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Well, if Mary Smith had been a patient at my local hospital, she would have a really big bill. Every time a nurse gives you meds or a tech performs a test - blood work, ekg, echo - the wrist band is scanned and the charge goes on your bill.
Fortunately, almost every time my ID band was scanned, I was usually asked to verify a piece of information such as "what's your date of birth?" or "who's your attending physician?" When it was a surgery, the OR nurse asked if I knew where I was and what I was there for.
I chuckled at your story, germaine, because I can't imagine how you felt when you thought looked like you were 100!!!
February 22, 2019. It has been about two weeks since I have updated. I hit a rocky path in my recovery. Nothing major just a couple of infections and complications which are delaying my recovery.
I did have a reminder about medical POA.
I just discovered that my son, primary Medical POA, normally does not answer the phone when he does not recognize the number. Apparently, the evening of my surgery I took a very serious "turn for the worse" and they called him. Since he had already been informed that I was out of recovery and "doing fine" he did not answer the phone, with an unknown number, and did not listen to his voice mail for days. Yes, for days!
When the doctor couldn't reach him he called my daughter, who had just stepped into the shower (after spending all day at the hospital for my seven hour surgery and four hours in the recovery room - plus an hour long drive in each direction) and missed the call. By the time she returned the call, a few minutes later, the doctor had already called my back-up, back-up medical POA. My brother was panicked and couldn't understand why neither of my children answered the phone the day of their mother's major surgery. And, the doctor was also confused why my children did not answer. It turned out OK, as I just went to surgical intensive care and was treated there for the next two weeks or so (?), but in a different scenario it could have been a real problem. A Real Problem.
Last edited by germaine2626; 02-22-2019 at 08:25 AM..
One of the things that irritated me to no end when my mother was under hospice care is that I HAD to answer calls from unknown phone numbers. I mean, I felt like I had to, because who knows what cell phone someone might be calling me on? One of the various nurses or aides, or whoever. I felt like I had to answer. And frankly, I felt victimized and exploited by telemarketers during those days, but oh well. I would answer, and if they weren't with hospice or whoever, I'd hang up and block their number. But like your son, I don't usually answer.
Here's the thing. I would recommend telling your son that if he's not going to answer, he at least needs to check his voice mail immediately. I am not blaming him because live and learn, but this is a good lesson, for him and you and for all of us.
If it makes you feel any better, get this - this is the goobery thing I did. We knew my MIL was near death, and we had visited her and hospice finally told us to go home, they'd call us (we lived close to the facility) when death was imminent. Well, guess what I forgot - I forgot that they had MY number as the emergency number - I was just thinking they had my husband's number, why I don't know but that's what I thought (he works out of town a lot so it's usually easier to reach me). Well, this was when my mom was going through her "call at all hours of the day or night" thing, so I was in the habit of, that's right, TURNING MY PHONE OFF AT NIGHT. So yes, that's what I did. And so that night, hospice tried to call us, and couldn't reach us, and my MIL died without us going back up there. That's not the end of the world - we had already been up there a few hours earlier but still - DANG. And my husband didn't blame me, but that's just because he's not that sort of person. Anyway, so they called my BIL, who lives two hours away. And he tried to call - my phone, not my husband's.
Now - I blame other people for not calling my husband's phone when mine went straight to voice mail (everyone had his number) but still - I turned my phone off, the night we figured my MIL would pass. That's pretty bad. So like I said, I'm not blaming your son, but I do think this is a good wake up call - if he's not going to answer his phone, he needs to check his VM right away.
Good reminder!
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