Happy belated New Year!

Following a pretty harrowing December we’re trying to settle back in to normalcy for January. Renee is starting to move about with only the routine (thank you) post-op effects and she is slowly re-introducing food into her diet. We’re now about where we thought we would be three weeks ago. Just like the weather post-op recovery knows no calendar.

Cassidy asked for a motorized scooter for Christmas. She didn’t get it so she must be really jealous. Renee is now scooting around the local markets in electric shopping carts. The cupboards were bare and she’s going stir crazy so we took her out shopping. She’s not up to walking the entire way so its, zing-ing-ing-ing-ing. You do get plenty of raised eyebrows but you also get extra friendly service at the deli counter. That’s great but could you please slice it the way I asked you to? Friendly service doesn’t necessarily equate to good service.

At Target, I think we needed to go back to the old leaf sticker on the bracelet, this time prone to bumping. Renee was keeping the staff busy putting the racks back where they belong after she tried to run through them rather than around. She escorted Cassidy to the back to try something on and then headed back up front to get a different size. Then here comes Renee buzzing back toward the dressing rooms with a rolling rack of teen-sized under-garments unknowingly hooked to the back of her cart. “Uh, excuse me, Mam, there is a limit of five items.”

On Friday, we were only two days into 2009 and I was already ticked off, at doctors that is. While Renee was in Baptist East Hospital we kept asking the doctors if they were relaying the info to the Cleveland Clinic surgeon. He may want to know if his patient is having complications related to the surgery he performed. We gave each one of the doctors the surgeon’s contact info. They assured us that the information was being forwarded. Were they lying?

The surgeon in Cleveland knew nothing about Renee’s abscess. He did not know she was admitted to the hospital here, nothing, zero communication. This is the absolute number one problem with medicine today. The doctors are all in their own little specialist worlds.

They probably weren’t lying. They were probably planning on sending the info forward at some point in time. It wasn’t a priority for them or their staff. But you’d think that maybe they would bump this up on the priority list since Cleveland may have a pretty nasty bug jumping around from patient to patient that doesn’t rear its ugly head until the patient is discharged.

I emailed the surgeon’s assistant on New Year’s Day. I got an out-of-office automatic reply so I didn’t expect much of a response for a while. At a little past 8:00AM on January 2, the surgeon called Renee. Not his assistant, not an email back, the surgeon himself called at the opening of the next business day. This little detail is a fine example of the difference in service between the local hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic. They listen to the patient and respond in a timely fashion, at least so far that has been our experience.

Renee updated him on all that has been happening. He told her to cancel the January 9 post-op appointment. There’s no need to do a 700 mile roundtrip with all the close scrutiny Renee’s been under. And, despite what her gastroenterologist said about delaying the next stage, to contact the appointment desk and schedule the J-pouch construction surgery for June. The surgeon feels confidant that Renee will be ready for phase two.

Now we need to be sure that Renee’s confidence is at the same level.