It's going on 18 hours that Mama has been in the emergency department of this teaching hospital. I had a feeling something was impending, as I had just been reading a post I'd written a year ago about her 3-day stay in Emergency after a trip and fall and bruising to her hip. At that time I was fit to be tied. Frantic. I didn't understand what was going on with insurance rules, doctor slowness, and the inability to either admit her to the hospital or get her into skilled nursing until she could walk again with her walker. Seriously? A person could spend three days in Emergency Room? THREE days?
Now I know. Insurance rules were not made for people. So I'm sitting in the recliner that the nurse so kindly swiped and brought to me last night, with my laptop, and waiting. Waiting for time to pass, for her swelling to go down from another fall, waiting for them to somehow get her up and moving so that she can return to the memory care.
I'm glad there's nothing broken. I'm glad that our winter school term has not yet begun at the university level. I'm glad to just sit here while she sleeps, away from it all, yet connected. These are other-worldly times, and they seem a universe away when I'm in the normal swing of my life.
Here are my reflections from last year, when I was so deeply frustrated.
Things I have learned and re-learned in the past 24 hours, listed with some degree of bitterness:
(1) When an 89-year old woman falls, and no bones are broken, the bruised tissues on her hip can still be just as painful and debilitating as a broken bone.
(2) Forget planning on 12 hours in Emergency Room. You can be there for 2 days or more. I kid you not.
(3) Nurses are worth every penny they earn, and then some.
(4) The hospital does not deliver food or chronic meds to the ER automatically. The patient is not considered admitted when in the ER, so there has to be an order for anything they get, including food. Those things can be forgotten or not even thought of to begin with. And when an 89-year old woman misses her meal, she can get confused and combative. And the hospital staff have no idea why. Spaghetti, people. Spaghetti fixes it.
(5) Medicare requires a 3 night hospital stay first, in order to financially cover care in a skilled nursing facility. A retired person who has worked for our church has Medicare coverage first, church health insurance second. That means that even if you don't need to be admitted to a hospital, but you need nursing care for a few days while you recover, you have to try to get admitted. For three days. Using up a valuable bed that someone who is actually sick can't get. And the days spent in ER don't count toward the 3 nights in hospital. And did I mention that you can spend 2 nights or more in ER, waiting for a hospital bed to come free?
(6) Yes, you can wait 8 hours... or more... for a doctor to show up.
(7) I knew this, but I see it all over again: If you don't have a family member in ER to look out for you and keep pressing people about things, you're sunk. You could disappear into a black hole.
(8) Wi-fi in an ER is a life-saver for family members.
(9) There should be a box of Kleenex in each room so family members can have a good cry.
(2) Forget planning on 12 hours in Emergency Room. You can be there for 2 days or more. I kid you not.
(3) Nurses are worth every penny they earn, and then some.
(4) The hospital does not deliver food or chronic meds to the ER automatically. The patient is not considered admitted when in the ER, so there has to be an order for anything they get, including food. Those things can be forgotten or not even thought of to begin with. And when an 89-year old woman misses her meal, she can get confused and combative. And the hospital staff have no idea why. Spaghetti, people. Spaghetti fixes it.
(5) Medicare requires a 3 night hospital stay first, in order to financially cover care in a skilled nursing facility. A retired person who has worked for our church has Medicare coverage first, church health insurance second. That means that even if you don't need to be admitted to a hospital, but you need nursing care for a few days while you recover, you have to try to get admitted. For three days. Using up a valuable bed that someone who is actually sick can't get. And the days spent in ER don't count toward the 3 nights in hospital. And did I mention that you can spend 2 nights or more in ER, waiting for a hospital bed to come free?
(6) Yes, you can wait 8 hours... or more... for a doctor to show up.
(7) I knew this, but I see it all over again: If you don't have a family member in ER to look out for you and keep pressing people about things, you're sunk. You could disappear into a black hole.
(8) Wi-fi in an ER is a life-saver for family members.
(9) There should be a box of Kleenex in each room so family members can have a good cry.
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