You know how most hospitals want you in and out? They need the bed, or insurance only pays for a limited number of days. Well, I’ve been in this quite nice hospital for six nights after surgery on both ankles.
Nice or not, nobody really wants to be in a hospital for this long. Except, they can’t release me until my insurance approves of a place for me.
That’s the good part of still being in the hospital. I can’t put weight on either ankle, so I’m known as “non-weight bearing.” I can’t go home and be alone during the day yet.
By the way, that’s an enormously good reason to lose the weight you want to lose before winding up in the hospital with two broken ankles. Not only will there be less weight to actually bear once you can bear weight, but hospital food has evolved to be both nutritious and almost delicious. Add that to inability to move much, and that’s a true recipe for weight gain instead of loss. I need to go home as soon as possible where my niece, who will be staying with me to help, can’ t cook. I’ll have to subsist on protein drinks.
Except, I shouldn’t go home. I should go to a physical rehabilitation facility for a couple of weeks. Except, I’m too healthy to go to one because they are in hospitals, and I have no underlying health issues, apart from the currently unusable feet and ankles. So what am I “sick” enough for? A nursing home.
It seems nursing homes are considered skilled nursing facilities, which includes helping me bathe, move from place to place, and the administration of pain and other meds. Why can’t rehab do that? They can. Except, they’re a hospital and prefer sick people.
Also, my medicare insurance company, which for now will remain unnamed, prefers to place me in a nursing home because…fanfare…it’s cheaper than a rehabilitation facility.
If you don’t personally know me, or know from my writing about aging what I think about all that stuff, you may be thinking, “Well, if a nursing home is what insurance recommends, why not?” Since you asked, I’ll tell you why not.
I have maintained good spirits thus far. Some, who think I’m not taking this whole two broken ankles and surgery seriously enough, may say too much good spirits considering the circumstances. I keep the hospital staff laughing so much that one came in last night to see why there was a party in room seventeen. My family has a particularly dark sense of humor, and it’s the raft floating me through this sea of pain and the unknown.
I have decided to be the stand-up comedienne darling of the nursing home should I be forced to go there. Except, it would be sit-down, not stand-up comedy. Still, I picture wheel chairs of sweet little silver haired women and men assembled around me as I banter, joke and hold forth humorously about our situation; parenting, sex and whatever other funny stuff comes to mind. With any luck, some of the audience will be coherent and understand. If not, at least I’ll be entertaining myself. With lots of luck, they won’t be cranky and hate me and throw their pudding at me.
However, when I seriously consider going there, lots of issues and triggers come to mind. I know that nursing homes, like hospitals, have lost staff during the pandemic. It’s a tough job, and many people quit with the added stress. Years ago, I watched my grandmother quite literally waste away in one. I’m damned young for my age, physiologically, mentally and emotionally. I’m a therapist who manages my emotions and depression well. A nursing home setting might affect that hard won, delicate balance.
So, if they approve a nursing home, I’m going home instead. Except my apartment is up two flights of outdoor stairs. Once I’m there, I’m inside for at least four weeks. Therefore, I’m getting a temporary efficiency downstairs, once we hear back from the insurance for the restaurant where I fell. Which we haven’t heard from since I fell. So there’s that.
Plus, If I go home to the second floor, I’ll be considered home bound, and on the first floor I won’t be. Sounds good, right? Except if I’m considered home bound I get more services there, such as a visiting physical therapist and home health nurse. If I’m on the ground floor, and therefore not considered home bound, I don’t get those, and will have to be transported to physical therapy. Sigh.
. . .
Great news. I think. Insurance approved the rehabilitation facility. My doctor told them I only needed five to seven days, which is cheaper than long-term, and would be a silly amount of time to spend in a nursing home. Kudos to Dr. Atique. So I’ll “see” you on the other side of these hospital walls. Reporting soon from physical rehab.
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This post was previously published on Crow’s Feet.
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The post Apparently I’m Entirely Too Healthy To Get Help for Two Broken Ankles appeared first on The Good Men Project.
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