Update on the husband…

In case you are here for the first time…

1. My husband had a serious boogie boarding accident last Tuesday when we were in North Carolina.
2. He was told by the neurosurgeon in NC that he needed to have surgery within one month and that until he has surgery, he is at risk of becoming completely paralyzed if he has any more trauma to his neck.
3. Our insurance (Medicaid) didn’t cover anything in NC, and so my husband flew home to CT on Saturday.
4. We were having major difficulty finding a neurosurgeon up here in CT who accepted our insurance.
5. I asked for any help in making some headway on the blog Facebook page.

Thank God for Facebook, is all I have to say.

Yesterday I received a message from a friend who had a connection with a neurosurgeon at Yale, which is about 45 minutes from our house. And Yale is like, the best.

By some miracle, we were able to schedule an appointment with the doctor today. I was so relieved.

Until I got a phone call about a half hour later saying the doctor had to go in for an emergency surgery, and so we had to reschedule our appointment.

For next Monday.

Fuck.

We have been living in kind of an unknown state for the last week. Not knowing the severity of the situation. Not knowing if we would find a decent doctor. Not knowing if my husband will fully recover.

And I don’t like unknowns at all.

Waiting almost another week to get answers did not sit well with me.

My husband did get to see his primary care physician this morning. She at least gave him a refill on pain medication so he’d be comfortable and would be able to get some sleep at night. She said she would do her best to get us an appointment with another neurosurgeon before next Monday.

We left the office feeling a little frustrated. We dropped off the prescription for a refill at the pharmacy, were told it would be an hour wait, sat in the car in a parking lot nearby, and tried to come up with a plan for how we are going to make it through the next couple months.

And then my phone rang.

It was the neurosurgeon. Things had shuffled around again.

Can you leave now and get your husband here in the next hour?

YES!

I turned the car on and we drove straight to the Yale New Haven Spine Center.

We met the doctor.

He was fucking awesome.

And here is what we learned:

1. My husband, in the surgeon’s words, “dodged a big bullet and is very lucky.”
2. He still needs surgery.
3. He has to wait for the swelling in his spinal cord to go down some more before the surgery is performed.
4. He will get another MRI in three weeks, meet again with the neurosurgeon then, and make an appointment for surgery at that time.

So we got some answers. We have a doctor we really trust. And we have some sort of plan.

And that is good.

Unfortunately, that also means my husband will be out of commission for the next three months.

At least.

He can’t drive. He can’t pick up anything heavier than a milk jug. And he needs to wear a collar until surgery.

It doesn’t help our financial situation at all.

We have some serious work to do figuring out how to make ends meet now, but at least we aren’t living in the land of unknowns anymore.

And for that, I am grateful.

 

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