Home is where the healing is...
This post was originally published on Corrina’s Caringbridge site:
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/corrina
...and we're back.
We brought Corrina home around 6pm this evening, leaving the depressing state of corporate rehabilitation behind us. I had no idea getting out of a facility would be as hard as it was. Much, much harder than getting in.
It all boiled down to the fact that, in the 3 days since Corrina entered the Reservoir, she was not seen by a doctor ONCE! As a result, she was never officially admitted. We had to wait until a doctor arrived in order to admit her, just so she could be discharged, immediately thereafter. If we left prior, she would be charged with 'AMA' (leaving Against Medical Advice) and insurance wouldn't cover the stay. And so extends the tight grip of the financial juggernaut...
This experience was such a disappointment and, in hindsight, probably avoidable, but how is anyone who has been healthy their whole lives and hasn't had the need to go through an experience like this to know?? We are all learning through this process.
Abruptly.
The challenge is that Corrina, upon being discharged by UCONN, was on the border of capability to come home. We had thought that just a few days in a rehab facility, learning physical therapy techniques that could be adapted for home and receiving care, would be beneficial as a transition. We couldn't have been more wrong.
Resources over the weekend were nonexistent. Corrina did not receive adequate PT (what small amount she did receive was by a per diem therapist who rushed in to make the quota at 9pm at night) and the nursing staff provided no confidence of care.
When I complained to the rehab administrative director and executive in charge of nursing this morning (Monday morning, 3 days later), I was met with a defensive stance arguing for the competency of their staff and excuses that the process we experienced is somehow justified and just 'is the way it is'.
Uggh. My heart broke at the thought of defending that reality.
99% of the patients in the facility were geriatric (Corrina was the only young woman). And this is how we, as a nation, treat our elders under the guise of 'care'. They're left alone, provided food with calories, but no nutrition, fed a constant stream of drugs, and communicated with a lack of decency. And yet Genesis, the corporate owner of the Reservoir, stands proud in its motto of "Vitality for Living!"
So sad.
I'm sorry for going off the rails here, but this experience is changing our perspective on everything. And I'm sure you're all feeling that to some extent too. The 'normal' of yesterday is gone. In its place is challenge, confusion, hard work, fear, frustration, loneliness, desperation, anger, and uncertainty.
..but there's also renewed support, selfless giving, hope, and deep, profound love. There's everything - ALL the emotions, all at once, sudden, without rest. I want to be bored. I want to look at Corrina and wonder, "what should we do tonight"? And decide to do nothing, just be as we were.
I need to use this platform as my cathartic blowhole. Claudia can provide the warm fuzzies that she does so well (and that we all need, including me). At the moment, I'm still in disbelief.
Corrina is too. Home is not the same. This is the place where everything is supposed to be familiar, but it's now radically different. No matter what, we'll soon establish our routine (she's REALLY good at that) and we'll get used to these changes. She's committed to working hard to get back to some sense of familiarity...that just seems quite far away at the moment.
