One Year Later

From time to time I find myself in a conversation where the other party mentions a loved one being hospitalized. On the rare occasion that Nathan's experience comes up, I point listeners to this blog. Today was one of those times, and I noticed it's been almost a year since my last update.

Nathan is progressing slowly. He's doing well enough. We're very grateful to have him home. In fact, he's only been back (admitted) to the hospital twice, both times because of a vitamin deficiency. He's off his enteral feeds for up to 6 hours each day. He visits daycare during the mornings. This is more for the social aspect than because of our work schedules. Christa is still a stay-at-home nurse/mom, and she's doing a bangup job.

We would love to see Nathan permanently off TPN and IV, but we're still balancing his ability to digest with his needs to get back to some normalcy. He lacks any desire to eat when he's on TPN. We're hoping to increase his daily schedule to two boluses which would allow him to be "off tubes" for 8 hours a day.

The insurance nightmare I mentioned last year has been resolved. In hindsight (for me anyways), it seems like a distant memory. For months we were under a constant onslaught of insurance denials and collection calls from the hospital. We submitted appeals to each insurance company and to the Maryland Insurance Commission. Finally we began to see a breakthrough, and everything appears to be settled now. We're very grateful for everyone's support, and very relieved that we didn't have to go to court.

I don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore, but at least this post should serve as some sort of closure over the events I've detailed during our ordeal. The next time I direct someone to this link at least they'll be able to infer that we've come to some sort of satisfactory conclusion.