"Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in...."

Dante is unexpectedly back in the hospital today, and for the next 3 days as the doctors sit and watch cultures grow in a petri dish, on his behalf.

Last night (wed) he started a low grade fever that spiked to 101.4 around 9:30pm. Since his ANC count was (is) 0, Dr. Grana said we should come in. Thus begins part 2 of our odyssey through the labyrinth of managed health care....

Since there were only 3 beds available in the whole hospital, the staff had to scramble to get ready for our arrival. We were told to wait down in the emergency center until the bed was ready. They would start his intake down there and get the antibiotics going. In the meantime I could answer some questions for registration. Yep, the same exact questions I had answered for a second time earlier that morning (see previous post). It gets better: when we get into a room inside the ER, another woman comes in with her laptop from, you guessed it, Registration, asking, yet again, the EXACT same questions I just answered 1 hour earlier. But the fun doesn't stop there.....

...Shortly after our arrival in the ER a doctor came in to check Dante's vitals and go over his charts. He was familiar with the case as he had talked to Dr. Grana earlier, but just for his own edification, could we answer a few questions? Now, as some of you may know ACH is a teaching hospital and all sorts of residents are roaming around looking for some hands-on experience....lo and behold, 30 minutes after Dr. #1, in comes Dr. #2 asking, could it possibly be?, Yes! The exact same questions as Dr. #1!

Mind you, it's about 11:30pm and we have a 2 year old who was asleep about 25 minutes before we had to put him in the car and come down to the hospital. Now, every 20 minutes or so, just as we're getting him settled down, someone else pops in to poke at him. I swear, half the ailments in this facility would be cured if they just left people alone for awhile.

The best part was when Dr.#2 says that the chief resident should be around in a little while to take a look at Dante. "No he won't." I said. "I think he's been seen enough tonight, don't you?"

I continue to be baffled at the level of bureaucracy associated with this system. I was told by the person at the clinic that Dante would need to authorized every single time he comes in to get his blood counts - that's 2 -3 time a week!. I'm wondering if the people at Aetna have heard of this disease called Cancer? How it requires a specific kind of treatment and monitoring?...

And at the hospital too? How hard is it to have a system that records the information once and makes it available for all successive visits? I mean, they gave us a unique patient ID number that is supposedly his forever. Could this possibly be used to access the information each time? And by different departments? Call me crazy.....

45 minutes later we were brought upstairs. Dante fell asleep sometime around 2am. Neither Jen nor myself got more than an hour. So, needless to say, we're a bit wiped out today.

On the bright side, we have our own room. For now. Keep your fingers crossed on that one.

Today, Dr. Grana said that his counts should rebound in a couple of days and so far nothing is growing in the culture. Good news. However, Dante will have to stay in his room for 24 hours before he can roam around, and we're definitely here until Sunday. Hopefully by then his counts will have come back up enough to start Chemo on Wednesday.