The Peanut Chronicles

Let me just say one thing now. Kaiser Permanente health coverage, for all their quaint commercials and homeopathic remedies, for all their “we work with the patient” advertising, for all their “putting your health first” propaganda… well, they are full of shit.

My water breaks as I wake up from a nap at 6pm on the 2nd. I was going to make dinner seeing as I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch and that was only some apple. No can do. Off to the hospital. After being admitted, I ask if I can eat something light. Nope. One of the nurses relented at about 2am and brought me a small thing of Jell-O.

The nurse takes my blood when I am settled into the delivery ward. She then throws it out by accident and has to redraw it. What the hell?

All those hippie breathing classes meant shit. All those poses we learned? Yeah, the nurses would only let me sit or lay down. My BP was too high to stand or walk of shower or anything.

By noon the next day they finally understand to give me a drug. Drugs are good. I pass out for about 20 minutes.

By the time it is time to push I have been awake for almost 21 hours. I haven’t eaten in over thirty. Now they want me to hold my legs up, my arms up and push. Luckily the Bear and Moe held my legs, I couldn’t even hold my arms up.

One nurse was annoying the hell out of me so I told her to shut up. She did.

Two hours of pushing, epidural has worn off, and I can’t do it. I just can’t. And any one who knows me knows that if I say that I can’t do it the I CAN’T DO IT. Do the nurses listen? The midwife? Nope.
By this time I am delirious. And hallucinating. And disassociating. Literally, I was walking down the halls, in different cities, talking to dead people. The nurses thought I was resting between contractions. HA!

The doc comes in, looks at the BP, which has been in stroke level this whole time, looks at the baby, realizes he’s not coming out and decided an emergency c-section is in order. My response? “Get the little fucker out of me.”

I don’t remember signing the consents. I do remember Don the drug man giving me a better epidural this time from the chest down. I don’t remember getting wheeled into surgery. I do remember the bear showing up in the room in scrubs. I do remember shaking, no, CONVULSING. The doc said it was normal. OK.

Peanut didn’t cry right away. I was worried. Don the drug man said don’t worry.

Then he started crying.

Bear goes with Nut to the nursery as they stitch me up. It takes longer then anticipated because I was loosing too much blood. And my stats were falling. Not good.

Don’t really remember recovery room.

Once in the maternity ward, they drug me with… MORPHINE. Oh great. I know what’s going to happen. (I got morphine once before after a small accident when I was 19)

2am rolls around and I am covered in bugs. Not really, and I logically say to myself, “you aren’t covered in bugs” but still I am itching everywhere. They give me another drug to combat that.

230am I spike a fever and infection. More drugs.

4am the nurse wants me to go for a walk. I make it 10 steps before I am dizzy and need to sit down. She’s worried. I chalk it up to the fact that I STILL have NOT eaten, have only had maybe 2 hours of sleep in the last 30+ hours, and just had major surgery. But hey, who am I to say?

The nurses finally feed me at 11 am the next day. It has been exactly 47.5 hours since I last ate.

The doc informs us that both Nut and I had dropping vitals during delivery, I bleed out, my BP almost gave me a stroke or heart attack and the Nut was literally lodged in my pelvis so they had to not only c-section me but cut open the pelvis and push him out. Nice. Should I have more kids? No.

The nurses decide to forget to give me my painkillers on time for the next three days.

The IV line start was never changed, despite the blood in it.

They give me blood because I am bleeding too much. Blood, but no painkillers.

They brought a belt for me to wear to make walking to the nursery easier but forgot to mention what it was or how to wear it.

They see my BP drop and release me on Monday afternoon.

My BP spikes the NEXT DAY. On meds now.

The next day I feel something hanging out of my vagina. I go to the doc. She tells me I have stitches down there. Another thing they forgot to mention.

Last but not least…

Kaiser calls us on Friday and tells us that we owe 800 bucks for our hospital treatment and wants a credit card number over the phone.

“Didn’t anyone come talk to you in the maternity ward?”

“NO.”

“Oh… they were supposed to talk to you about billing up on your check out.”

So we ask to be sent a bill. Paper trail and all.

“We don’t do that anymore. If you want a print up we charge you.

Anyway, this must be paid by tonight otherwise tomorrow it goes into collection.”

WHAT THE FUCK????

Bear goes down to Kaiser, bitched them out, paid the bill and got the paper copy free of charge. I mean really, who is dumb enough to give a credit card over the phone?

Here's the icing on the cake: later that night Kaiser calls us saying we haven't paid our bill. Totally not shitting you. Bear pulls out the reciept and proceedes to begin bitching out the lady, who all of a sudden realizes the reciept was right there in front of her on the computer screen all along.

yeah.

Those are my highlights. I have six meds to take. For 630 bucks a month, you would think that they would have better service. I think their problem is that they just got too big for their britches.

4 Comments:

A Troubled Myki Enthusiast said...: I gave birth to an application the other day. It's happy, healthy, and I have no stretch marks or scars. No health care required. Although I do have a few more gray hairs on my head. And perhaps one or two more in my beard.; 2:02 AM
Madelyne said...: Sounds traumatic.....now you know why I only have one child.
Its amazing though, even though so much s**t happened you will only remember the good bits....Give Nut a big kiss from me; 3:14 AM
Mary said...: Oh, huge hug first of all.

Secondly, a formal CONGRATS!

Thirdly, some day I PROMISE YOU you will look back on this and all the freaking nightmarish parts will be less meaningful. I know, I dealt with the unbelievably nightmarish side of Kaiser, too, when I had my second (Walnut Creek! - and argh, we almost sued them for how I was treated...). I'm glad you have this blog to get them out for now, though, too. Hang in there, ok? You have a life to raise! No pressure or anything. ;)

Lots of love to you all and your sweet little peanut.; 6:34 PM
Suburban Turmoil said...: UGH. Yuck. This reminds me of Michael Moore's TV Nation show, where he got a bunch of people off the street to go stand at the Kaiser Permanente building doors and shout, "We want the Kaiser! Bring out the Kaiser!" over and over. Really funny.

Sorry you had such a hellish delivery. That sucks. But now you've got your Peanut! Woot.; 7:25 PM

4 Comments:

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