Challenges

First of all, let me debut Suchitra's colorful casts.  Not the best picture, I'll try to get a better one later, but still, pretty awesome, huh?  As you can see, she has already collected quite a few signatures.

Today was a day of challenges.  It feels like our insurance company is trying to make this as difficult as possible.  I know, what else is new when it comes to health insurance?  The first challenge was that Providence will not approve us to get a reclining wheelchair with leg rests from Gillette, which we were going to bring back when we come back in six weeks to get her casts off.  We can get one at home, but this causes a big problem as far as getting to the airport.  I did not bring our wheelchair from home, since I was told that we would get one here.  We can't really use a regular cab since I can't leave Suchitra with the cab driver while I go in search of a wheelchair (MSP is not one of those airports where they just leave wheelchairs available near the front).  I called a medical transport company, but they wanted to charge $125, which I would rather spend on physical therapy (which Providence also won't cover enough of).  Thankfully, I decided to call my cousin Erica Timko who lives north of St. Paul and ask her for the huge favor, and she very kindly is going to rearrange her day to drive us to the airport tomorrow.  Thank goodness for the Timko connection!

And then to really add to my stress, the nurse just told me tonight that Providence won't cover Gillette's pharmacy to fill the prescriptions for Suchitra's pain medications to take home.  I will try to take the prescriptions to Walgreen's tomorrow morning and get them filled there.  She has transitioned from the epidural and IV and is now taking a major dose of oral pain medications - Oxycodone, Valium and Tylenol.  I don't think you can just quit taking those all of a sudden.  So we better figure out a way to get them somehow before we get on the airplane.

Before we came, I made a lot of phone calls to Gillette, Providence, and our primary care physician to make sure that the surgery itself would be covered; however, I didn't realize that we would have these specific issues with the wheelchair and medication.  I feel like Gillette could have helped to make sure these things would be covered ahead of time, since they know what has to be approved separately.  However, the only thing I can do at this point is just practice my patience and trust that things will work out OK somehow.

The other significant challenge of today was figuring out how to move Suchitra around with her new leg accessories.  She's a LOT heavier on the lower end now, and she was already on the edge of too heavy for me to lift before.  I really struggled today to move her around between the bed, wheelchair and toilet.  At first I was moving her with the knee immobilizers on, but that didn't work too well, and then the doctor came and said we didn't have to keep them on all the time.  And, poor thing, it is still painful for her to be moved, although each day gets a little better.  Of course, at home the setup will be different so we will have to develop new techniques.  With some practice, I think we will figure it out as best we can.