I haven't blogged for a few weeks with good reason. My wife ended up in the hospital on 4/23 and was there for 19 days. To keep it short, she developed a serious infection in and around her spine and related fluid in her left lung. She had major surgery on her back to clean it out and rebuild and stabilize her spine. She had a total of 3 procedures, 1 minor, 1 intermediate, and finally 1 more extensive to fix the lung issue. Spent 4 days in ICU post-op. Got 3 transfusions. Came home last week with a PICC line and IV antibiotics for a few more weeks.
As you can imagine, it was a major ordeal for all of us. On top of that whole mess, my mom got admitted during that same period for mild heart failure. Same hospital fortunately, so I was constantly going back and forth between their rooms. DW came home on Wednesday. Mom came home on Thursday. So I've been busy coordinating their home care needs since.
Anyway, both are now recovering and doing okay. Both have a visiting nurse and physical therapy at home. In a couple more weeks, DW will likly start outpatient PT for her back rehab.
Incidentally, as of now, the billing for DW's hospitalization stands at around $730,000. Insurance has already taken care of most of that but there is still some stuff that hasn't settled. It's only been a week, though, so I'm hopeful that the remainder will work its way through the system and get paid as well. We may end up owing something but we're hoping it won't be a major amount.
I put my ebay sales on vacation mode for a week when DW was first admitted. Once it became clear that she would be there quite a while, I restarted sales but only listed an item here and there so I was making and shipping sales but wasn't doing much to keep it going until after she got home. There just weren't enough hours in the day.
For the 2nd quarter so far, I have done $1,042.36 in sales and $679.42 in profit. That brings my YTD numbers to $2,657.35 in sales and $1,795.94 in profit. Considering my goal back in January was to average $200/month profit, I certainly can't complain as I'm actually averaging $359/month even with pausing for a few weeks with my wife's illness.
I haven't gotten an official end date for my part time contract at work so I'm still assuming it will be August 6. That means I've got 31 shifts left to work before I change to per diem. With the latest COVID surge hitting full force, I can't wait to cut back to 4-hour shifts. My site saw 69 patients yesterday which is a lot for us. I'm hoping this wave dies down quickly but right now there's no sign of that happening so we're all working our butts off again thanks to elimination of mask mandates and so many people just not caring anymore.
May 21st, 2022 at 12:54 am 1653094492
May 21st, 2022 at 01:06 am 1653095189
Thanks. This is far more true than most realize. Being with her (and my mom) in the hospital daily made a huge difference in the care they received sadly. Several times, I caught a potential issue before it happened but the average person would not have. Something as simple as the nurse about to give my mom a dose of medicine that she had just gotten in the ER before she got sent up to the room. Or noticing that the respiratory therapist had neglected to reconnect my wife's oxygen after doing her breathing treatment so she was wearing the nasal canula but there was no oxygen flowing through it.
If you aren't able to fully advocate for yourself or have someone present who can advocate for you, hospitals can be really dangerous places. There is far too much going on and too many people involved in your care. There just isn't great continuity or communication between all parties. Fortunately, I was able to be the "project manager" overseeing all of the parties involved.
May 21st, 2022 at 01:24 am 1653096280
May 21st, 2022 at 02:17 am 1653099436
May 21st, 2022 at 02:41 pm 1653144072
May 21st, 2022 at 06:41 pm 1653158516
May 21st, 2022 at 06:44 pm 1653158680
Glad you were there
May 21st, 2022 at 08:35 pm 1653165319
May 22nd, 2022 at 02:16 pm 1653228997
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May 22nd, 2022 at 05:41 pm 1653241302
May 22nd, 2022 at 06:12 pm 1653243157
May 23rd, 2022 at 10:20 am 1653301248
Glad that you were there to see the staffs mistakes and were able to have them corrected
May 26th, 2022 at 01:00 am 1653526815