Triage

The preliminary assessment of patients or casualties in order to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.

Triage

We had a great team helping us this morning: the ER doc on duty, our nurse, a social worker and the physical therapist gathered to perform triage on the medical system that has been screwing us.

Initially the physical therapist wanted to admit Andy, but then the social worker explained that the whole problem is that he cannot be admitted or he will not get to see the oncologist because she will only see Andy as an outpatient, and that because we have not yet met with the oncologist, we don’t have solid information on prognosis and treatment options. Still. After 2 weeks. Don’t get me started.

And we also explained that being at home wasn’t an option, since he keeps falling out of bed, and the front porch is difficult to navigate with its unfinished splintery wood handrails, and the path through the garden is made of loose rocks that don’t cooperate with walkers and wheelchairs, and it’s a 40 minute drive to the hospital and the interior of the house itself makes it difficult to navigate from the living room (where the hospital bed is set up) to the front door in a wheelchair and even in a walker, and helping him get anywhere – just from the living room to a couch – is difficult for one person, and it’s difficult to always have two people there at once.

Once the physical therapist understood the assignment, she was invaluable.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re doing to do.”

And she presented a plan we had considered last night: she said we need to check into a hotel. We need to put a mattress on the floor in the hotel, and/or stack pillows and blankets around the bed and/or mattress in case he falls, and we need to have a strong person who can help us get him off the floor if he does end up there (thanks, Trevor) and she taught us tricks on how to move him from the floor, from the bed, to turn him when he’s not comfortable, and she “accidentally” left a few of the hospital’s waterproof pads (aka chucks) so we can leave those under him and use them to pull him into different positions.

And that should get us through until 9 am tomorrow, when we will meet this oncologist. I may take an anxiety med beforehand in hopes it will keep me from giving her a piece of my mind because if I get started we may lose our shot at working with her.

I hope we will finally have clarity on prognosis and treatment options and can figure out next steps.

Thanks so much for everyone’s well wishes and shared anger at the hospital system….not the people who work there, because 99% have been amazing – just the system and the insurance companies.