28 February 2022
This morning, as the IV drip was finishing its hour-long run, Jennifer the Physician's Assistant called to tell us Kaiser has approved Dr. Tong's request for hyperbaric oxygen therapy at St. Francis.
Then the fun began.
She said Joyce would have to approve the release of her radiation records from 2014 at Kaiser's Oyster Point Cancer Treatment facility. But she wasn't quite sure how to go about that.
So I called them and got the fax number for St. Francis to make a formal request, upon which they would fax back the records. Joyce didn't have to approve anything.
Kaiser has approved Dr. Tong's request for hyperbaric oxygen therapy at St. Francis.
And all still done by fax in 2022. Imagine.
So I called St. Francis and talked to someone who was all too happy to oblige. He had Joyce's record on his screen already and took down the fax number for Oyster Point and made the request. He asked if we'd be available for a consultation this week. Sure.
Thinking this would take all day, I went to the bank to pay a bill and the Post Office.
By the time I got back, St. Francis had already set up an appointment for a consultation on Thursday morning at 9 a.m. With validated parking (which is a big deal).
So off we'll go.
This afternoon Barbara the RN arrived to take do the in-home nursing assessment, change the Wound VAC dressing and draw a couple of vials of blood to monitor Joyce's kidneys and liver.
It turns out she scuba dives with the guy who invented the modern hyperbaric chamber.
Small world.
Joyce has been assigned Donna the RN and Claire the LVN for her three-times-a-week dressing changes. And here we thought we'd met everybody already.
So this week's schedule will be daily IV drips, Wednesday's dressing change, Thursday's consultation and Friday's dressing change. With maybe the start of her oxygen therapy sessions tossed in, too.