St. Luke’s has asked us to rate Marjorie’s hospital stay.  It was all right as far as hospital stays go.  It’s obvious that everyone was trying to be professional, and that the hospital has all of the latest equipment and gadgets; but one comes away with some nagging feelings of disquietude.

A feature that’s new to the health scene is a requirement that picture ID be shown before every appointment and procedure.  One sees good reason for that.  Picture IDs prevent impersonations wherein healthy individuals might slip into the system and get someone else’s operation.  I can see where an enterprising individual might have tried to get Marjorie’s back surgery in her stead so that they could sue.  Such an opportunity might net big bucks.  It’s obvious that insurance companies have made picture ID a requirement in an attempt to dry up one more possible source for a malpractice lawsuit.  Every secretary asked if our address, phone number and insurance information were still the same.  That’s all well and good.  I couldn’t help smiling, however, when one girl asked, “Is your birthday still 3-17-48?”—as if that’s something one changes periodically.

We probably narrowly missed an opportunity for a malpractice lawsuit ourselves.  Sometimes dreams can be prophetic.  I hoped this one was.  Marjorie had one (we’re not making this up) two days before her operation.  Our three-year-old grandson got a toy chain saw for Christmas.  It’s just like his daddy’s, only smaller.  It even runs.  He proudly brought it up for Grandma to see.  In the dream Dr. King inadvertently left that chainsaw in Margie’s back—running—along with a dentist’s mirror after he stitched her up.  She could feel the bulge that the saw made, and feel the running motor.

“We’re going to be rich!” I said to Margie when she told me her dream.  Unfortunately Dr. King apparently followed protocol and filled out his check off list assuring that all tools were removed after operating on Marjorie’s spine.

Dr. King did a good job.  There’s no pain, no swelling, no redness around the incision; he operated on the right person; didn’t leave any stray articles inside Margie’s back; and apparently removed the tingling, numbness, pain and buzz that has plagued Margie’s leg for the past months.  Margie thinks that buzz was the running chain saw that awoke her from the dream.

We’ll have to look elsewhere for something to sue about.

Maybe that something could be the lack of rest Margie got after surgery.  Her pain was gone, and she was comfortable for the first time in months.  She was excited to have nothing hurting, and to just close her eyes and sleep.

Alas, technology and nursing combined to prevent it.  “You don’t come to the hospital to rest,” two separate nurses told her.

Margie found that to be true.  She found that she could lie perfectly still, and once every five minutes a beeping alarm would go off signaling that she’d put a kink in her IV line.  One doesn’t sleep with alarms sounding.

One doesn’t sleep in the latest hospital beds, either.  Just as she’d be drifting into blissful slumber the smart bed would sense that some part of her anatomy had lain heavily in one position too long.  Bed sores were imminent.  The bed would suddenly rise—as it would in an earthquake—and then settle back into a different position to create different pressure points.  The shifting bed never failed to bring her to a quick alert.

The IV line kept her well hydrated.  It also kept her going to the bathroom.  She had to go much more frequently than she ever had to go at home.  Never mind that getting there was vastly complicated by all the lines needing to be removed.  She and the nurses were all impressed with the sheer volume of her output.  She was also impressed that her need to go always coincided with the possible onset of sleep.

She was hooked to machines from head to toe.  Her vital signs were constantly monitored by the nifty devise that clamped onto her finger.  That was all fine except for the red light on the end of the clamp.  At one point she successfully got to sleep only to be awakened by a red spotlight shining in her right eye.  She thought it must be the nurse checking with a flashlight to see if she was still alive.  It wasn’t.  She’d simply moved her arm in her sleep, and her finger had come to rest by her eye.

In former days nurses actually used to tiptoe into your room at night with a little flashlight so as not to wake you.  Now they just flip on all the lights, and forget to turn them off again when they’re through checking you out.  Margie invariably had to buzz for the nurse to come back and turn out the lights.

Clipboards aren’t attached to the end of the patient’s bed anymore.  Nurses never write anything.  Each room has its own computer.  That’s real nice of the hospital.  It must have thousands.  I wonder how they pay for them all.  The nurse holds a scanner over the pill to be administered, and also scans the bar code on the patient’s wrist band.  The patient’s name, the medication, and the time are all neatly recorded without having to so much as lift a pencil.  Presumably bells would ring if another nurse came five minutes later to administer the same medicine.  Technology has eliminated another possible loophole for a potential lawsuit to get insurance companies to cough up some money.

Margie’s legs were encased in inflatable wraps.  They inflated, and squeezed her legs several times a minute to promote circulation and minimize the chance of blood clots.  They weren’t too uncomfortable.  They didn’t bother Margie; but I, her visitor, was bothered by the construction taking place elsewhere in the building.  I could hear a saw starting and running at frequent, regular intervals.  I wondered what they were doing.  It was some time before I discovered that the distant saw was actually the air pump attached to the foot of the bed inflating Margie’s leggings.

Margie had no pain after surgery.  It was blessed relief.  “I don’t think I’ll need the pain medication,” she told the nurse trainee.

That didn’t sit well with the trainee.  She had a form to fill out, and by golly, she needed something to scan.  An argument ensued in which Margie suggested that maybe she could just take one pill instead of the recommended dose.  Since that would give the girl something to scan, and show that she had done her duty, she agreed to the compromise.

Margie tried hard to sleep.  It was after midnight.  Her room was right beside the nurse’s station.  In lieu of sleep she listened to the stories, gossip, conversation, and laughter of the assembled nurses.

The time to make rounds would come again, and the nurses would disperse.  The nurse station would go quiet, and Margie could feel herself drifting away.  Her own nurse then stuck her head in the door and cheerily announced, “I’ll be waking you in 30 minutes to take your blood pressure.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Margie answered.

We spent a good deal of time trying beforehand to figure out the best way to pay for Marjorie’s operation.  We compared the prices and procedures a specialty spine clinic in Arizona would use.  It was interesting to learn that if the operation was to be billed to an insurance company it would cost a total of $37,500.  If we were to pay for the operation ourselves, it would only cost $22,000.  I thought it was really nice that they’d be willing to give the uninsured such a break.  My son broke my bubble by explaining that the price differential was because insurance companies always argue with the health provider over the amount they’ll be willing to pay.  The health provider has to set the bill high in the first place because both they and the insurance company know that the end result of the dickering will be less than the asking price.

It reminds me of the vendor at the booth Margie and I stopped at in Morocco many years ago.  I asked the man what a particular item cost.  He said, “30 dirhams.”  I reached into my pocket, and started to count out the required amount.

“No, no, no!” the man objected vehemently.  “I say 30, you say 10.  I say 25, you say 20…”  That was my introduction to the barter system that was used in primitive times.

Sometimes one wonders just how much we’ve advanced since then.