She'd just called to check in on us, since the denial letter has made the rounds over at her office. No worries, someday we might get approved. In the meantime, I can get you overnight nursing, whaddya think?
Um. What???!!!
Say that again??
I spluttered and stammered and couldn't seem to find the words to say what I was actually thinking, which were - WHAT THE EFF?!?! So instead of purchasing a bed which would be a one-time cost, or even just the "canopy" that Medicaid is denying... you're offering us a human being full-time until he can sleep through the night???! You know, one that you have to pay a decent hourly wage since she is a nurse who probably has to have had some sort of backround check to prove she isn't a serial killer!
I was floored. See, Little Man's chewing on everything is fairly benign to us here at home - but every time I bring it up doctors will call it pica. Which seems a little inaccurate to me since he doesn't actually ingest anything, but whatever, you're the doctors and I'm just here every day watching him. So since he "has pica" (see what I did there) and is also escaping during the night, we can qualify for night nursing.
I appreciated that the social worker called us to talk about the denial. She's great, don't get me wrong. I love that she is being proactive and trying to get us help before I rip my hair out from lack of sleep and stress. But this is ridiculous.
If he were seizing at night or on oxygen or something medically necessary I wouldn't hesitate to get a night nurse - but this goes back to my original feeling of he's not that needy. We are so incredibly lucky that Little Man is very low maintenance despite the multitude of medical things going on with him. I wish Medicaid would stop trying to eliminate an anthill with a rocket launcher. The original bed we asked for was $1500. They told me that was unreasonable and applied to get us a bed worth at least twice that amount. Now their next brilliant plan would be even more expensive?! I just want a simple solution, to a simple problem.
I told the social worker that we'd consider the idea but I needed to talk it over with Hubs. He instantly vetoed the idea of anyone in the house all night (he's really uptight about privacy anytime, so I knew that was going to happen). I agree with him, but only because I think it would be so awkward to have someone get here at what... eleven or so to watch him sleep all night 50% of the time? Or have them sitting up there if I decide to stay up late and watch bad tv? I can't imagine how that works. And I feel like it would be an insult to every parent and child who actually want and need nighttime help.
Little Man went to bed last night at 2 am and was up this morning by 6:45 am. I am running on fumes and strong coffee, but I'm here. I don't know what our next step is going to be, but I'm hoping I figure it out sooner rather than later.
No comments:
Post a Comment