3 March 2022
There are various ways of abbreviating "and" in Rock and Roll. I find them all a little too cute. Like Ye Old Rock 'n Roll. Because it's the and that makes the point. You're rocked, you roll.
Today was like that.
We had an early tee time with a 9 a.m. consultation at the Hyperbarometic Oxygen Therapy unit (HOT) at St. Francis Hospital (where I was born 70 years ago).
We almost got out of the house just after 8 a.m. when the school drop off ends. But Joyce could not find her Medicare card. And I thought it prudent to bring it to a third party provider. We never did find it but we didn't need it anyway.
It's usually a half hour ride through the city but it took us 45 minutes during rush hour. And when we arrived at Outpatient Registration, the computers were down. We called the unit to let them know we were there but we couldn't get registered.
No sweat. For them, anyway. We have, I found out from the Kaiser pharmacist, a two-hour window to shift her IV drip. The usual 9:30 drip could be pushed back to 11:30. But I was a bit annoyed at the delay.
Thurman the Director bounced out to say hello and that we'd chat later. When we finally got in, Jessica the RN welcomed us. She led us through a darkened room with a handful of transparent chambers lined up against the wall to a small exam room.
We went over the therapy, it's side effects and benefits, before Dr. Mellon joined us.
He had worked with the doctor who had prescribed Joyce's antibiotics (who we have never met). Small world.
We discussed the case and I showed him the photo of the wound I took yesterday. "A photo is worth a thousand words," he opined. Indeed.
At a certain point, after answering his questions one after another, he turned to me to ask, "Are you a doctor?"
If only.
His assessment, in the end, was that Joyce would benefit from the therapy. Jessica continued with a description of the program and we signed up. Joyce's first two-hour session of the 20 Kaiser has approved will be Monday at 1 p.m.
Jessica said it takes about 40 to 60 (read 80 for Joyce) sessions to complete the therapy. Kaiser probably wants to confirm it's benefitting her before authorizing more treatments. Meanwhile there are nice side effects. Oxygenated blood reduces swelling in the lower limbs, for example.
The risks were rather amusing. Fire, for example. They actually have you remove all clothing and drape you in cotton gowns and ground you in the chamber so there's no risk of static electricity setting off a blaze.
"When's the last time you guys had a fire?" I asked.
"Never," she said, knocking on wood. The last fire in the country was in Florida in the 1990s where the private clinic didn't follow any of the rules, letting people wear street clothes and smoke. Ah, Florida, too bad we can't saw you off and set you adrift.
She said they'd just disconnect the Wound VAC for the session and reconnect it afterwards. No need to change the dressing. Which was a relief.
We dashed back to the garage where the valet had parked our car with full validation (how considerate of them) and drove through the city to get that drip started 15 minutes before our window expired.
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WE HEARD FROM Vic the LVN about coming tomorrow to do a dressing change after Donna the RN had done the dressing change yesterday (a very painful one) following the midline dressing change.
And at dinner time, Dr. Brenman, Joyce's primary called to see how she was doing.
We were surprised about that. It could be that Donna, who had said she would contact the doctor about increasing her pain medication, had incorrectly sent the request to Dr. Brenman instead of Dr. Tong.
But it gave the two of them a chance to catch up for a few minutes. Joyce put her on speaker when she asked about supplements (another topic Donna had brought up), which puzzled Joyce.
Multivitamins. Worth discussing, Dr. Brenman said. She'd run it by Dr. Tong, though. Which confirmed my theory.
"Anything else?"
Well, yes. Joyce has been, after the anesthesia and pain medications, disoriented and forgetful. She's afraid she has Alzheimer's, I said. Dr. Brenman offered to do an assessment when Joyce is more mobile and can get to the office. And Joyce said she'd like that.
Then we got a call from Albany, Georgia. It turned out to be Rhonda the Physical Therapist. She's actually been here for seven years but likes her Georgia phone number. She's coming on Tuesday at 9 a.m. Joyce's dance card is getting pretty full.
And then I made dinner. At last.
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THE BIG ACHIEVEMENT of the day, however, was in Joyce's room where we annihilated a few piles of documents looking for her Medicare card (which we never did find). One of the reasons she gets confused is she has four piles of papers. Bills, statements, notices, etc.
She had piled them up in four different places in the house. And before she went into the hospital, she was losing things. So when she was admitted, I cleaned house, moving all the duplicate piles into one pile that she could sort through later.
We did a lot of that sorting today. We shredded a lot of promotional mailings she had set aside because she didn't know what to do with them. And we set up a box for old projects we had completed or accounts that had been closed. Then we consolidated her active accounts into one set of folders.
By the time we were done, her desk was cleared and she enjoyed a clarity she hadn't experienced in years.
You're rocked, you roll.