We've been on the phone every single day with the surgeons office people who are supposedly in charge of the insurance portion of everything, and they've been awful. They never return my phone calls, and she's never available when we call. I keep telling Jason this is the civilian world, and things are a little different. But, I still have a hard time with the concept of it all. It shouldn't matter if we're military or civilian, if you're in the business of patient satisfaction you should do everything in your power to make sure your patients/customers are happy. These people certainly are not. That feeling makes Jason really uncomfortable about the surgery, which is understandable, but at this point, what are we to do? They didn't get us the pre-op paperwork until two weeks before the surgery, which leaves us scrambling to make last minute appointments for a pre-op history and physical and lab work, and we have to drive back up to Denver for his pre admissions stuff at the hospital. Frustrating. I always try to cluster care when I'm at work. These people certainly don't have that as a priority, and when your patient is active duty and has a 16 month old, sometimes it's hard to just drop everything and drive an hour and a half for stuff we could've had done a while ago.
I'm hoping I'll be able to stay at the Fisher House in Denver while Jason is inpatient. According to the map, it's about 8 miles from the hospital. And I'm hoping Cooper will adjust ok, and sleep well at night because we're going to be exhausted! He keeps saying "I'm so not excited about this surgery. I just don't want to deal with this again!" But we did get a second opinion (where we also waited an hour and a half to be seen...) and even though we were pissed for having to wait that long, the doctor was really nice, and said he studied under the surgeon doing Jason's surgery. He had nothing but great things to say about him, and said he would definitely do the surgery, that it was a great idea, and Jason was a perfect candidate. So that was encouraging, and makes us feel a lot better about the whole thing.
Now it's just a matter of preparing everything so that we're (I'm) not running around like crazy people afterwards. Having Cooper will be challenging, and I won't be able to sit at the hospital all day long with him like I used to. I'll feel terrible about that, but I know he used to get annoyed with how late I'd stay there with him because he was so tired. So Cooper and I will take advantage of the staycation and go to the Zoo which is pretty close to the hospital. Hopefully he'll have a play date or two with a friend who lives up there too! I'm just trying to figure out how I'll get over to the hospital early enough in the morning to see the doctor when he rounds. I missed the doctors almost every day when we were at Walter Reed and I can't believe I did that. But then, I was just in "get me through today" mode, and wasn't thinking big picture like I should have been. If it's anything like last time, he'll be doped up on pain meds and won't remember anyone coming in at all.
Sadie will be boarded for about a week while we get settled back in at home, and then Jason's Dad and his wife will come for a week to help. I'll try to squeeze three shifts in while they're here to help, and hopefully we can schedule his follow up appointments around my working. Same for the rest of his recovery. My parents will be here for about three weeks, and then his mom will come in from England for a week. That should put us at about 5-6 weeks after surgery, and I doubt he'll have his leg that soon, so I'll probably have to work 8 hour shifts until he's back up and walking which is a huge bummer for me because that just means it's that much more often I'll have to get up at the crack ass of dawn for work, but it's certainly not permanent. We'll do it. We've done it before, just in different circumstances. At least we're at home this time, and he can be a little more comfortable. It's less convenient here, he won't be able to use his wheelchair anywhere because they don't make handicapped accessible baby gates, so he'll get really good at using crutches - my only rule is that he doesn't go up or down the stairs on them.
I think it will be good. He'll be able to be more active, and he'll start to feel better about himself.
I will try to go back to my one a day updates while he's going through his surgery and recovery. We're not a very religious family, but I never turn down prayers.
Next time you hear from me, Jason will have a spiffy newly shaped stump and hopefully no infections!
1 comment:
We will be praying for you all. Looking forward to good updates!
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