Susanne was finally glad to see that her cats were getting along again. She thought that it was the weirdest thing that just taking one of them out of the home environment to the veterinary office for a dental cleaning could erase their memory of the other one ever existing. Susanne knew that the smells from the hospital were the main source of contention, but they acted like they had never even met. Figaro paraded around the first few days, stalking Chloe like she was prey. He would growl, hiss, swat, and attack if she got too close. Instead of just leaving her alone and isolating himself, he would seek her out just to be mean. This was not okay with Susanne. Luckily, it only lasted a few days this time. Last time when Susanne had to take Figaro into the hospital with her, the cats did not get along for well over a week. It was very unnerving and concerning. Susanne vowed that the next time they needed a teeth cleaning, she would take them both in whether they liked it or not. They could both smell funny and be groggy together.
Paxton had an appointment with the occupational therapist again today. This time it was to work on his oral feedings. After evaluating Paxton with the non-nutritive sucking, she quickly realized that he was having trouble just trying to figure out how to swallow. This issue with the oral phase of swallowing was supportive of the results from the swallow study. She was convinced that if she could improve his head control and teach him how to handle his normal secretions, then he would pick up on oral feedings a lot quicker. Susanne was feeling really positive about this new plan. She was shown a couple of different techniques to use to encourage him to swallow. He had already shown so much improvement from the therapy session yesterday, that it seemed possible that he could pick up on other things as well. It was so nice to finally have some direction and guidance. This was all that Susanne had been looking for over the last couple of months.
At the end of the session, the occupational therapist mentioned that she would be out of town the next week and that she would be moving at the end of July. The dates that she was available left Paxton without therapy for over a week. Susanne tried to hold it together, but failed miserably. She got upset because it had taken her so long to finally find someone that could help them and now that was falling apart too. Susanne felt strongly that there should not be any lapse between his therapy sessions. She was advised to have him seen at least two to three times a week for therapy until otherwise directed. If this new service couldn't find any replacements, she would have to look elsewhere for supplemental therapy. She was overly concerned about wasting anymore time. Paxton had already been put on the back burner for way too long. Luckily, the therapist thought of someone that may be able to fill in for her for the next few sessions that she would be away. This new therapist may even be a potential candidate to replace her long term. Susanne remained hopeful and would anxiously await her call with the news.
The rest of the afternoon was spent making phone calls. This was by far Susanne's least favorite thing to do. Susanne first contacted her health insurace to try and resolve a problem that she had been trying to address since Paxton was born. She kept getting the run around and she was tired of it. After speaking with numerous people over the last few months, she was finally connected with someone from their critical case management team. She had spoken with someone from this team a couple of weeks ago and they were supposed to be able to get all of Susanne's questions answered. Unfortunately, when they spoke today, the answers she had come up with were not what Susanne wanted to hear. Susanne was on an individual plan before Paxton was born. She had met the deductible well before the day of delivery because she had so much prenatal work up and care. The rules stated that once she met the deductible, then 100% of the labor and delivery costs would be covered. Susanne thought that once Paxton was physically born, then the individual plan would switch over to a family plan with a higher deductible. This was not the case. The problem that Susanne was having was that she continued to receive bills from the day of delivery for things that occurred prior to Paxton being born such as the IV catheter and epidural to name a few. The critical case team member told Susanne that after investigating her question she found out that the policy stated that if she were to have had a "normal" child that went home from the hospital the same time that she did, then there would have been full coverage for labor and delivery. Since Paxton was not "normal" and he had to stay in the hospital, then the plan automatically switched to a family plan the day he was born. This meant that anything that occurred that entire day would be under that new family plan with the higher deductible. This made no sense to Susanne and she was very angry. She didn't understand how it took over five people to find the answer to this question because this had to happen all of the time. Right? Why did it seem that she was the only one that had this concern and didn't think it was fair?
After hanging up with the primary insurance company, Susanne had to contact the other supplemental insurance companies to address some of her other concerns. After probing around, one of the companies informed her that she had been filling out the wrong paperwork the entire time that she had submitted with her claims. They would not have let her know this unless she had asked. She had only thought to inquire about this because she was not getting any sort of response from them after she had faxed over fifty different bills to them over the course of a few weeks. Susanne was infuriated by this point because the form she was filling out was the form that THEY kept providing her. Unbeknownst to Susanne, the actual form that needed to be submitted with the paperwork was online somewhere and it needed to be filled out by Paxton's pediatrician. Since all of the bills that she had submitted were attached to the wrong form, she would have to start from scratch. This would not be an easy task.
The day seemed to fly by. Before Susanne knew it, Moppy arrived. Moppy was so kind and had gone to the grocery store for Susanne to get a few things. In order to make room for some of the frozen items, Susanne had to rearrange her entire freezer. Moppy sat back and watched in awe. Moppy wasn't sure that Susanne would make it all fit, but she did. What talent. After everything was finally put away, Susanne realized that she had not had any dinner. There was nothing like having dinner after 9:00 pm. Unfortunately, this was becoming a trend. Her choice for the evening was a bag of popcorn with no butter of course. This was surprisingly filling and satisfying. Then it was of to bed to get a goodnight's rest before work in the morning.
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