Uncharted Desert Isle

My wedding anniversary today and I COMPLETELY FORGOT. Not just momentarily, folks, I never thought about it. I thought, "wait, is it a super moon tonight"?
No. I MISSED THAT TOO.
Kind of. I saw it, I was out, and it was lovely. Oh, and there's another Sept. 9.
ANYWAY.
Nineteen years of marriage, how the ever-loving fuck did that happen? I'm really happy to still have him after all these years.
Yeah, I got an email with the title YOU FORGOT AGAIN. oops. I just don't know why I keep forgetting!
I swear I like him, and consider myself really lucky that we're together.

Dreaming, I was surrounded by tornadoes and had to leave my car. Kept running until I hit a congested area with buildings too close together, so that it was hard to see what was around me. I caught glimpses of a big, dark blue funnel to the northeast and some smaller ones with yellow light behind them, flashing, to the west. I could call people, though. You know how dreams are. My husband was listening to me and then he said all in a rush, "Gotta go," and hung up. And Mom had the baby, Rachel. She said, "We're all right for now, but we're in the path of a big one." Kept running, trying to find a place to hole up but couldn't and they were bearing down on me. Went on for what felt like hours.

Then I woke up enough for it to occur to me to WAKE UP, you don't have to go through this, and I did. And I was groggy, trying to remember where my little Rachel is, and finally remembered that Rachel as I knew her then is gone, grown into a sixteen-year old, which was a little melancholy - not that she's grown, but that the little red-headed baby is essentially no more, you know?

But good grief, it's good to be awake:)

Mom's been having heart troubles. She's been to the hospital 5 times in 2 months or so. She's got atrial fibrillation, for starters. She's been put on Pradaxa, something that helps prevent strokes in people with her condition (and that drug company is another nightmare story all to itself - suffice it to say when the manufacturer makes all these nice gestures to help seniors pay for their over-priced meds? They turned her down because the doctor sent them the wrong forms and it was too late in the year to re-apply. And her insurance doesn't pay anything on it, and it's $300 a month at least. And they might not even have an aid program this year anyway so they can't say if they can help her next year - well, 2012, we applied in December. Anyway. Her doc sent IN THE WRONG FORMS, THEY CANNOT HELP HER). We got samples to tide her over a while, and then we managed to get state aid, so that was wonderful.

She's on several meds for high blood pressure,m also Cardizem, Betapace to try and help her heart stay in rhythm. She was referred to a Dr. Robert Martin, Jr., at Tennova (formerly St. Mary's). He likes to take a slow and steady approach when it comes to adapting a treatment plan for his heart patients. Which is one of the reasons Mom's been in the hospital so much. We tell him the treatment's not working, and that she had been diagnosed long ago with mitral valve prolapse, could that have gotten worse? That at any rate something else is wrong, the meds aren't working - he waved a hand and said the mitral valve thing was commonly misdiagnosed. He's never taken blood nor run any tests other than a kidney flow test, though we've told him the episodes are getting steadily worse, more painful, longer duration, with heart spasms and pain, blackouts and soaring blood pressure, to the point she's afraid she won't make it through too many more of these episodes. Which got her an increased dosage in two of her meds and a lecture about how some of his patients panic with afib and sometimes they're out of rhythm MOST of the time - a handy shaming technique.

And before you tell me the sensible thing, to go find another doctor, we've been that route. We started out at Ft. Sanders, where the first heart doctor gave her meds that specifically said in the warnings not to take together, and that had the visiting nurse completely puzzled and upset over. The last time we were at Tennova, a Dr. McBride treated her. I thought he was intelligent until Mom told him she had regular bouts of high blood pressure and heart pain at night, and he said, how do you KNOW? She said, well I have a BP monitor and I feel my heart race, and he quipped, "So stop taking your blood pressure at night."

So anyway, Mom calls me at work today and says the nitro isn't working this time (she didn't get it from Martin, she got it from her regular doctor, who at least listens to her). We go to the emergency room. She's sort of in and out of it at the point I pull into the front of ER, and I rush inside to the receptionist and ask if I can get help getting my mother inside. She asks me if I'm angry. I'm astonished, because I'm highly upset and trying to hurry for my mother's sake, but I guess I had tone when I asked for help? Or something. I tell her no, I'm not, I'm in a hurry and worried, my mother has serious heart problems and I need help. She goes on, saying, oh, well you sounded frustrated. Wtf? I'm scared, why are you asking me this shit? She tells me she'll send out someone with a wheel chair in a minute. Maybe 3-5 minutes later, a woman wheels out a chair. I'm standing by my mother, holding her hand. She's squeezing it, her heart is racing and then tightening into a spasm-like thing that is scaring her to death, and she's drifting in and out. A woman comes out, gets her in a wheel chair, takes her fucking insurance cards but not her BP or anything practical, then sits her OUT IN THE WAITING AREA. She's groaning, her heart feels like a big fist clutching in her chest, she looks like she might fall out of the chair, slumping down. I go up to receptionist and ask her if they can take my mom back because she's having a lot of pain and I'm afraid she's having a heart attack. She tells me there are a couple of people ahead  for the nurse to see first. You wouldn't believe the attitude on this woman - and this isn't the first time, I remember her from before. She's cold and antagonistic.

So we sit out in the lobby until my mother asks me to call 911 for an ambulance to TAKE HER TO ANOTHER HOSPITAL to get help. I grab a nurse, I'm frantic, and ask her to help. They get Mom in and a PA asks some questions (like, have you ever had this happen before? yes, we've been here, she's on lots of meds, Pradaxa, other stuff, doesn't seem to be helping. Is she on Warfarin? No, she's on Pradaxa, it's made for afib folks specifically (hello, don't you know that)? And well, have you missed your meds? Absolutely not.

They park her out in the ER hallway in the chair and ask her to wait. Finally they get her in a room and hook her up for a cardiogram, then leave her completely UNMONITORED again for an hour.

Finally she's admitted - still in afib, very low blood oxygen, more tests to be done, and I don't even know how to tell you what a horrible, inhumane experience that was for both of us. And it's nothing new.

She was declared DECEASED by Medicare this month and didn't get her check or her coverage for her meds. We don't know why. Today I got a piece of mail addressed to the PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF M__ W__, DECEASED, offering condolences, then asking if I'd attend to her credit card bill. It was a collection agency.

Okay, I'm rambling. This was so very awful. In between her experiences and my own, I'm almost phobic about going to a doctor because they're dismissive, they act like the patient's an idiot (and I know there's frustration in dealing with patients and getting correct info out of them, and that includes my mother, and I know she's 77, but that doesn't mean you can throw her out with the garbage). Do you have to make her feel like you don't believe her when she says something is wrong, do you have to make her feel she's an idiot and you don't care if she dies in the middle of your filthy ER waiting room floor? 

Welcome to health care in America.