I haven't updated this site for quite a while because life took a temporary turn for the worse.
Most people who read the site don't know that last October my wife Heather found out she was pregnant, which was a huge surprise. The reason the pregnancy was a surprise was not so much timing, as the belief that it was extremely unlikely that she could get pregnant. We had gone through two years of infertility treatments and finally given up. We were saving money to pay for adoption fees.
Heather was sick during most of her pregnancy -- she had infections, morning sickness, bronchitis, colds, etc... from October untl the middle of February. On February 11th, I took her to the ER at the local hospital because she was dehydrated and confused (she was actually hallucinating a bit). At the ER the treated her for dehydration and ran some blood work, which came back very strange. The ER staff also couldn't find the baby's heart beat, which had been great at the last ultrasound (January 28th). At 2:00 am, February 12th, they admitted her to the ICU.
Over the next few hours we learned that the baby had died and Heather's medical condition deteriorated drastically. After 9 days in the ICU, Heather was sent to a more normal floor where they could monitor her vital signs and start physical therapy. After 6 more days, Heather was allowed to go home. Since then, she's been getting physical therapy at home and someone has been with her all the time. Luckily my employer has been really flexible with my work hours.
Needless to say, my perspective has been altered by this experience. We both realize that without our excellent medical insurance, Heather wouldn't be here. Fifty-eight percent of the people with the condition she had die within the first 48 hours at the hospital. With lesser insurance (or Medicaid), the initial blood tests that revealed the seriousness of her condition might not have been run. With lesser insurance we would have had to pay much more out of pocket for her stay. Even ten percent (about $50,000) would have caused us to file for bankruptcy. My opinion regarding universal health care has been radically changed by this experience.
There should be no circumstance where a seriously ill person could go into a hospital and not receive whatever treatment they need. Period. There should be no question whether appropriate tests will be run because your don't have insurance, or because you have bad insurance. Everyone should have equal access to health care. does this mean socialized medicine? If that's what it takes, then absolutely.
We also had problems getting information from my wife's physicians, even to the point of finding out who they were. For a fair amount of time, I had no idea what they thought was wrong, what the prognosis was, or what treatment they would try. They performed procedures without consent -- including inserting a central line, taking X-rays and a CAT scan. After Heather was out of the ICU, we had a difficult time finding out what criteria they were using to determine when she could come home.
Our avenues for remedying this were few. We talked with patient representatives three separate times to try to get the information issue resolved. Each time it got better for a few days, and then slowly worsened. The hospital's options for dealing with it were few. Unlike nurses, orderlies, and technicians, the doctors do not work for the hospital. They are generally in their own practices. The same goes for physical/occupational/speech therapists. So all that the hospital can do is organize meetings and present concerns.
All of this could be remedied, in part, with health plans like those used in France and Sweden, where costs are controlled, but everyone still gets good care on demand. I certainly don't advocate the Canadian or British methods, where you can wait for months to get a problem fixed.
This experience has also affected my stance on religion somewhat. This episode has pretty much shown me that God does not take an active hand in the world. A benevolent and loving God would not have put a woman that desperately wants children through this, just as a benevolent and loving God would not tolerate the injustice and suffering in the world. This isn't just a free will argument, nor is it a discussion fo whether anyone is more deserving than anyone else. And for the record, I don't believe Lucifer is the source of the wrold's problems. Lucifer is just a convenient excuse for people who need someone to blame things on.
Regardless, Heather is now recovering, and I'll be back to blogging as time permits.
Posted by Chris at March 9, 2004 12:31 PM