Pellets - Phase One

On January 20th we got the phone call we’ve been waiting for. Insurance approved the pellets. It only took a letter from each one of his five doctor’s, a pile of paperwork completed and submitted by the radiology nurse, a presentation by the manufacturer of the pellets, and numerous pleading phone calls from Christy B…. but after a mere 23 days, Medical Mutual deemed Rich worthy of a chance to live. Aren’t they wonderful?!?!?!

On Monday he had a CAT scan. Wonder of wonders—the tumors have not gotten any larger since the last scan in the fall.

On Wednesday he had the arterial mapping. He was flat on his back for six hours with a tube in his groin. He learned the challenge of peeing in this position with a nurse holding his penis in the urinal and eight people standing around him….waiting. Rich is my hero.

He did well. The nurse gave hourly updates to his poor brother who spent the whole time in the waiting room. Bitch that I am, I was at work. I managed to get to the hospital at 5;30 pm. At 6:00 pm the doctor came out and told us everything went well. It was a success. The challenge was that Rich no longer has a normal anatomy after all the surgeries.

He patiently answered all my questions and addressed all my concerns. Although we are still on the “sticking point” of my fear of infection. They keep telling me that his body will absorb the destroyed tumors. I keep reminding them that I’ve heard that song before, and being a woman I find it hard to believe that if the body cannot absorb a uterine lining every month, how is it going to absorb dead tumors and history is not in their favor. I let it go.

Before Rich left radiology the doctor and nurses emphasized the following…. “If you feel any pain, pressure, swelling, or if the site starts to bleed, call your nurse immediately.” Did I mention that he spent six hours with a 16 gauge catheter in his right femoral vein?

By :6:30 pm everyone in the department was done and gone. They turned off the lights. Then they wheeled Rich into the radiology holding area, locked the wheels on his bed and said “good luck.”

They did NOT give him a call light. So there we are, Rich flat on his back with instructions, me at his side, no call light and no one else in sight . Waiting for transportation to come and take him to his room four flights up. And waiting.

Then his IV pump starts to alarm. Eventually I find a call light and hand it to him. FIFTEEN minutes later someone comes and asks him what he wants. He points out that his IV pump is beeping because they are obviously deaf. She looks at the pump, shrugs and informs us that “there are no nurses down here.” And starts to walk away. I call her back and suggest that we get him to his room. She looks at the clock on the wall and informs me that nurses are in report. And walked away. Well lah-de-frickin-da, We waited like that for 45 minutes. There is a terminal loop playing in Rich’s brain—the doctor telling him all the warning signs to call the nurse and now he’s told there is no nurse to call. He whispers, “I’m scared.” I lift the sheet and check the bandaid on his right groin, and try to assure him that all is well and he’ll be fine.

Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?! I thought my head would explode.

Like this entire journey hasn’t been hard enough on him. He has taken every leap of faith that has been asked of him, and this is their concept of Care?!?! I’m trying so hard to focus on comforting him so I don’t focus on the butt-ugly anger that is rising up in me. In the end it was the cats that saved me. “If you go to jail, Lisa, who will feed the cats?”

After the 45 minutes in hell we eventually reached his room on the oncology floor and it was like reaching an oasis in the desert. After he was all tucked in and his wonderful nurses were back in charge I made the drive home. Flooded with adrenalin.

On February 15th they will place the pellets. Those of you who may be following this blog may be thinking—“hold the phone, Alice, I thought the doctor said it had to be done within two weeks of the arterial mapping!!?”

Yes, well, it goes like this… next week the doctor is out of town. The week after that is an important meeting, so they’ve scheduled it for the Wednesday after that. No really, it will be fine. So when they tell me it has to be done within two weeks that’s not really, exactly accurate, but when they tell me that his body will absorb the dead tumors….no, really, I can believe that.

Okay.

God damn, this is fun stuff.

Rich was discharged yesterday. A discharge I did not have to endure because Christy B. sent Denny T. to go get him. And, of course, because I wasn’t there, it went relatively smoothly.

So what have we learned today, boys and girls? That’s right, I need to just not go “there”. Everything is fine until I show up. Me and my niggling insistence on patient safety. I blame my nursing school instructors.

All that doctor talk about what to watch for and when to call the nurse….rubbish! So much rubbish that they can leave him in an abandoned hallway without a call light, and I am just being ridiculous. Obviously. Nothing bad happened now did it.

If you have learned anything from this blog, it is unfortunately this—what you don’t know won’t drive you stark raving mad.

Should you, or someone you love ever face a life-threatening condition, throw up your hands, smile like the village idiot and pucker up. Because here it is. All of the media spin, public fear and looming threat of Obama health care is a lame joke. It is a smoke screen. It doesn’t matter if it’s Obama healthcare, or Republican healthcare, or Bozo the Clown healthcare. Healthcare in this country is run by insurance companies and hospital administration. And their bottom line is the Almighty Dollar. So basically, you’re fucked.

Sorry, I was interrupted in this rant by a phone call. First, I must assure you that I have neither the time or energy to make this shit up….

Rich’s major medical center just called him because they have no record of him having a test for hepatitis C. So they’ve ordered one for him on Monday.

Wow. After 27 days in their facility for sepsis last year, I would have thought that hepatits just might have been part of the panel of tests. The man has endured four major surgeries, chemo, radiation, arterial mapping, liver biopsies, and suddenly we need to be concerned that he may, or may not, have hepatitis C.

I need to end this post here because I need to pour myself a glass of wine.