Tick, tick, tick, as our lives pass, and I sit in Honey’s hospital room, trying to make sure that this vicious chemo doesn’t kill him or make him any more miserable than necessary. Evidently a good bit of misery is involved. I bring “good” ice from the store nearby and fresh drinks, anything at all to get him to eat.
I guess it’s hard to eat when everything they’re running through your veins makes everything you put in your mouth taste like bad Russian tea. Kind of has some of the same effects, too. So I move into the hospital as much as they let me, and I get to watch while they torture this man, in the name of trying to save his life. (Note: the odds kinda suck here; doc says 50/50).
You guys know this is Cancer, Round 2 for us, and since it didn’t get Honey the first time, it’s trying again. I’m cheering hard for his leg, which might not be sticking around. We’ll see. A one legged Honey is better than no Honey; even he thinks that.
But this chemo, it’s the most aggressive they can give him, and of course it plays merry hell with his digestive system, which worked just fine, despite the previous sepsis and dehisence from 5 years ago, but the chemo ate a hole in the spot where his wound dehisced last time, and now he’s got a fistula again. Fun, fun, fun.
But it’s boring in the hospital. Honey is having Cat Withdrawals. And we’d really like to go home, have some of Medicare Advantage’s Home Health People from Duly come out and check on Honey, because honestly, he’s been at the hospital a couple of weeks now and the hospital psychosis is beginning to set in. I tell them he’s losing it, and they offer him a Xanax, which he refuses, because he’s having a panic attack and is sure they’re trying to kill him (does my finding one of his antibiotics underneath his bed count as “trying to kill?” cause he sure needs them right now). Open wound and all. And the Big Pink Stripe of Sepsis.
We’ve been sent home poorly before. We can do this again, thanks, but I’m not IV qualified, despite being a heck of a wound dresser.
Would any of you like to imagine my surprise when I heard from Home Health that they were just so sorry, but they couldn’t come out, because Humana’s Medicare Part C cancelled our insurance, effective the first of the month, In The Middle Of Round One Of Six Cancer Treatments Followed By Surgery. Say……..you guys don’t think this has anything to do with Humana being a medical disaster profiteer and trying to escape having to pay for this expensive stuff, do you?
When I called Humana, I spoke to 3 different “agents” all men, all who called me a liar, and hung up on me. Why would anyone switch insurance carriers mid treatment, have to find a new oncologist, recoordinate hospital plans, reconstructive oncologists, radiologists, oncologists and surgeons while the clock goes tick tick tick and Mrs, sk8z here goes BOOM! Gonna cancel Honey’s health insurance in the middle of his stay; as my father-in-law used to say, “That’s some boo-shit right thar.”
We’re barely staying on our feet as it is. Why would I do that?
I did tell Humana that in the year since he’d been diagnosed that we had 23 radiation treatments, 58 CAT scans, 39 MRI’s and some other tests, ultrasounds, and nothing else. That this was some booshit way to treat a cancer patient, what gives? They know he’s had cancer for a year, and that’s what we get. 23 radiation treatments. Then, finally, when we do get moving on the chemo (which creates that stupid fistula again), I discover that Humana cancels his insurance mid stay, based on the 22 hours where I called Humana, declared that No Treatment Was Not Good Medical Practice and maybe I should go look for another plan.
22 hours later (after the laughter of the supplemental insurance industry that Medicare people need to carry had subsided long enough for me to hear again), I called Humana, told them it wasn’t possible to change insurance carriers at that time, took the name of the woman I spoke to, who assured me that they would not switch our policy and here’s our conversation number in case you need to refer to it.
We’ve got an appeal pending with Humana, I complained to Medicare; Honey said Humana called him yesterday morning and agreed that maybe they should just take us back, reinstate the policy I never truly cancelled, and let bygones be bygones. I’ll believe it when I see it in writing. I surely never saw any cancellation notice in writing, but I’m almost willing to let them try again at that alleged hospital; just stop fucking with 2 old people who are just trying to get through this terrible illness without having our Advantage Plan “think” they can see they eye of a needle of escaping paying for this patient, screw the patient, their family and the 20% of everything they’re liable for because we, who dares call ourselves “Humana” cut them off. We don’t give a damn. We’ve got profits to consider.
Hey, religious hospital, you’re spelling “prophet” wrong.