$13,451.50

This is the amount of a hospital bill that I received today for having my gall bladder out---thank goodness for health insurance!
It is amazing to me how quickly costs accumulate when a person stays in the hospital. It all started 3 weeks and 4 days ago. It was a Tuesday night. The flu had been circulating around the house. Captain had had diareha for 5 days and was finally getting better when Fundi came down with it. We hoped that our 5 week old Burbles and myself would not get sick, but that Tuesday afternoon it wasn't looking good for me. I was playing with the kids on the floor and stood up to go to the bathroom before Fundi left for work. At that point, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. My stomach hurt terribly. Fundi let me know that he had felt like this as well and that I should take it easy, but if I needed to I could call him at work and he would come home and help with the kids. Fundi left at 5 for work and it wasn't 5:25 when I called him to let him know that I would need him to come home. I also called my dad who lives only a mile away and asked him to come help with the kids. At that point, I started feeling like I was having a heart attack. The pain was under my ribs and through my chest and all around my back. I was also having a hard time breathing. It was a horrible pain and I was nauseous and thought that I may be sick, but I had both of the kids to take care of. I took the phone and lay down on the couch while both kids cried. I couldn't do anything for them and thought that I may end up calling 911. My dad arrived about ten minutes later and then Fundi arrived shortly after that. Lying on the couch was helping and slowly but surely I was able to relax and catch my breath and just as quickly as the pain came, it left. It was only about 6:30, but I felt so much better. I didn't know what the pain had been, but it was gone and I planned to ask my doctor about it at my 6 week checkup (about a week later).
The next day I was a little queasy to my tummy, but I never got the flu like Captain and Fundi had. I still blamed the pain on the flu...
Thursday I felt completely better. I went about my tasks that day without problem. I went and got groceries and got some potato wedges from the deli and a Blizzard from the Dairy Queen. ( I know.... not so healthy) That afternoon before Fundi left for work I was feeling totally capable. I fed Captain supper and then bathed both of the kids before putting them to bed. At 10:00 (as is normal) I went to sleep. I woke up at about 10:20 with the same excruciating pain. I called Fundi and let him know that I was sick. I asked that he come home, but he was in the middle of something at work and wasn't able to leave right that second. He told me that it would be about 11:30 or 12 before he could get home. At 10:30 I began vomiting. I also started thinking about the worst again. I kept the phone near me, but I kept thinking about what would happen if the kids had to be alone overnight because something had happened to me. I was very worried. Finally after an hour and a half of bonding with the toilet, Fundi got home. I had nothing left in my stomach, but was dry heaving and felt terrible. Fundi asked how long I had been like this and then said that I should probably go to the doctor.
At 1:00am on Friday I left for the local hospital. (The local hospital is my last choice of places to go when I am sick, we typically doctor about an hour away at a much better hospital that is affiliated with Mayo Hospital. However, Fundi needed to stay with the kids--we weren't packing them up in the van at this hour of the night. That meant that I needed to drive myself to wherever I was going to go to the Hospital. With the pain I was having, I knew I would be unable to drive an hour by myself to my hospital of choice, so my only option was to go to the local hospital, which is about 20 minutes away. I got about a mile away from home when instantaneously, my pain went away. I continued driving up the road a ways, but eventually decided that the pain was not returning and so I turned around and went back home. Fundi was surprised to see me, but we both went to bed. At this point it was about 2am and we were both tired. Burbles was finally asleep in her basinett and Captain continued to sleep undisturbed.
At 4am, Burbles woke us both up with a cry... time for a feeding. Fundi and I started on our assigned tasks. He was to get the bottle and then feed her and I changed her diaper. After he was feeding her, I went to the bathroom and took an Aleve. I was now having pain, but this was a different pain--it was in my right side. The pain wrapped around from my front to my back and stretched from my rib cage to my waist. Immediately I vomited the Aleve and what little water I had taken it with. I went into the bedroom, got my sweatshirt and told Fundi that I was going to the hospital.
I got to the hospital at 4:30am or 4:45am. I picked up the phone at the entry as instructed by the sign on the wall. A nurse spoke to me and asked me what I needed to be seen for. I told her briefly about my symptoms and she let me enter the emergency room. The emergency room at this hospital is pretty small. There are three beds and a rounded desk and curtains between the beds. All of the curtains were open and I was the only one in the ER. I waited a while on one of the chairs, but then I got nauseous again, so I went behind the desk to get myself the garbage can just in case I needed to vomit. I waited and waited. (Just like I said, this wasn't my first choice of places to go when I am in pain.) Finally, at 5:30am, a nurse came in and ushered me to a bed. She asked me about my symptoms (by now the pain had subsided and I was comfortable but tired) and took my vitals. At 6am I was finally seen by a doctor. The doctor asked me questions like: Could this be something you ate? and Have you had heartburn or gas? I asked if I could go to the bathroom. I was allowed to pee, but they needed a urine sample. Fine. I gave them what they wanted. At 6:30, they tested my urine and found blood in it. That is when they began to take me seriously. They then took some blood and ordered a bunch of labwork. The doctor told me that as of right now, blood in urine was an indication of kidney stone; however, the pain that I had experienced indicated a gall bladder problem. She said it would be highly unlikely that I was having both problems. At 8am I was taken in for an ultrasound of my gall bladder. That took about a half an hour. At that time they also checked for a kidney stone, but ultrasounds aren't great at detecting kidney stones, for that I would need a CAT scan. On the way back to the ER from getting my ultrasound, my sister, who works as in the X-ray department of this hospital (she also goes elsewhere for her medical treatment) ran into us in the hallway. With a dumbfounded look she said to me "What are you doing here?" I said that I was dying and she said she would come talk to me in a little while and that she had to do a CAT scan on a woman who was having blurred vision.
As I am sitting in the ER snoozing on and off, waiting for the news as to what is wrong with me, an elderly woman and her husband walk into the ER and say that they are there to have a dressing changed on the woman. The nurses who have been working on me go into a small room off the ER and start changing the dressing. I can hear them talking about the woman just having had a CAT scan of her head because of blurred vision (remember what I said... only curtains for privacy... and my curtain was not closed). As I lay there, I hear commotion in the small room. Then a nurse runs out and grabs some equipment. Then some more commotion. Then a few doctors come in and I start hearing talk of a stroke. The poor woman was apparently having stroke after stroke in front of the nurses and doctors (of course this takes precedence over my situation--I am also very concerned for this woman's well-being. Just minutes before I had watched her walk across the ER into this small room under her own power). Later a helicopter from Mayo came to get the woman to take her to Mayo to get care. Her husband who was very shaken and did not really understand the circumstances or the urgency of her condition asked the doctor quesitons like "Couldn't I drive her there?" and "How expensive is it going to be?" The doctor asked him questions like "Does she have a living will?" and "What extent would you like us to go to to save your wife?" Heart-wrenching stuff, really.
At 9am, my sister came to get me to do a CAT scan to see if I had a kidney stone. At about 9:45am, the doctor came back and said to me that she had good news and bad news. The good news was that they knew what was wrong with me. (I had both a kidney stone--measuring in at 7mm--and needed to have my gall bladder removed.) The bad news was that they were not able to operate or do anything for me there. (I believe that she had the good and the bad news switched around... I would rather not have anything more than a headache when going to this hospital... much less surgery.) I asked if I could get medical treatment where I wished and she agreed. I asked if I could drive myself home from the hospital (of course I had taken the van and the car seats with me and my husband was at home with both of the kids... and no car seats). They agreed that under the circumstances that I would be allowed to drive myself home and then go immediately to the ER at the hospital of my choice. I called Fundi and let him know what was going on and then got some Toradol for my pain (it was coming back again) and then I was released from the ER.
Fundi and I proceeded to my normal hospital. (Fundi's mom had agreed to come home from work to watch the kids during the day. My sister, the one from the hospital, would pick up Burbles after work, and my dad would pick up Captain after he got done with work. They would keep each child until we returned home from the hospital.)
Basically, after that, everything went as planned. I had gall bladder surgery and was in the hospial for two nights and three days. I was released on Sunday. Monday was fine but sore. Tuesday I woke up and was experiencing pain, so my dad took the day off of work and took me to the ER again. That afternoon they decided to put a stent to my kidney to help urine pass my kidney stone. The only problem was that they couldn't put the stent in until the next day. They decided to keep me in the hospital overnight for pain management. The next day, they couldn't do surgery until late, so they kept me that night too. I was released on Thursday. That following Sunday I started having more pain. I got really nauseous and had the chills. I called the doctor and he said that I had a blood clot on my stent and that it would have to break up and pass. I ended up in the ER once again, this time for pain relief. That following Wednesday I had appointments for follow up. The urologist, the doctor I am seeing for my kidney stone, suggested lithotripsy to get rid of the stone as it is too big to pass naturally. I will be having that surgery to Monday, June 11th at 1:30pm. Wish me luck.