health care adventure part 2

After they gave her something for the pain they started to prep her for surgery. Once they had decided what was wrong I was kinda surprised how fast they got her in the operating room. The only hold up was waiting for the operating room to clear. Apparently there was another woman in with the same problem. While they were prepping her for surgery I decided to I really should call family to let them know what was going on. Frankly if we weren't borrowing my sisters phone, who's on a mission, I don't think I would have called anyone till I got home at about 2 that night. They no longer have pay phones in hospitals. Also I was really disappointed with the talk time on my sisters cell phone. Having to explain what was going on and then providing update I had to start cutting people off because I had used up a full charge. Course it probably didn't help I was on the 1st floor of a large 7 story building built into a hill.

Next the nature of a persons hospital stay is entirely dependent on the nurse. The first nurse was great. Helpful, understanding of Kristin's pain there when she needed to be but left her alone when she needed to be sleeping. The next nurse talked to my 27 year old wife (Okay she could pass for 19) like she was 2, hard of hearing and had severe learn disability. She was constantly asking if she had gone peepee our poot. Then they were waking her up every hour to take blood pressure and pulse. It got pretty ridiculous.

It the end for one rather simple operation, and less than 48 hours in the hospital the total cost was $28,000. Of that less than 6,000 was for the operation and of that about 3,500 for 4 doctor including the anesthesiologist. I have no idea what the other 22,000 was for. It certainly wasn't for the food, but at least the wifi was free.

health care adventure part 1

So two weeks ago Sunday morning at 2:05 am to be exact Kristin wakes up with an unbearable pain in her left side. I assume it's gas and get her various anti gas medication. A call to an on call doctor was less than helpful. She suggested it was found ligament pain(common pregnancy problem) or a kidney stone neither really fit the symptoms well. Well it wasn't gas or round ligament pain or even a kidney stone, all of which would probably be less painful. Monday afternoon she calls me after a brief lull in the pain to tell me the pain is back and it's time to go to the doctor. So I drive her to the hospital call her obstetrician to say she's in pain and dying (okay not dying but Kristin had made several request for a blow to the head to render her unconscious) ect. ect. So they take her in and do what obstetricians do and ultrasound her. They look at the babies and and measure there heads and look at their heart beats. It has determined that the babies are fine and were in no way involved in the pain. Now while they're sitting around bewildered she's literally vomiting because of the pain. So they send her up to the specialist, and they do what special obstetricians do best. . . ultrasound her with a really nice ultrasound. So they measure the babies heads and legs and finally after having to take unbearable pain breaks, they decide look at were the pain is coming from. This was after 30 min at the hospital the first attempt to actually diagnose the cause of the problem. So she finds this big gnarly looking blob. And they go back to looking at the babies. Then the doctor comes in and look at the blob and they turn on the Doppler ultra sound and see that the blob has no blood flow. Problems found. 1) Her ovary was the size of a orange 2) and most important it was twisted and had no blood flow. So they take her down to the recovery room because they were out of space and prepped her for surgery. And 3 hours after going to the hospital they finally give her something for the pain.