We sit here in a tiny room in the hospital. We should have packed up last night to be released and go to the apartment today. Instead, we moved to this ill formed room with two doors. Why two doors? One leads to the hallway like all normal hospital rooms. The other door leads to an even smaller room. This is the room we’re to enter and exit from.
There’s only one problem with that. We aren’t allowed to leave the room. Room service leaves our food in the little room and the nurse will don her yellow gown and booties and spit shield before entering. She brings the food when she sees it or gets around to it. Before she leaves, she throws her yellow paper gown away in our room. However, when they took Richard for a CTscan yesterday they had him exit through the hallway door and that’s how he reentered the room as well. Why didn’t he have to go through the tinier room? We don’t know. And because they stuck a swab up his nose and twirled it 15 times and said it came back positive, he will not be released for another 5 days.
This hospital stay has been relatively uneventful, with the exception of yesterday evening and another night. A few nights ago I told the nurse that the lady that was taking vitals was no longer allowed to come in our room. She was coughing and coughing. She walked out of the room and coughed more. When she reentered the hospital room I asked her to please change her gloves. She refused. I made a simple request. This was no longer about her. Everything was 100% about my husband and his safety. I told her she needed to leave because my husband does not have an immune system. She defiantly told me she was only coughing because she was talking too much. The rest of the night I heard her through our closed door at the nurses station with that same deep cough. Before she left the room she let me know she’d taken a test and given it to her manager and it was negative. I’m supposed to trust this woman in a cancer hospital that’s refusing to protect the patients she’s here to help?
Fast forward and now Richard was swabbed and it came back positive. We were shocked, but her cough rang through our ears again. Here’s the thing, her inability to think of others has very negatively impacted others. A pregnant nurse was in our room 2 days ago. That woman is four weeks from giving birth. I pray for her and her unborn child. We can no longer extend our rental car-they only rent for 30 days out. We are looking at exorbitant fees and towing fees and being placed on a do-no-rent-to list. We’re in a pickle. We are both stuck in a hospital room while the rental car company is unyielding and no one has the ability to override a system that allows them to show patrons no grace, absolutely no exceptions to their rules.
One customer service person has given me a different number to call, but they aren’t answering the phones. I’ve called all day long. This nice lady gave me two scenarios, both bad and both end the same. I keep explaining to them I’m not trying to get out of paying. Start another contract. They can’t. Our only other choice is if the doctor releases Richard tomorrow. They say he looks good on paper and he looks good in person. He developed a cough after acupuncture yesterday (cough was one of the 3 things they worked on) which led to the swab. We can’t rely on doctors maybe releasing him tomorrow. Especially since he now has a fever. But still I wait. I wait, trusting this will work out. I wait, trusting, as I dial and redial a number that has yet to be answered.
20 Years For Richard 