HEALTHCARE HELL
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moon phases � |
Should I even start talking about this??
Shouldn't I let it go and get some fucking rest?
Gotta write it down and make it sane and maybe get a bit of feedback so I don't lose what little is left of my mind and soul.
I got up this morning with the notion I would get a couple of things done that I hadn't gotten to earlier in the week because it has been ONE HELL OF A WEEK. This was immediately followed by getting a very tired child out of bed and then out of the house to go to school. On the way to school I had an epiphany in regards to the rash on my mother's face.
Oh, you mean I hadn't mentioned the rash before.....back up a few days....My mother developed a rash on the left side of her face that is very DEFINITELYlimited to the left side of her face. She was also complaining about her jaw hurting and has just not felt well and been very sleepy.
So, I had this epiphany on the way to A's school this morning. I KNEW what is causing the rash. Shingles, the adult version of chicken pox. The virus stays in the body after the chicken pox and reappears after fifty years old as herpes zoster or shingles. The virus resides in nervous tissue and effects a nerve branch on one side of the body. The rash that emerges blisters, drains, and crusts. My mother has had a rash on the left side of her face that looked one hell of alot like poison ivy but she don't go out. Then it hit me that I had seen this rash before and I knew what it was. I came home and called the doctor with my revelation and to get his advice. His nurse called me as I was returning from picking up my food order and the decision was to treat for shingles with a anti-viral and see how things go. The doctor knows how hard it is to take my Mom to the office. He trusts my observations and I trust his judgement in dealing with things long distance.
THEN I GOT HOME
All hell had apparently broken loose during the half hour or so I was out of the house. My mom's home health aide had taken it upon herself to make calls to who knows who stirring up alot of trouble. She was hell bent on calling 911 if the doctor didn't call by such and such a time. I had meanwhile talked with the doctor's office and she kept claiming that she was unable to get through to the doctor's office. I came in and explained to my father that I had spoken with the nurse and that the doctor was prescribing and we had a plan. The aide apparantly wasn't pleased. She kept going on about not being able to get through to the doctors office. I called the doctor's nurse back without a problem and explained that she might be getting calls from various home care providers. She was OK with that and I hung up. The aide continued to insist she couldn't get through to the doctor (she shouldn't have needed to since I had talked with them already) I also called our long term home care agency to make sure they had not gotten a bee in their bonnet in this situation. I left a message and was told no immediate situation was going on. Then the social worker who talks with my dad showed up (heaven help me when it comes to home care providers who don't respect family boundries). He got on the wagon and tried to tell me a nurse should see my mom while I professed I trust my mother's doctor and found the whole thing unneccessary. He called me defensive and I wanted to call him a jerk. The nurse he called said it was a family decision (thank you!) I then told this guy that what he assumed was defensive is my leaving the emotion out so I can reamin objective. For fucks sake I have elevated dealing with this to an art form. I also let him know rather directly that my mother has a health care proxy that names me as her decision maker if she is unable to make healthcare choices. That shut the mob up and I promptly went to a quiet place to fall apart. My self confidence in dealing with the situation had been rattled at at time it shouldn't have. My knowlege of my mother's condition and my years of experience in a dermatology office looking at skin rashes was shrugged off. My place as a daughter taking care of my mother was pushed to the side in an effort to intervene where intervention was inappropriate.
I ended up in the barn crying on my goats.
Then I felt better and I made a call to get rainman to come home at a civilized hour. I was supposed to be picking up a friends kids along with A. from school but I was scared shitless to leave the house for fear of what the health care monsters would do while I was gone.
Well, the bottom line is that the social worker backed off and spoke to the aide who wouldn't look at me when I went downstairs. I picked the kids up and rainman got home just about when the aide left. A. got to play with her friend. My mom is doing OK but was soaked in urine because the aide left her in a bad position for who knows how long.
If I thought my mother needed to have emergency room care I would dial 911 myself. I have lived with the situation for my ENTIRE life and I know her, I know the health care system from family member and a part of the system perspectives. I am angry and I am upset that people tried to bully me and my father into taking inappropriate action based on an exaggrated interpertation of the situation. A rash has never killed anyone. Shingles makes a person sick and causes a rash. Sometimes it causes neuropathic pain for months after the initial outbreak. It is a pain in the ass but is not a reason to put an eighty eight year old woman in an emergency room for hours on end only to be sent home with a prescription for the medicine her family doc prescribed this morning.
I am tired and angry and I needed to get this out. If it doesn't make alot of sense that is OK, it will make sense to me.
Goodnight.
written at 8:40 p.m.
2004-04-23
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