The bill from the ambulance company arrived and it's adding to my distress. It's not the amount of the bill that's distressing. Although the amount would be distressing if I believed I was going to have to pay all of it. But, as you know, I have a great union job (Go UPTE) with great benefits, and Blue Cross has told me to tell American Medical Response to send the bill to them. So, right now, it's not the amount that is distressing. It's the other information I get from this document.
(1) It's got the date of service: 7/5/07. The date of the fall. The date of the call. The drive up north to Standford starts.
(2) It's got a notation: "CALL RCVD 19:08." That is 8 minutes after 7:00. Ky answered his last phone call at 7:01. The call that Laura made telling him to hurry because the train was starting up again.
(3) It's got the "Service from" 121 W. Evelyn Ave and "Service to" Stanford Medical Center. I googled the address and it was the Sunnyvale Caltrain Station address. The map says it was 11.9 miles and it would take 22 minutes. I remember the hospital said the ambulance took 12 minutes. So it flew at 60 miles an hour on this route.
(4) Then it's got this list of codes, descriptions, units, and charges per unit and total charges. Again, I'm not gonna freak out about the charges yet. But here is the relentless part; thinking about all the paramedics were trying to do and did in those 12 minutes:
The did ALS for for 14 miles. ALS is Advanced Life Support. They did a "major dressing" and they intubated him, and they did an EKG and they used a cervical collar on his neck, and they had two kinds of masks (big value mask and non-rebreather mask), and a defib pad, and a lidocaine drip, and 1000cc's of saline, and a blood glucose test, and a headbed immobilizer, and $89 worth of oxygen. Bless you paramedics, for all you tried to do.
(5) At the bottom, I see the word Diagnosis and the code: 78097. I recognize this is an ICD-9-CM code like in my DSM IV. And I know it should be written 780.97, but they usually leave out the periods in computerized forms. And I look up 780.97 and the diagnosis is simply:
Altered Mental State.
Ky was no longer Ky.
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4 comments:
*hugs* that's all i can say...
...and some more hugs.....
I read this previously and couldn't think of anything to say; just tears. Then watched a stupid movie in which a son died before his father - more tears . . .
. . . more hugs . . .
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