Hippo, birdie, two ewes...

... to singlemaltsilk!!!! Have a great one!!

Colleen[16]: !@#$!$@%^Idiots!!#$!@#%^

Welcome back to the American health care don't give a damn and don't make any fscking sense system.

You may remember back at [15] that they were about to send Colleen home from the hospital before she was ready. The sent her to a nursing home instead. Now she's ready to come home from the nursing home. All she needs is a portable pump, a supply of "food", and a home care nurse to come out and train her family members (i.e. me and Kat) in how to attach and detach the pump.

... and certify, according to some whacko Federal Medicare regulation that shouldn't apply because we're not on Medicare, that she's "housebound". Otherwise she has to stay in the nursing home. EXfrackingCUSE ME?

Apparently the only other way to get this done would have been for her to go directly home from the hospital. And it's not clear that she'd be getting the kind of portable pump that they were looking to send her home from the hospital with. Because she's "housebound" and doesn't need a pump she can carry around with her if necessary.

I am hoping that Kaiser will figure out some way to get us the equipment, training, and supplies we need to take her home and save them thousands of dollars. But I'm not very hopeful.

Now, it's entirely possible that this was explained to her back three weeks ago when she was high on morphine and crying hysterically. I wasn't there.

Up until 5:30 when all this came down, it was a pretty good day. We went in to Kaiser to see her gastroenterologist, and had a nice drive back. The news on the GI front was encouraging, though it confused Colleen badly. Basically, the surgeon in SF who specializes in fistulizing Crohn's Disease says he's never seen a Crohn's-related fistula in a hernia pouch, especially since Colleen's problems have all been in the colon and since the fistula is closing on its own, which doesn't generally happen in Crohn's. So it's almost certainly related to the hernia, which in turn should be relatively easy to fix. However, the timing of that fix is totally unclear at this point.

Colleen[17]

Note to self: check on whether whatever route the hospital uses for discharge-to-home-care can be made available. The person I was talking to was the nursing-home case manager; maybe the hospital case manager can do better. Especially if the hospital route can get her a pump she can carry around. The nursing-home route is clearly not designed for cases like Colleen.

Random thoughts after a walk in the dark

I rarely take walks at night anymore, but it seemed like the thing to do. Didn't improve my mood much, but at least I got a walk in and I suppose it helped a little. Walked around the Rose Garden; the gates are locked at sunset, so I wasn't able to go in. It probably wouldn't have helped much anyway, though there's always a little comfort to be found in the company of the Royal Amethyst.

The field beside the Middle School where my daughters no longer go was occupied by some sporting event I couldn't identify -- milling around and shouting under glaring lights. It was over by the time I was headed home, with a pair of school busses pulling up to take the winners or losers home.

My left ankle hurts - it hasn't bothered me for weeks. It probably just wants attention.

I want to have a deep conversation about something intricately technical. Or a lighthearted, whimsical conversation with somebody who just wants to burble about their latest source of joy. Or try to cheer up somebody who needs it. But I won't, because I don't want to bother anyone or call anyone up to just dump on them. And wouldn't know who to call anyway.

I want to sit on a couch with somebody sad and beautiful who I'm not in love with, stroking her hair and kissing away her tears, assuring her that everything will be all right.

Instead, I'm going to go water my nose, sing "The Mary Ellen Carter", and do something technological but ultimately mostly brainless like move a soundcard from one machine to another, write a one-page CGI script, or fiddle with Makefiles and HEADER.html pages.