So, Gary spent a couple days at Grant Hospital in downtown Columbus this week after he was sent there by our neighborhood ER. (He went to the ER because he's had the flu and then started having heavy chest pains and trouble breathing and he kinda looked like he might be dying.) He's home now. I can't recommend Grant as a place to go if you're sick. They probably do fine with people who are fundamentally healthy (women having babies, for instance -- everyone on that floor seemed to be having a good time of it.)

  1. They failed to diagnose what's making him sick -- he's still sick. They pretty much said "It's not your heart or pneumonia, so bye!" Nobody came by to tell him anything useful at the end -- a nurse came in, went over the list of his medications (which we'd given the hospital) and told him to get his stuff together.
  2. They put him on heavy doses of oxycodone while he was in there for the pain they failed to diagnose the cause of, then didn't give him any ramp-down doses or alternative medication when he was released. Just "No more for you, we don't care if you're going into withdrawal, bye!" That's just fucking cruel. Result? He feels worse now than he did when he went to the hospital.
  3. The nurses were regularly late giving him his medication by at least an hour while he was there.
  4. He was there for a day longer than he needed to be (considering they weren't going to do more than check out his heart and kick him to the curb) because they couldn't get him in for a stress test the first day, and they couldn't get him in for a stress test because that department was a total clusterfuck organization-wise and was understaffed.
  5. They treated the old guy in the bed next to him very poorly. The old fellow was about 90 and has a tumor on his spine that's been giving him a migraine for 3 months straight. None of the doctors who came into the room to talk to him told him the same thing. First doc was all "No worries! We'll operate and you'll be fine!" Second doc was "Inoperable! You're dead in three months!" The second doc came in there with four other men (residents?) and they just sort of loomed over his bed while bad-news doctor was lecturing at him -- it had the feel of a gang-up. What, bad news doctor was scared that this frail old guy who could barely walk was going to leap out of bed and try to choke him? Ugh. It felt really icky. Furthermore, the bad-news doctor sent a chaplain in there to talk to the old guy, and the chaplain could not have been more clueless or useless. The chaplain clearly did not know why the old guy was there and asked the most perfunctory questions and then left.

On the plus side, Gary says the food was okay.

Today we are headed over to my aunt and uncle's to visit my other uncle who is in town for a conference. Last night's interview went well despite some stress about having a co-host and trying to flip the conversation between the two of us. I'm thinking that there has to be a better way to do this, but for now I'm pleased that things went as well as they did and our guest was understanding about the newness of the arrangement. 

I'm still very tired. Lately I've gotten into this habit of feeling dead tired all day and then perking up and not being able to sleep at night. Needless to say it's annoying and makes me a very unproductive person. But today I dragged myself out of bed and hung up a load of laundry. I'm drying another load, and I can hang the third when we get back from my aunt and uncle's. As much as I'm looking forward to seeing people again, I'm kind of dreading the event because I know I'll be super tired and I'm already not in the best mood because my allergies are acting up and it seems like I can't do anything without sneezing four or five times in a row.

There was something I was thinking I should write about last night, but now I can't think of what it was. We might try to go shopping as long as we're going to be in Milwaukee. It's been a while since we've gone and I need some sweaters and warmer winter clothes. The other day I took my allowance money to the bank. I would rather not spend that, but I will if it means that we don't have to put anything on a credit card. We're taking a Korean rice dish to the family gathering and this is one time when I am super appreciating my rice maker.

A good thing that happened yesterday was my daughter and I making sushi together. She did most of the work with me offering a bit of feedback and encouraging extra vegetables as four spinach leaves is not going to pass for a serving of leafy greens. We have this calcium-magnesium powder you can mix with water, yesterday both of the girls had that and I noticed that my oldest had better digestive sounds after that went down. She asked for more, but the container says to spread doses apart by a minimum of five hours so I told her she could have some before bed.

Our insurance company said that we haven't been paying our bills on time, they send the bills out so there isn't enough turn around time to pay it on time and then they are chronically late about updating payments which is another annoyance. We sent them an email with a screen shot of our payments. I'm hoping that this gets resolved for my daughter's appointment on Monday because I'm already nervous about the appointment and this is just adding to my frustration with the system. 

I realize that it isn't the fault of the people who work there, they know that the system has its faults, but I need solutions and not them telling me that this is the way that it is. If we pay in advance they send our money back to us so unless we hit this magic nebulous window our insurance keeps getting turned off and then we have to hassle people to get it back on again which isn't the same thing as us not paying our premiums on time. 

Another part of my anxiety is coming from the appointment itself. We have to pull the girls out of school early to get down to Children's Hospital in time for the appointment and I'm wondering what this new doctor is going to be like. We've had mostly good experiences there in the past and I suppose we can always find someone new if we don't care for who we're going to be meeting, hopefully things will go well and most importantly Jill will like him and take what he has to say seriously. 

Jane's celiac panel came back negative, but we don't know if that's because she legitimately does not have the disease, or because she's been gluten free for so long and tends to be better about avoiding it than her sister does which is not to say that she doesn't pig out on it when she has the opportunity. She's told us that her stomach hurts after she has a lot of it, but it's hard to determine if that's the gluten, or her just not being used to eating that type of junk in such large quantities.

She's upset because she wants to be having regular breakfast foods and toast with eggs isn't a breakfast option around here anymore. The other day she was extremely snotty at the chiropractor's office because I would let her get a candy bar. I know every child has points of contention in their life, but I was a bit put out after I bought her some coconut cookies and gluten free marshmallow treats the day before. Last night they stayed up very late watching Harry Potter, and I'm pleased to see them both contributing to housework this morning.

I wish I had some deeper thoughts to end this. Right now I just have to manage the rest of the day and realize that I can always ask my aunt if I can lie down upstairs if I get too tired. I hate doing that, but this lack of sleep is making it very difficult for me to get through things plus my back is still hurting and so is my toe. My chiropractor said it could be weeks until it fully heals which isn't what I wanted to hear, but that's kind of life sometimes, and I just have to make the best of it and realize that it could be much worse.

Until next time,

Jess 

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