I WENT INTO THE HOSPITAL FOR A WHAT!

(Surgical Procedures, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute)

(Department of Health and Human Services, Frazer Chronicle)

 

So my medical malady has been pretty much chronicled by now in all the major news outlets, like the Hone Kong Times, (Alternative Electronic Information Network,) or AEIN, and the Axis of Logic. I’d known for a while that something was maybe wrong with my inner-workers, and a final aching in my left arm ending in my left chest, and the failure of a stress test put a date, time, and heart specialist in my short future.

My blood sugar count was so high…..391 that it was determined that I’d need a few days to rectify the upward arc of this really important part of my blood make-up. Insulin was a dirty word…..at least to me was going to be used to get my blood sugar under control…..and there wasn’t going to be any arguments, or conversations…..it would be a drip, drip, drip.

After years of fooling myself, (the worst one to fool) here I was, under the gun and being thrown under the bus in an all-out effort to lower my blood sugar into the reasonable and acceptable levels so that I could continue to live. You know, usually we do things to ourselves, and pay for them years later, well, 69 is my years later and I’m going to be paying the piper right now.

It took four days for the hospital staff at St. Vincent, here in Green Bay to corral, and then lower my blood sugar readings, but lower it they did. My by-pass procedure was scheduled for Tuesday, October 8 at 6:30 A.M. I scored a jewel…..an all-star, and an all pro, Dr. John Seccombe was all of these things and more.

He and his able staff had my sorry carcass on the St. Vincent operating table for more than seven hours, they hacked and wacked, cut and sawed, induced a pump to breath for me, and another to distribute blood to the critical parts of my body. In the end…..it was a no hitter, a perfect game, no errors and no walks…..a perfect procedure.

And ya know what else…..they do every one of these procedures with the same proficiency every day of the week…..more than a thousand in a year. My procedure was a Coronary Artery By-Pass Graft, (a Cabg or “cabbage” as it’s called) and I needed not one, not two, or even three by passes…..I needed five…..St. Vincent was having a 5 for one introductory offer…..and I accepted.

Actually accepting the suggestions of my medical team, (which I really didn’t know that I had) tended to save my life, and will allow me to possibly regain some of the things that I have enjoyed since I turned 60, like enjoying my granddaughters and watching sunsets as well as sunrises. My medical team and their proficient efforts to offer my heart a second chance, in effect has offered me another chance at life’s beautiful little choices at love, my wife’s happy face, and to rekindle some old friendships.

 SCANNED LIKE A SUPERMARKET PIECE OF MEAT

I have been an active voice in the health insurance debate, and my opinion has remained steady in the fact that everybody needs access to health care…..and that opinion has been strengthened not only by my experience, but by that of my sister who resides in Michigan.

During my eleven day stay in the hospital for my by-pass procedure I became aware immediately that everything that was administered to me, my case, food, and medical supplies carried a bar-code as did my wrist band. It’s how hospitals bill patients, insurance companies, or vendors.

I am waiting for some sort of detailed bill that will tell me how much different supplies, equipment, procedures and medications have cost me, and my insurance company. It’ll be interesting to see how much a band-aid costs, an aspirin, or stool softener.

Hospital staff members really are masterful at commingling bed-side-manner and the administrative part of the equation. Florence Nightingale is not dead; she now carries a bar-code reader which, in today’s modern health care world is a necessity.

Whether it’s the Affordable Care Act, a derivative Obama Care, or some other government insurance plan that is devised to cover each and every American…..it needs to be a priority of not only our government, but every American as well. And for people to talk about them (not wanting the government telling them what to buy, how to be covered, or what to pay) is…..well, ridiculous.

Without an all encompassing health plan, as a nation, we will remain largely in flux, not quite as strong as we can be, and unable to operate in today’s twenty-first century technology. In my opinion for government to debate this issue is a waste of our time.

I haven’t talked to my sister, Elaine who had surgery yesterday, but I can tell you this, she’d agree with me when I talk about taking the business out of health insurance. At one of the most venerable times in a person’s life, other than a bar code gun, all of the business needs to be kept to a bare minimum.

I met some fascinating medical workers during my time in the hospital, from those folks who cleaned the floors, to the CNA’s, the LPN’s, RN’s, department directors, doctors, and their assistants, none get enough money…..not for what they do, and what they mean to people’s health.

I had the two cutest  little day-time health care givers, Shannon and Allison…..you guys know who you are, they treated me with dignity and respect, and made my stay on the heart ward much more then tolerable. Nurse Sarah was my P.M. and early A.M. health care provider, and she was every bit as competent as my day-time nurses.

I single these people out not because they where head and shoulders above any of the other care-givers, but because these women seemed to have a bed-side personality that was special…..at least for me. I hope that I wasn’t a demanding patient, but because if I was, they would have switched to a different gear and done the same great job.

RECOVERY MODE

It’ll take me a while to get my sea legs back, hey ripping a guy’s chest open, unplugging the lungs and re-routing the blood flow through a mechanical apparatus ain’t no small feat. I’ve been at this piece since Wednesday, and it’s already Friday.

During the course of my recovery I’ll be able to further research this animal that we call health insurance, cause I need to understand its issues. All I know is that I’m thankful that I and my sister have ample health care insurance and both have loving family’s members to help ease us back into our past lives.

HAVE A NICE DAY!