, patience and humor are the most powerful. So, we'll continue to wait for the clip and laugh at the absurdity of it all as we just continue to breathe.

Beware Cheerful Women Who Answer the Phone

Just got off the phone with Keith's doctor's office. We've been trying to follow doctor's orders and get an appointment with a hematologist because Keith developed anemia while in the hospital as a result of the drop in red blood cell production that can occur in cases of chronic illness. It all sounds pretty serious to us, so we're committed to jumping through the hoops necessary to make it happen. Trouble is, the hoops are moving, and on fire.

The hematologist that Keith saw in the hospital is not in his Humana/Medicare provider network. When we called for an appointment, the cheerful woman on the phone told us that the first $10,000 in expenses was our responsibility. Naturally, our next call was to Humana/Medicare to find a provider in the network.

Humana/Medicare gave us the names of several doctors in network, we chose the ones closest to Keith's primary physician and called for an appointment. The cheerful woman who answered the phone asked that we have Keith's records sent over before any appointment could be set, once she had those records she would call us to schedule the appointment. We immediately called Keith's primary physician with the request and were told it would be taken care of the next day.

About a week later, we realized that there had been no phone call so we followed up with Keith's doctor who assured us that the files had been transferred. We then called the hematologist's office who told us the person in charge of that was out, they'd check and call back.

Another week passes.

Another call to Keith's primary physician's office, more reassurances, ball back in the hematologist's court.

Another week passes.

I spoke with Keith's primary physician today and he said he'd check on it. A few minutes later his office manager called and said the doctors we had selected did not accept Humana/Medicare insurance. I called her back, told her that we got those recommendations directly from Humana/Medicare. She hesitated for a moment and, as if she was telling me a state secret, said that those two doctors were joining the practice of the original hematologist who saw Keith in the hospital. (Thus forcing us back in the position of having to pay the first $10,000 in expenses if we chose to make an appointment with them.)

I was appalled. If we had been told a month ago that these doctors were not going to be accessible to do the job, we could have made an appointment with another of the in-network doctors. In my estimation, they had knowingly continued to delay the appointment citing paperwork and blaming anyone who wasn't on the phone so that this merger could occur and they wouldn't have to deal with Medicare patients like Keith.

Fortunately, Keith is of hardy stock and is hardly wasting away from anemia. However, if this need was so urgent in the hospital that he was given direct hemoglobin and iron transfusions to strengthen his red blood cell count, why the hell was this appointment given no urgency here in the 'real world'? How are we expected to trust our doctors when the most urgent question is "how are you going to pay for this?" when "this" can't even be proven to be a problem that we as patients should give any urgency to at all? We are fortunate in that Keith & I are very resourceful, able to ask questions, and find alternatives. However, as Keith, who is a great poker player says, it's hard to win the game with the deck stacked (and re-stacked) against you.

It has been just about a month and we still haven't gotten an appointment set. So, the ring cycle begins again, and we will begin calling the next bunch of doctors and trying to get them to care. One thing I am sure of is that a cheerful woman will answer the phone