Surgery Cancelled
Oct. 7th, 2024 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse We got a call last night at 6 pm on the house phone, the landline. Normally, I never even hear the landline ring any more because I'm used to ignoring it because 99.9% of the calls are spam. However, Shawn knew that United Hospital would be using that number to call to let us know when her total knee replacement surgery was scheduled for exactly (obviously we had a date, but they were calling to tell us when to come in). So, she picked up the phone because she was expecting to get an arrival time.
Turns out, all non-emergency surgeries are being cancelled in the Twin Cities because of Hurricane Helene.
I'm not making this up.
There is, apparently, ONE FACTORY in North Carolina that makes all the IV fluid for a huge number of hospitals including (and this is the crazy part as far as I'm concerned) ALL of the hospitals in the Twin Cities. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/04/g-s1-26383/iv-fluids-shortage-baxter-hurricane-helene This article is overly optimistic, assuming that LIKE LAST TIME the factory would be up and running before anyone noticed.
HA.
We are noticing.
I'm sure a lot of people are noticing.
For us... things are just entirely discombobulated. On Friday, Shawn took home files and laptops, expecting to have to work at home after a few months of recovery at home. She was at work until 6 pm on Friday, in fact, making sure the big project she needed to have done got done (keeping in mind she goes in at 7:30 am.) We have the house rearranged so that her walker would move through easily. We have a day bed in our dining room. She had FMLA and short-term disability pay all set up for a time, starting tomorrow! There are just so many things that we are unraveling that this whole process feels insane and unreal.
She's expecting a call some time this week with information about rescheduling. We are HOPING that the surgery will be rescheduled soon, ideally sometime before midnight on December 31, if for no other reason than that Shawn has met her deductible for this year and so we were not going to have to pay anything out of pocket for this. The nurse who cancelled had no idea when--though she implied that it was possible that the surgery could potentially even be back on in a matter of days. The only issue with that, of course, is that Shawn had to step down from several medicines (like blood thinners and blood pressure) in prep for the surgery and at the very least we would like to know sometime SOON so she can either stay off them (if it's a matter of days), or go back on them (if it is a matter of months).
So there is all this on our minds. Plus, there was the whole emotional readiness.
We have worked ourselves up for this day. Total knee replacement might be routine, but it is not a nothing burger of a surgery. Recovery is slow and complicated--which reminds me, we have to cancel all those PT appointments.
Ugh.
These are the kinds of things we're going to be dealing with more and more as the climate continues to change. It's not just about sea levels and properties going underwater. This is what it's going to look like for a lot of people all over the world.
============
UPDATE:
Shawn heard from her doctor's office already and she is now scheduled for knee replacement surgery on November 25, the Monday before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is, typically, our big holiday--we have had friends/made-family fly in internationally in the past. I think we could still have some kind of celebration, but I guess we'll have to wait and see how folks feel about it. The only other option was way out near the end of January and Shawn's biggest goal is to be fully mobile in time for our son Mason's graduation from college (in May of next year)
We have been adulting like f*cking pros. There is still a lot to untangle and re-tangle, as it were, but I am so relieved that we have a date at the hospital.
Turns out, all non-emergency surgeries are being cancelled in the Twin Cities because of Hurricane Helene.
I'm not making this up.
There is, apparently, ONE FACTORY in North Carolina that makes all the IV fluid for a huge number of hospitals including (and this is the crazy part as far as I'm concerned) ALL of the hospitals in the Twin Cities. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/04/g-s1-26383/iv-fluids-shortage-baxter-hurricane-helene This article is overly optimistic, assuming that LIKE LAST TIME the factory would be up and running before anyone noticed.
HA.
We are noticing.
I'm sure a lot of people are noticing.
For us... things are just entirely discombobulated. On Friday, Shawn took home files and laptops, expecting to have to work at home after a few months of recovery at home. She was at work until 6 pm on Friday, in fact, making sure the big project she needed to have done got done (keeping in mind she goes in at 7:30 am.) We have the house rearranged so that her walker would move through easily. We have a day bed in our dining room. She had FMLA and short-term disability pay all set up for a time, starting tomorrow! There are just so many things that we are unraveling that this whole process feels insane and unreal.
She's expecting a call some time this week with information about rescheduling. We are HOPING that the surgery will be rescheduled soon, ideally sometime before midnight on December 31, if for no other reason than that Shawn has met her deductible for this year and so we were not going to have to pay anything out of pocket for this. The nurse who cancelled had no idea when--though she implied that it was possible that the surgery could potentially even be back on in a matter of days. The only issue with that, of course, is that Shawn had to step down from several medicines (like blood thinners and blood pressure) in prep for the surgery and at the very least we would like to know sometime SOON so she can either stay off them (if it's a matter of days), or go back on them (if it is a matter of months).
So there is all this on our minds. Plus, there was the whole emotional readiness.
We have worked ourselves up for this day. Total knee replacement might be routine, but it is not a nothing burger of a surgery. Recovery is slow and complicated--which reminds me, we have to cancel all those PT appointments.
Ugh.
These are the kinds of things we're going to be dealing with more and more as the climate continues to change. It's not just about sea levels and properties going underwater. This is what it's going to look like for a lot of people all over the world.
============
UPDATE:
Shawn heard from her doctor's office already and she is now scheduled for knee replacement surgery on November 25, the Monday before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is, typically, our big holiday--we have had friends/made-family fly in internationally in the past. I think we could still have some kind of celebration, but I guess we'll have to wait and see how folks feel about it. The only other option was way out near the end of January and Shawn's biggest goal is to be fully mobile in time for our son Mason's graduation from college (in May of next year)
We have been adulting like f*cking pros. There is still a lot to untangle and re-tangle, as it were, but I am so relieved that we have a date at the hospital.
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Date: 2024-10-07 05:55 pm (UTC)K.
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Date: 2024-10-07 07:39 pm (UTC)But OH MY GOSH we have been adulting like pros all day long.
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Date: 2024-10-07 11:19 pm (UTC)K.
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Date: 2024-10-07 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 07:42 pm (UTC)Shawn and I will always take advice and encouragement! I am about to update the post because we did get rescheduled, which is good. We're only about a month and a half out, actually. It's still coming up soonish!
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Date: 2024-10-07 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 08:44 pm (UTC)Very glad you have a new date, and that it is still this year. But WARGH.
P.
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Date: 2024-10-08 05:33 pm (UTC)And, yeah, although after reading the newspaper article this morning Shawn is feeling even a little bleak about whether or not the November date will go off. I guess it will be what it will be. The thing I keep saying to her is that I'm glad it's ONLY just a knee that's giving her a hassle... and not something a little more intense. She can survive with the pain. It's not GREAT, but it's not disastrous
+++++++++++++++++++++++.
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Date: 2024-10-08 07:54 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2024-10-07 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:34 pm (UTC)We broke out the wine by 4 pm.
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Date: 2024-10-08 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 10:22 pm (UTC)Right? Considering the damage to the plant, and that the plant produces sterile, medical stuff, the reschedule date may be optimistic. Stay tuned. [insert rant about corporate consolidation and other issues] I'm glad that the knee pain is at least tolerable, but still. What a pain.
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Date: 2024-10-08 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:36 pm (UTC)It'll tangle up Thanksgiving, but our made family wouldn't be our made family if they weren't good people and willing to reschedule.
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Date: 2024-10-08 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:37 pm (UTC)But, yeah... I'm sure they were really hoping to have behind-the-scenes solved things. I was a little surprised we did not have an arrival time on the books. Perhaps that should have been a sign that they kind of knew they were fuckered but didn't want to have to give in.