Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Two days until discharge, Dresser needed

Two more days, and Denise should be discharged. I really, really, really hope that it goes well this time, so PRAY, well-wish, cross your fingers, toes & eyes...
Things were quiet on the medical front and Denise got to come home for her nightly three hour pass again. I noticed some ab swelling returning... hopefully that's nothing that requires a hospital stay. Or AN hospital stay, if you prefer to ignore the beginning "H" sound in hospital. Tomorrow Denise's caregiver will hopefully receive training in how to change the dressings for the PICC line & feeding tube. Though neither has been used for days, the chatter is that both will stay in, just in case. Speaking of Denise's caregiver, she's been Gracie's & Jacob's caregiver for the past couple days, as there's something going around our house. The caregiver needs to be with Denise, my folks are supporting my great uncle (starting Hospice), and so I'll stay home tomorrow with the sick kid(s). It's supposed to rain all day again tomorrow, and it'll be my luck that the kid(s) will suddenly fully recover and start bouncing off the walls.
We're trying to get the insurance company, medical group, SNF, doctors, pharmacies, and everyone else to dot their "i"s and dot their "t"s before Denise goes home again. Part of that involved our request to get her prescriptions filled a couple days in advance the discharge. Of course, the SNF doctor isn't supposed to write the prescription until she needs them (fair enough... nobody wants to fill a prescription for a patient that's getting everything covered while in a SNF). So we asked for the list of anticipated meds so that the pharmacy can be notified ahead of time to have those drugs on hand (during a previous discharge, meds were out of stock, heading into a holiday weekend, and the new shipment wouldn't arrive for days). Well, I need to double-check this, as it came through the grapevine tonight, but apparently the meds list that my nurse aunt received (that will eventually be the prescriptions) were the *old* meds from a prior hospital discharge; not the current meds. Yeah, imagine getting the pharmacy to order those & have them on hand (some of Denise's meds are oddball things that not every place carries), then getting over a dozen prescriptions filled, then finding out that a couple weren't necessary, and then being out for those copays. So easy to fall through the cracks... Last Friday my nurse aunt was going to bat for Denise with the case manager (actually the case manager's manager's manager... they keep escalating us up to the next manager) from the medical group, who was trying to tell her that certain things can't be done because that's not the way their system works. She informed him of many of the ways that their system had failed on two prior discharges, and that's why we're so persnickety where the discharge details are concerned. There were some compromises made on a couple itmes between what their system is and what our needs are. Odd to think about, considering that their business ideally caters to Denise's needs. I'm confident that we're viewed as being demanding. Okay. I just hope we're staying fact-based and polite while we're being demanding.

Dresser needed: We have need of a dresser for Denise's caregiver's room. Currently the poor gal has most of her clothes in cardboard boxes. If you have a loaner or a discard that might fit the need, please contact me. I can pick it up.

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