I'm Off the Couch (at least for now)!

We made it home last night after quite the exhausting day. We were told early in the morning (when Dr. Burke came by for her first rounds) that we would be discharged. Then we had an appointment with Dr. Fields to start radiation treatment planning, which lasted until 11:30 or so. When we got back I talked to several people, the home health person that sets things up, a social worker that talked about what my insurance will and won't cover, and another social worker. Part of Stephanie's recovery is that the wound on her arm is covered with plastic and a vacuum pulled on it to remove any build up of fluid. The company rep that supplied the take home unit I was told had called around 9 that morning and was on his way with it. Great I thought, they should be here soon. Wrong, he got there around 3 that afternoon. While waiting for him to show up I again talked with the home health provider, learning in the process that our insurance would not cover both the home health nurse and the speech therapist that works with Dr. Pou. I would think it would be cheaper to go visit a speech therapist instead of having one show up at our apartment, so I argued the point with them, but honestly there was nothing they could do. Even though Mel is a little happier than we would usually like, we have met her, and she has examined Stephanie before. Also Dr. Pou thinks much more highly of her than she does the home health speech therapists. So we decided we would try out home health for a week or so and then ask them to discharge us so we can go back to Mel once we have things figured out here at home. Thankfully most of the home stuff is all about valves and fluid flow, which is right up my ally. Once the wound vac vendor showed up all of a sudden I got a phone call from the health equipment provider to let me know insurance doesn't cover the tube feeding goo. This was of course disappointing, but more so the woman wouldn't let me of the phone to learn about the wound vac. I got pretty testy with her on the phone. Especially after she told me the food would cost $62.50 and then said she needed a credit card for the $100 bill. I made her explain that one, we were paying co-pays on the equipment, which would have been nice had she mentioned that prior to telling me the bill. So I missed most of the wound vac demonstration, but that was ok, because we were going home! Nope. We were really waiting on the portable suction machine (aka Stephanie's best friend). Apparently they had told our nurse that we were only waiting on the wound vac because they thought the suction machine would show up WAY before the wound vac would. I was always told not to assume. At 4 the guy from Apria (home machine supplier) showed up with the suction machine. He set it up and showed us how it worked, and finally we were really ready to be discharged. Now we wait on transport. We waited long enough though, so the nurse performed the transport for us. We actually left the hospital and 4:30. We got to the trusty Wal-Greens at 5:00 and I handed them Stephanie's 7 prescriptions. "This will take at least twenty minutes" she said. I told her that was fine I had to leave anyway, and I would be back. We stopped by Taco Bell because Stephanie hates Taco Bell, so I didn't feel bad eating it in front of her. Finally we made it home and Stephanie went straight to bed. and lay there for most of the night. I unloaded my car and the little bit that was left in Stephanie's car and then started eating. The Apria guy showed up again around 6 with the pump, the food and the IV stand, but no bags (part of the $100 I had just shelled out). So he left and I called up Wal-Greens and used their automated deal to check on the prescriptions, which the machine said weren't done yet. In the meantime Paula, Mary, Ruekie, Edgar,and Pilot showed up. Thankfully they were all pretty tired and didn't do too much other than sleep. So we waited some more, the Apria guy made it back before the home health nurse, with the bags and syringes. He was scared of Ruekie, who gae his normal doorbell greeting. He showed me how to set up the food pump with these bags, which is a little more involved than what the hospital had, but still pretty easy. Then he went through the steps to set up the flow rate, again pretty easy and right up my ally. I called and checked on the prescriptions again, with the same result. The home health nurse showed up and went over several things with us and took Stephanie's vitals, while saying we were doing a good job with everything. Once she left I again called Wal-Greens, and this time talked to a person. Turns out most of the prescriptions were filled, but they were out of of one of the drugs and had a limited supply of the other. This was roughly 7:45. I asked if they had the drugs anywhere, she called around and couldn't find it at any of the local Wal-Greens. Then she offered to check Wal-Mart, I said that would be great, but in the mean time I was going to head up there to pick up the ones they had. I got there around 8:15 (they close at 9) and found out they had found the medicine in Geismar/Dutchtown. So I hightailed it out of there and headed to that Wal-Greens. I got there at 8:45 and thankfully the first Wal-Greens had called in the prescription for me. I got home just in time to give Stephanie her meds, but missed saying bye to Paula and Mary. There were lots of technical difficulties with the equipment, the feeding tube didn't want to stay locked into the peg end was the main one. Finally after a long and very tiring day we were able to go to bed.
At this point Stephanie for the first time expressed her frustration with the whole situation, we admitted to each other, that neither of us understood the circumstances, for any of this.
We cried some, and I was reminded of this space and the comments we have received here. The reports from all of you that read that have shared how we have blessed you in some way or other. Although I am not yet prepared in my walk with Christ to say that your blessings are worth this magnitude of suffering, I am gladdened by this thought, and buoyed by the knowledge that good will come of this. Good WILL come of this.