FO Friday

How much do I love FB, let me count the ways. One, Two posts went missing from the outage, just like for everyone else using Blogger.  Thankfully, I also post through my FB profile and those two missing posts were backed up in my profile notes.  I probably shouldn't have said that.  I might have a pack of angry Bloggers after me.

All of your comments are in my e-mail from the last couple days.  I could add them at the bottom of the posts, later.

Last night, while refreshing Blogger hundreds of times along with everyone else that uses Blogger, I skeined off the last of the BFL/silk. In my sleep deprived state, I counted around 550 to 600 yards.  I think I'm going to do a recount.  This is 8 ounces of 3 ply heavy fingering weight.  I believe I should have more yardage than that.

I'm leaving it the natural color which is light tan with grey and silver tones.  There is a pound all together that D bought me as a late Christmas present back in January. The other skein I believe I posted back in early February.   I was going to knit a cable sweater with it, but it will probably be awhile now, with the heat that's soon to be here.  Also, thought about selling it to pay bills if I could get a fair offer.  Will need to get a more accurate yardage count.

I know I said in yesterday's post that I didn't want to spew venom all over this post.  However, they gave me a fresh batch to spew.  So much so, I had a cussing right there in the lobby.  D they give ativan, me they give fresh venom to spew.

If you are just here for the fiber or are easily offended, because it's going to get nasty here in a bit, just scroll right past the following, if you want to comment on the yarn.   I'll give you time.  For more FO Friday posts, click the link below.  Otherwise, the rest of you wanting to continue reading my saga, we'll carry on after the Bootsie picture.

To save keystrokes, here are the abbreviations for the cast of characters:
NCM- nurse case manager
SW- social worker
GA- some lady who calls herself D's guardian angel  (if she were mine, I would send her back. She's pretty useless.)
ICM- insurance case manager
Dir - nursing home director

After I posted late Wednesday night, which is yesterday's post, I couldn't get to sleep to save my life.  That little person in my head said, "They got something else up their sleeve.  Something will go wrong and he won't come home Tuesday. What is it?"  Tried all my going to sleep tricks, but nothing would shut that voice up.  Finally, at 6 am I just got up and made coffee, sat in my chair, drumming my fingers and going over all their past conversations in my head.

Finally, at 9am, I hit upon it. The primary care Dr..  Did they get him one, like they said they were going to?  I'm betting not. My mind also went through all the patient care/discharge meetings I've witnessed back in NY. Where they do things the right way. (I'm not saying all nursing homes are messed up in AZ. Just this one.)  That's when I also decided, I'm not going to do anything to put me in jail. I'm going to call the state.

Here's how a meeting goes in NY.  In a conference room there is the nurse manager of the unit, social worker, representatives from PT/OT, dietitian, anyone else involved in the patient's care that the patient wants present, patient, patient's family and someone who takes notes on every thing that is said.  It is spelled out to both the family and patient what they need to do and what the nursing home needs to do.  A paper is written up and everyone gets a copy.  The patient knows for example, they need to be able to walk 50 feet for three days in a row, before discharge.

Here's how the last care planning happened last Wednesday, May 4, 2011.  I walked into the nursing home at 2:30pm, a half an hour before the meeting was scheduled to happen, to get D shaved, cleaned up, and in his chair to go to the conference room at 3pm.  I was met in the lobby by the NCM, SW and GA saying they had time and would do the meeting right then.  They piled in D's room and stood at the foot of the bed.

The NCM informed me that the insurance still hadn't been approved and that I needed to contact the intake person at the insurance.  (Which I had, you can read about it in WIPW post this week)  He needed to get a primary care dr. and be seen at least a week after discharge.  They said they would contact this one service for the primary care Dr. appt., and I informed them, that service's rep told me they didn't accept AZ long term care insurance.  They said they would contact someone else.  GA then made a list of all the equipment that needed to be ordered for home.  D nixed the hospital bed idea. Then they left with a tentative date of this Friday, (freaking today) to be discharged if I could get the insurance approved within 24 hrs. (Which I freaking did.)  Nothing was spelled out to D as to what he had to be capable of doing in order to come home.  Nothing.

If you haven't read my Wednesday and Thursday posts of this week, you can go back to catch up.  I'm about to start where I left off from there.  It's ok, I'll wait for you.  (Sits and watches the birds chirping away.)

Are you back?  Here's where it might get pretty nasty.  I'll try to censor myself, but not sure if I can because I'm still so pissed off, I'm shaking. (That's never a good sign. It's seconds before explosion time.) (The poor cat's are walking on their back legs, as they are covering their ears.  The birds are just trying to drown my cursing out.  Betty and Nippit are just ignoring me and Dammit is sitting here giving me tips of which explicatives I've left out.  Like a useful Zeppelin roadie would.)

Yesterday, I go right down to the NCM's office to check about the primary care Dr. appointment.  She says, well, just call so and so.  I said, "Does that company take his insurance? I told you last week, their rep didn't think they did."

She said, "Well, just call this other company.  Let's go down and ask SW."

They discuss who I should call and I have to actually stand there and request the SW to look up the numbers for me.  They then say, he has to have an appointment in place for Wednesday in order for him to leave on Tuesday.  Fine freaking time to say something.

I start with UMC as that was the hospital he was in and they have his records.  They are very friendly and give the first available appt. they have at the hospital for Mon. the 23rd.

I go back to the SW office, tell him.  He says, that's not good enough.  It has to be on Wednesday.  That the in home services will be there on Wednesday and that they will go back to their office call his primary to get orders for further service.  To call back and see if they Dr. will authorize it before he sees D.

I call back. No the Dr. will not authorize anything until after he sees the patient.  She then looks to see if she has anything sooner at another office.  Friday morning, the 20th is the absolute soonest she can fit us in at another location. I take it.

I go back down to the SW office and this is where I lose it.  No, Friday still isn't good enough, has to be Wednesday.  He tells me to call their other affiliate that is not affiliated with UMC, and to tell you the truth, I want to keep him with the UMC hospital since they saved his life and all.  I argue what is the difference of two f**king days.  He then says, well now, D can't come home until Thursday.

I lost it.  I told him how I thought they were very unprofessional, evasive and deceitful. That if I hadn't brought it up today, they would have waited until Tuesday to bring it and use it as yet another excuse to keep D there longer.  He gave me a blank stare and came up with some stupid answer.  I stormed out of his office yelling, "This place if full of f**king bullshit!"  I heard him yell, hey, but I kept right on stepping down the hall back to D's room.  I swear to everything there is to swear to, if he would have followed me, I would have decked him.

I call their other provider he suggested and they won't have an appointment for another 3 or more weeks.  How come I'm not surprised. Then, I call the ICM and leave a message on his voicemail about the above conversation and how I fail to see how two damn days makes a difference for D coming home on Tuesday.

D and I are so livid, we have dinner in his room, as we don't feel we would be suitable company for the other couple.  Which was by the way, one hotdog, D got a small salad (about a half a cup of iceberg lettuce), I got a bag of potato chips, and a tiny dixie cup of ice cream.  I've never seen such a small pathetic dinner served at any of the nursing homes back home, and I've worked at some of the nastiest as an agency nurse just before they were shut down.

The Dir stops in to congratulate D on coming home today.  Oh boy, do we give him an earful and he takes notes on his I-pad.  He says he will bring it up in their staff meeting.  I explain to him, I've worked long-term, re-hab and home care back in NY over ten years and I've never seen such a shoddy, unprofessional, deceitful and evasive discharge as I have just witnessed.  I then went on to explain how things are done back home.

After he finished taking notes, he then asked D if he was ok. D said, I guess so.  Just hope it helps the next person.  He said me if I was ok. I said, nope, I'm just reminding myself how I don't look good in prison orange.  He laughed. I glared.  He then apologized and said he'd never heard that expression used that way.  I thought, hang out on my FB page buddy.  You'll get an education.

If you're one of my FB friends you may have been entertained or not by my venting through status shuffle the past couple days.  Venting there is better than doing something that I will end up wearing prison orange. It's ok to think it and feel it.  It's just illegal if I threaten to actually do it or act on those thoughts and feelings.

This morning the ICM called me back and said he doesn't see how Friday's appointment is a big deal and he has it down that D is coming home on Tuesday, final.  He then called a second time with the At Home Case Workers name and that she will be at my home on Tuesday afternoon to meet with both D and I.

The Dir. and GA came to D this morning and confirmed that yes, it is in the computer that the equipment has been ordered. Yes, they have it for his discharge officially on Tuesday. Now, the NCM said on Wednesday in the hall to D that if we have the equipment in the house on Monday night, she has no problem with him going home Monday night.  We shall see.  As far as him coming home Tuesday, we'll shall see if that happens too.  At this point, I'm believing it when it actually happens.  If not, however, I will be on the phone to state right there in D's room. They didn't pay attention to whom they were dealing with. I looked them up online and they rate a 2 out of 5 on the states rating.

I'm leaving out the name of the place on my copy and paste from the ucomparehealthcare.com's website.

******* a nursing home in Tucson, AZ received a 2 out of 5 overall rating from CMS of the Dept of Health and Human Services on August 10th 2010. This score means that ***********  is rated below average overall based on health inspections, nursing home staffing and quality measures.


***********  has an above average registered nurse per resident per day of 38 minutes compared to the Arizona state nursing home average of minutes. They had 24 deficiencies in its past 2 state inspections compared to the AZ average of 14 and 5 complaints compared to the AZ average of 4.

They are about to have another complaint filed. Unfortunately, they are the only facility in Tucson that the state insurance would accept and pay for with trach care.

 I'm not afraid of them.  What's the worse they can do to me?  Have me black-balled from working as a nurse here.  That's already been done back home for me daring to file a Workman's Comp claim for my freak injury.  They won't get a cherry there..  I highly doubt anyone there has the clout to pull it off.  There's other towns and states with the same climate as here.  Tucson doesn't have the market cornered on dry climate conditions.  Besides, D has been talking about heading further west at some point to San Jose.

*knock, knock*  Did you make it this far?  If you have, I hope I haven't offended you.  Just venting and telling like it is, because that's how I roll.  I'm not afraid to speak my mind, even if it gets me trouble, I have the satisfaction of saying my peace.  Thanks for dropping by.  I'm off to copy and paste my WIPW post back into place.