Different Day

 One thing that I've noticed, and it is not just with the knee...I have always known it about myself. If I don't feel well, at night it is always worse. I have pondered this many times, and I always came to the same conclusion: when I am up and moving, and doing things, it keeps my brain occupied and distracted. When I am in bed, in the dark, in the quiet, with nothing keeping my brain occupied, I take more notice of what I've been ignoring all day, whether it be a pain, or a problem, or something on my heart.

So...when I went to bed Wednesday night, I knew that I was coming down with Tim's cold. It took forever to fall asleep, but when I finally did, I was back up at 3AM. My head ached. My body ached. I was cold. I moved to the couch and back to the bed. The thing was, as far as the cold went, it was not even a bad cold, but the body aches seemed to really to make me take a lot more notice of the ache in my leg.  It really was the strangest thing.

I had the PT guy coming at 9:30, but I was so tired and cold and achy that I just called and canceled with him. He said he understood completely, and that he'd see me next week. 

Much to my surprise, I got a call from the surgeon's office about an hour later. They were very stern about missing two PT appointments. 

"But I haven't!" I said. "I missed today's appointment, but I am sick. I've never missed any other appointments, ever." 

She said, "The home care has notified us that you have missed two PT appointments this week and we are required to follow up on this to see what is going on." 

I said, "I haven't missed two appointments, as I already explained. I've had two appointments this week. I was due for one more which I canceled because I am sick, and if you want to talk numbers, let's talk about the fact that by Monday, I had full extension. Let's talk about how I gained 8° of flexion in my knee between Monday and Wednesday." She sounded rather taken aback but said again that they'd been notified... I said, "They are wrong." 

After that conversation, I was irritated. I called the Home Care people. 'Mark' answered. I explained the situation, and much to my surprise, he said, "You missed today AND you missed yesterday." 

I said, "I absolutely did NOT miss yesterday."

In a bored voice he said, "let me look..." and he said, "Oh...you didn't." 

Now, let's be clear, mistakes happen. I understand that. I've made enough mistakes in my life to be fully cognizant of that fact. I also believe that when a mistake is made, it needs to be fixed. The mistake was his mistake, but instead of saying, 'I made a mistake and I need to fix that,' he began to say that he had not notified the surgeon's office, that they had called him to follow up on my progress. 

I was even more irritated by that because the surgeon's office was very clear about who called who, but even if it had happened as he said, he was the one that had provided the misinformation just has he had to me initially in the phone call. 

The tattletale immediately called the PT, who texted me wanting to know what happened. I am not a big texter, and tried to sum it up briefly. He was with another client but asked if he could call when he left that house, which he did. We discussed the situation, and I said, "The office made a mistake. If he had offered to address and fix that mistake, I wouldn't be so upset. But he immediately went into CYA mode (CYA = Cover your ass)."

He assured me that he would call the surgeon's office and assure them that I was a very motivated client, doing extremely well, and that only one appointment had been missed. That made me feel better about things. 

I received a phone call shortly after that the nurse was coming to discharge me from the home health. 

I felt pretty awful. Like I was a problem and so they were dumping me. A PITA. (PITA = Pain in the ass). It was my understanding that I'd go to Tuesday's doctor appointment, get 25 staples removed, and they'd make the decision whether I could graduate from home care, so this seemed precipitous to me. 

The nurse was young, but she was a very sensible woman. She did her part of things, noted that I was doing extremely well, that the incision looked great, and reminded me that I really should still be using the walker. I forget about it when I'm moving around the kitchen and then wind up migrating all over the house while my walker stands at the ready in the kitchen. 

When she got to the 'do you have any questions for me?' I asked my question outright. 'Was I being discharged because I was a problem.' She looked surprised and said no. I explained the situation. "Oh my gosh!" she said. "That would really have made me mad. Things like that can really mess up your insurance." 

That had not even occurred to me. 

She said very briskly, that she was going to call the surgeon's office too, just to make sure that there was no mistake, that they were not dealing with a non-compliant patient.

So that did make me feel better, despite my cold. 

I've had two awful nights, but it seems as if the cold is going away, and last night I slept soundly once again. I woke up this morning and felt rested. Today will be a different day.