Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2002. Mattie was one month old and Peter used to call
this ......... the Mattie contemplative look! Ironically I feel when Mattie was a baby he looked more like Peter. But as he got older, he looked like me.
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update by Johns Hopkins.
- number of people diagnosed with the virus: 1,851,530
- number of people who died from the virus: 107,148
As of tonight, my dad is home from the hospital. Basically his care team felt he was strong enough to be discharged. I want to strongly write that this was COUNTER to what his family wanted. I am so sick of our health care system that simply looks at the medicine. Not examining the full patient and the patient's family circumstances. My dad was having trouble with his oxygenation level yesterday. That problem seemed to stabilize today, but then his electrolytes and other minerals were off. He was low in phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium. So the nurse gave him an infusion of these minerals to help stabilize him quickly. Or quicker than an oral supplement.
Up until today, my dad's nurses have been lovely. Today's nurse, was a nightmare. I can't tell you how many times I called her during the day. I heard enough to feel that my dad was still not stable enough to go home, especially given that he was still hiccuping. My dad is very sensitive to certain medications. On Thursday of last week, he was given a CT scan with contrast to rule out stomach cancer. My dad is allergic to the contrast dye, and this triggered the hiccups. Can you imagine hiccuping for almost a week straight? It is very debilitating, and he is already debilitated from losing 30 pounds, feeling constantly nauseous, dizzy, and exhausted. Not to mention having kidney stone surgery and an urinary tract infection. My dad has a history of persistent hiccups, so typically giving him thorazine works. Thorazine is an anti-psychotic medication, which has other side effects, but typically given over a few days it relieves my dad's hiccups. However, we haven't gotten this lucky now.
I called his doctor today to discuss the hiccups, and I told him I have been doing some research on hiccups and read about other drugs that are used with success. He basically said he was willing to try whatever I recommended. So apparently I have gone to med school now! I will read through the research papers I downloaded and send them to him with my own recommendations.
But here's the thing, if a medical system wants to discharge you, the patient and family have little to no recourse. So my dad could either go home or go to a nursing home, but the hospital wouldn't keep him. Even if my mom isn't physically able to care for him tonight. Clearly we weren't putting him in a nursing home, especially during a pandemic. My dad's doctor understood my concerns about sending my dad home and told me about a Medicare 3 day plan. He said this was way for us to submit a claim to Medicare which explains that we disagree with medical advice, and this would allow my dad to remain in the hospital for three more days. Of course, this is NOT what a three day plan actually is. A three day plan has to do with bundling outpatient service fees that occur three days before a hospitalization. So that was bad advice.
I called my dad's case manager, who explained that I could contact medicare, and open up a case for them to look at my dad's medical notes and case. While the case is open, my dad wouldn't pay the hospital fees. However, after Medicare assesses his case, and if they deem he was indeed medically sound to return home today, then we would have to pay for his hospitalization out of pocket every day passed today. Which is ridiculous!
I have been glued to the phone for days trying to managing my dad's care. It is hard enough advocating for a patient, but MUCH harder doing it by phone during a pandemic. Here are some of the people I talked to today. I was on the phone for hours and sometimes multiple times during the day with the following people.....
Tatiana - nurse
Flora - charge nurse
Paula - Manager of nurses
Suzanne - social worker
Sonya - discharge planner
Angelica - case manager
Attending physician
ER Department
Security
Why the ER department and security? Because my parents thought my dad was taken to the hospital with his wallet, ID and insurance card. My dad had his keys and credit cards tonight, but no one could find the wallet, ID, and insurance card. I literally turned the hospital upside down tonight. I had ER people looking for his things, I had security looking, and the manager of nurses went personally to every floor he was admitted to at the hospital to look for his things. Want to know where they were? In my mom's car! It has been this kind of show.
But of course, my dad was sent home without regard to whether the house is safe for him, whether he can get to his bed, to the bathroom, and the list goes on. We can only hope that this was the right decision to send him home, and I will know the answer to that in 24 hours.
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