Ups and Downs

31w2d

It feels like 2012 is the year of hospitals (April at Hershey Medical and from May 30 to probably early September in Harrisburg) and health insurance issues. Not counting the $518 we paid Geisinger for one ultrasound I had in February, we are currently trying to appeal $5,437.12 worth of labwork that the insurance initially refused to pay for because it isn't covered under our maternity benefits. Hopefully the MFM office will be able to convince them that these tests were "medically necessary." They also haven't paid for any of the MFM office visits, but those they didn't officially reject. They just said they couldn't process them until they received all my OB/prenatal records (including all ultrasounds). Hopefully they'll end up paying most (if not all) of these bills. It could be worse though. They have paid tens of thousands of dollars for my hospitalizations in May and June.

Blue Shield took over on July 1, and I am confident we won't have any hassles over bills from that time forward. Last Saturday when I looked at my most recent paycheck, I noticed that they had deducted $392.82 for our Blue Shield insurance. The deductions are made every two weeks. That would be a LOT of money to pay each month for health insurance! I questioned someone in HR, and she got back to me on Tuesday and said it had been a mistake. They were supposed to take out $102.47 per pay (big difference!). That was a big relief.
I had five visitors today! My cousin, Brooke, was traveling from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh today, and she stopped in with one of her sons (Fletcher) to visit me for a little bit. They again gave her a bit of grief about coming to my room with a child (4 year old) since I was still on the 8th floor, but thankfully they granted her an exception. She brought me a cute little sleeper (size 6-9 month) for Oliver. This was Oliver's second gift! I have both of his new sleepers on display on the couch in my 9th floor room. Paul and the kids also visited me today for a little less than 3 hours. I was moved back to the 9th floor at 1pm, and they came to visit after 3pm so we were able to hang out in the lounge. While we were in there, I learned that a husband of one of the patients in this unit was a student of mine! He graduated from the university where I teach in 2009. It's a small world after all. Ian was definitely out of sorts this afternoon. We couldn't get him to feed himself his yogurt. The hardest part of the day was saying goodbye to Paul and the kids, but I did manage to do so without crying this time. These next 4-5 weeks need to FLY by like time has never flown before.

I am very grateful to be back on the 9th floor where I can control the thermostat in my room (I had piled on four blankets to try to stay warm in my room on the 8th floor), I am only hooked up to a monitor 2 hours a day, and I am disconnectd from the iv. Going to the bathroom is a real pain when I have three cords to deal with, and when I'm on an iv sometimes I am going every 40 minutes. Every time I roll over in bed a nurse has to come in and readjust the baby's monitor. I also am not allowed to shower down there. I appreciated my shower on the 9th floor this afternoon although I wish the water would get warmer in this hospital. I will really appreciate a nice hot shower when I get home in 4-5 weeks.

I'm thankful that Oliver has gone more than 3 weeks without a transfusion. I forgot to mention yesterday that the ultrasound tech showed me on the screen how long his hair is. Oliver won't be bald at birth!