Bill is home: Thursday Nov. 14

Yes, Bill is home. He still has so much work to do, taking full advantage of how much his body can heal in the first year following the stroke. Good Samaritan Hospital's Rehabilitation Institute of Oregon (RIO) helped maximize his progress for the final phase before going home.

One therapist told us yesterday, "We never thought you would come this far."  I replied, "We never doubted he would do this, and he is going to do so much more."

Gosh, if we tried to list everyone who has helped so far, we would fail miserably at remembering the names. And the list would be long. How about I just say a tremendous amount of gratitude goes out to staff Oregon Health & Science University; Marquis skilled nursing facility at Vermont Hills; and Legacy Good Samaritan RIO.  Bill and Ayn consider many of those individuals as friends.

Next week Bill will start with a general practitioner and outpatient therapies. Over the next several weeks he will follow-up with nephrology, have an evaluation by neuro-opthamology, and probably have occasional lab work.

Ayn has learned to take his blood pressure with both an automated cuff and with the manual cuff (not an easy task for many people).

Were there any problems with discharge? No, the discharge went smoothly (well, I forgot the new four-footed cane in his room; had to go back later to retrieve it).

There was one significant post-discharge issue. And one small (correctable) issue. When we went to pick up the prescriptions at Safeway, they were out of lebatelol (sp?) and said they would fill it in the morning. Um, no, he is on a very high dose of it, one of the blood pressure controls. We jumped through some hoops to get it filled back at the hospital's outpatient pharmacy (since I had to go back there anyway!). 

Here's the significant issue: Safeway's system came back with a notice, "Insurance terminated 11/6/2013." Ayn and I were in shock.  She was able to pay the full price, but she now is worried sick about next week's appointments, is there going to be a problem in continuing therapies, what about the few pieces of equipment they just ordered?  It was late in the day, so I ended up leaving messages with both the long-term insurance and with Bill's work benefits group. I can tell you there was no notice of cancellation mailed to them, or COBRA notifications. Paperwork. Fixable. Argh.

Bill is home.  Life is Good.