Such a day

I’m up in the middle of the night – woke up and was too wound up from the day to go back to sleep immediately. I know --  let's blog!

 I spent the entire afternoon at a local  branch of Kaiser (an HMO under which I grew up and also under which I watched my mother die). The department had a professor visiting from another university to do a review of the undergraduate major (this happens every 5 years and is a big deal for the department), and at lunch he said he’d lost the sight in his left eye two hours earlier.  HUH??? He looked a little worried (uh, YEAH!), and it turns out there was a complicated story, but he’d had eye surgery 7 weeks ago and, well, today he couldn’t see out of the eye.  He could distinguish light and dark but that was it.

 I was the only woman at the lunch, and when he inquired in a low voice if there were a Kaiser up here, I said, “Yes, of course” and told him that I’d be happy to take him there.  So while he was on the phone to his eye doctor back home (who said “Go immediately to the hospital!”), I was on the phone trying to get through to eye doctors at Kaiser up here (I ran into nothing but phone trees and voice mail – what a joke). While he and the male faculty members were deliberating about the guy’s schedule for exit interviews with assorted university personnel on Thursday afternoon, I was grabbing my keys and saying “Let’s go – the rest of that can wait.  We’ll call in from the hospital.”  (Which we did, multiple times. Short version: he missed the interviews. Gee, under the circumstances, does that even matter? I think not!)

Bottom line: I went from zero to bitch in about 10 second flat once at Kaiser Emergency. God, the actual intake people aren’t even medical staff these days. However, I did get the man in ahead of other folks there, sat with him in the various examining rooms more or less at his request, listened to the doctor tell him he needed to return home that night (rather than the next day, when he was scheduled to leave) to see his medical team in there who would might have to perform emergency surgery, and pitched a slight fit when the guy continued to worry about work and and our program review.

Back out in the waiting room, he got on the phone with Southwest Airlines which was going to charge him way more for changing his ticket -- at which point I’d had it: I grabbed his cell phone out of his hand, went stalking back to the nurse, thrust the phone at her, asked her to please tell them that it was a MEDICAL EMERGENCY, and returned the phone to him only after that had been fixed. Then, while he was arranging his flight change, I arranged for the doctor to write a letter explaining the situation, just in case, and for copies of his records to take back with him.

Afterward I took him back to campus to check out of his hotel, drove him to watch student films at a campus film festival for about 60 minutes (because he could see so well – NOT! but he wanted to do it), and then to the airport at 8:30 p.m.

It was exhausting, mostly because the whole scene just pushed all my old, old caretaking/Kaiser buttons. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but I learned a lot about how to deal with bureaucracies when I was taking care of my mother in my 20s, and I learned more when I was fighting for my own surgery, and I’m good at it – but I also hate it. I hate seeing incompetence and inertia and folks not taking action when action can make a real difference, and I hate passivity, and I can’t stand seeing people be scared and taken advantage of because they’re not able to stand up for themselves in the moment because they’re sick or disabled or vulnerable in some way. RANT, RANT, RANT. It makes me absolutely nuts.

The whole day was even more baroque than I’ve reported, but this gives a flavor of it.  After I came home at 9 p.m. and spilled the whole story to my husband he said, “Wow, dear, you can be my bitch anytime!” That cracked me up – but I’m still amped up now, hours later.

 I hate Kaiser. I actually hate HMOs, period (HeathNet, under which I had my surgery, was almost as bad).

 I hope the guy ends up being okay.  I liked him a lot, and in his position I would have been a mess.

About half an hour later:  You know what? I am a mess right now! For reasons too numerous to list here but of which I'm all too aware as I think about them, today was just a triggering series of events on several fronts -- hence my insomnia and, now, the small flickerings of an anxiety attack in the offing.

I think I'll be fine: I'm going to stay up another few hours, see my husband off on his overnight hang-gliding trip, and then take myself back to bed for a serious lie-in. In the meantime, I'm going to do my best to breathe, chill out, get grounded, and regroup. The solitude and the sleep should relax me.

And hey, to make sure they do, there's always Ativan if needed. That's what that long-standing prescription of 11 years is for, after all.

Comments

[sparkly_jules]

Holy shite, man. That man is lucky he had you as an advocate. I hate, hate, hate, hate Kaiser (and HMOs in general). I went with a friend years ago who was having a miscarriage. She knew it because she'd had one before.

She came out of the examination room completely in hysterics because the nurse had placed the fetus in a jar and left it on the counter in the room with her! Can you imagine?!

I was going to go chew that nurse up for lunch, but my friend just wanted to go home.

I hate Kaiser. grrrr

Good job, Deluzy!!

Jules

[Missy]

That is amazing that you helped him like that!! You are a wonderful person. My husband was sick like that recently at the hospital and I had to be nasty to the folks there. I cannot believe how these people treat sick people. It is rediculus.That is great that he had you to help him. What would he have done otherwise? Take care.Have an awesome trip to Alaska!You deserve it. -Missy

[*S*]

Man, if I'm ever in Kaiser Hell, I want you there at my side, Deluzy! There's another star in your crown.

*S*