In the Blood

So Wednesday night I got a call from MJH saying that Mom's blood tests showed she was dangerously anemic, and they wanted to move her to the hospital part of the complex. Not so fast, I said. I had learned that since she's not yet approved for Medicaid, the Home didn't have to keep her room for her. I spoke to the frum doctor who follows her -- nice guy with an Israeli/Jackie Mason accent, and he truly had no idea about that. But I respectfully told him that he might fix her anemia, but then essentially kill her, as she'd have no place to go. A series of calls later, we agreed that she would pay, out of her dwindling funds, $275 per day to hold her toom. The doc assured me she's need " a day or two" at most in the hospital. Wait, I thought, why not just give the blood transfusion in her current room? No -- procedures prohibited blood being given there. So they could TAKE her blood for samples, but not give a transfusion? Exactly, came the response from the nice Jamaican nurse, with no appreciation for the irony. Well, 2 days turned into 5, and yesterday I visited Mom. It was Labor Day, and I asked the nurse to unhook her IV, which was just giving her sugar water, and took her to the gazebo for fresh air and an ice cream. I asked when she would be leaving the hospital. They didn't know. When we returned, a miracle happened: the doctor had called, and ordered her back to her regular room! Clearly, with the meter running at Ritz Carlton rates, no one hurried to get her out of the hospital. But the good news is, she's now back to "normal." The whole thing just proves the obvious -- Springsteen was so correct in his observation: "In the end what you don't surrender, well the world just strips away." Today, my partner Paul and I are meeting to renew our marketing efforts for our firm. We plan to meet with folks and offer the services of our legal group -- Stuart, Brian, and the two of us. The truth is, the four of us offer a combined experience of over 110 years of injury cases, so we can truly do the job. So ultimately, we hope to make some more money. I'm sure some nursing home administrators in the future will applaud and appreciate our efforts...