Showing posts with label raised toilet seat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label raised toilet seat. Show all posts

Thursday, January 15, 2009

My insurance company kicked me out of the hospital

I was doing well in the hospital. I was 2-days post op (yesterday) when I got the word in the early evening that my insurance company -- hearing that I was responding positively to physical therapy and was doing well -- decided that I was ready to transition to a home environment. Apparently they felt I didn't need the wonderful nurses at Sinai Hospital or the physical and occupational therapists who were helping me learn how to walk again (with a walker and crutches) and do simple things like putting on my socks with a nifty sock-putter-on-er.

I just accepted it and started getting my things together. I called Adrian to pick me up, which meant he was going to have to take 2 days off from work (unpaid) instead of one.

He got my stuff in the car, and I was wheeled out in a wheelchair and put into his Saab. My pain level was high, since I had to leave the hospital before my scheduled pain med time. I felt every bump and every turn of the hour-long car ride to Annapolis. It was too late to get my prescription filled, so I had to take the 5 mg Oxycodone pills I had taken before my surgery. They did nothing, though I ended up taking several. Adrian went out and bought me a raised toilet seat (very helpful) and some Tylenol (as a potentiate for the Oxycodone). I had to ditch the giant foam wedge I was supposed to strap between my legs for sleep; it was just too painful. I used a pillow instead. I was so upset, I thought of getting an ambulance to take me back to the hospital. But eventually I was able to sleep, and that seemed to help quite a bit.

My fear had been that I had somehow dislocated or fractured my hip during the move out of the hospital, but I ended up feeling a lot better in the morning. My panic is gone. It just seems ridiculous that a health insurance company to which I pay monthly premiums gets to say when I'm ready to leave the hospital. I ended up only staying one full day at Sinai. My surgery was at 4 pm on Monday; I spent Tuesday in a state of agony as an inpatient there; and by Wednesday was told to beat it.