2am Call

I hate it when the phone rings after about 9:30pm. To me, 9 is pretty much the latest time a purely social call can be placed to a friend. Late night calls in our house have all been about bad things. The ones I recall are all related to the impending deaths of both of Skip's parents and one of her brothers.

The phone rang at 2am last night. It was the rehab hospital letting me know Skip's blood pressure was very low and they were sending her to the emergency room. I asked if she was going back to the ER at the hospital she'd been transferred from. The answer was no as we were in the middle of a blizzard and they wanted to transfer her to the closest ER to cut down on distance travelled.

I lay in bed trying to decide what to do next. True, it was snowing and I very much hate to drive in snow. It looked like only about 3" had fallen by then, but it was projected we'd get snow all night and until about noon. If I managed to get to the hospital in one piece and stay with Skip, I'd be completely wiped out. I have a bunch of work that I'm behind on that I planned to tackle today ... how well could I accomplish that if I was sleep deprived and emotionally drained from a vigil in the ER?

I tried to sleep, but couldn't. Eventually, I got up and called the ER she went to. I spoke to her nurse. She'd only been there briefly, but her blood pressure was higher than at the rehab and she was awake and mentally clear. The nurse said they were at the very beginning of their assessment and suggested I call back in an hour. I went to bed and immediately fell asleep, waking up 3 hours later.

Before getting out of bed, I called back to the ER and spoke directly to Skip. She told me they were admitting her overnight. She was dehydrated. They were testing her for c diff (please, let this test continue to return negative results). Her butt was hurting as she'd been lying on a gurney without being turned for hours. They were trying to locate a good bed for her as an inpatient. She didn't want to be admitted, she wanted to go back to the rehab hospital where she felt they'd be able to care for her wound better.

I then spoke with her nurse to relay Skip's concerns and request to go back to rehab. (I guess there's nothing like a real hospital to make a rehab setting more palatable!) The nurse outlined some reasons why an acute care hospital made more sense for an overnight stay and also mentioned the concern with transferring her via ambulance with the roads in such bad shape. Since it was clear to me Skip was bound for a night in the hospital, I tried to enlist the nurse as an advocate on Skip's behalf (since I couldn't be there in person). We spoke about the need for a bed to help her wound and the troubles she'd had in her previous stay at that hospital 5 years ago.

Thirty minutes later, Skip called back to say she was on her way to her room. I spoke briefly with the nurse who indicated the steps they had taken and were taking to handle Skip's special needs. When the snow has stopped, I expect I'll get in a visit as the roads will be safer.

With this crisis passed, now I'm beginning to worry about finances for the first time. Medicare has a per-admission inpatient deductible of about $1,000. One admission wasn't a fun expense to look forward to, but manageable. Does each of these new hospital stays count as a separate admission? If so, we're at $3,000 and counting. I've got some research to do. (UPDATE as of 12:20pm: the inpatient deductible is charged once per "benefit period." A benefit period begins when admitted to a hospital or skilled nursing facility and ends when there's been 60 days not in a hospital. So, all 3 admissions to hospitals and rehab have occurred within this one benefit period. Sounds like just one inpatient admission deductible will be due. Phew.)