I feel like I have managed to maintain a fairly positive tone lately when I write. I have have delved into the realm of criticism on a few occasions, but have been good about avoiding blatant negativity. So I feel kind of bad about this, but, right now I’m totally jumping off of the positivity wagon to complain for a minute. Piper has been back at Columbia for over 3 weeks now. It has been great. She initially moved back here from a rehab facility for an “evaluation.” After the evaluation, she went back to the facility for one night, then came back straight away, because of some “episodes.” This move also coincided with when her private insurance benefits ran out for that particular type of facility. At this point, the decision was made to give her a GJ tube. Fair enough. Probably not totally necessary, but it the doctors think that it will help her put on some weight, go for it. Then the procedure was pushed back, a couple of times, resulting in her extended stay at Columbia. This whole string of events makes me wonder how much of the work and wait was really necessary, and how much of it was just a ploy to be able to stall until the medicaid kicked in. But that is a subject that I am going to refrain from exploring, for the moment. Now that she has had the GJ tube, she can’t really stay in the PICU, she isn’t really sick enough, and she isn’t waiting for any more procedures. As previously mentioned, her private insurance benefits have expired for the calender year, in the case of rehab facilities. It isn’t the end of the world, because there is a medicaid program that covers patients in situations like hers. The application for these benefits has been submitted, received and partially processed. It is however, still pending. Something important to note, is that this medicaid program is retroactive for 90 days, once the account becomes active. Well, that isn’t good enough for the place that we would like to have her moved back to. They will not take her back until her account had graduated from the “pending” stasis and has become fully active. I mean, it isn’t like I thought that they were taking care of her out of the goodness of their hearts, but, it isn’t like they wouldn’t be able to get paid, either. So, all of that is headache #1. It is a pretty disconcerting headache, even standing on its own. Now couple headache #1 with headache #2, Which is the fact that Reagan and I are leaving town tomorrow for 9 days and will most likely not have cell service for the first half of it. It’s not like there is ever good timing with these types of issues, but the way it currently falls, I don’t think that it could have been timed any worse. The funny part (or, not so funny part, depending on perspective), is that Reagan and I have been planning this trip for a year, because we thought that it would be plenty of time for the dust to settle and Piper to be in a semi-permanent, or at least stable situation, making it easier for us to be away. That is what we get for trying to play Nostradamus. As is currently stands, we are still planning on leaving town tomorrow. She will still be in the care of Columbia and as far as we understand, they can’t move her anywhere (except back to the place she was in Jersey) without our consent. Whether or not insurance will cover this next week, will remain to be seen.
On a totally different note. Piper was snoozing away, cute as ever when we went to visit her this morning. Notice how she is all snuggled up right in front of her mirror, hahhahah. So cute.