Friday, April 18, 2008
This Seems So Familiar
Evidently, Dominic felt like he was losing in the family injury record. Twice today, he fell off of a stool or seat because he was wiggling it so much that he knocked it off balance and the whole thing went, with him on it.
This last time was in the kitchen, near the sharp counter edge, the hot oven and skillet full of hot food for dinner, and his arm waving near the recently sharpened chef's knife. Thank God, he missed all of those. However, he did topple the stool he was standing on, turning it on its side, getting hit in the hip and putting a rather deep gouge under his chin. He missed his jugular, though.
Big sigh. This is getting to be too much. My poor children are living a little too dangerously for my liking.
We had been having a home ec lesson, and he had done well with the can opener, sharp knife, with the grater, and was getting ready to help fill the pan for the casserole and sprinkle his freshly grated cheese over the top. All was going so well, and he was paying such close attention to the safety precautions I kept repeating. Then, he decided to lean over the stove from the stool on one foot.
This one looks like a similar split to Amira's, and, like hers, a cold compress seemed to stop the bleeding. It doesn't look quite as deep as hers, but that may just be because hers was at such a thin spot on the skin, while his has a little more room. Poor little man. So, Rich took him off to get stitches, neither of them has eaten dinner. We took him to the prompt care rather than the urgent care that is across the street, even though the urgent care has a pediatric department because for one, the urgent care is anything but prompt, and their billing is nightmarish and their parent hospital is well known for over billing, double billing, and other billing shenanagins (which we've had to deal with, since they are also have the specialty children's hospital where Elijah had his surgery). If you're in our area, go with Franciscan, not Multi-care (who also tried to block the new hospital being built on our side of the bridge, because it was Franciscan).
A year and a half after Elijah's surgery, our insurance had paid their portion, we had paid ours, we received a bill saying that they didn't charge us enough and we owed another $1200, they did not seem to agree with us that this was kind of their problem now that it was a year and a half later, and we'd already had to navigate their insane billing department which lost documents, sent inaccurate bills, double billed, etc. Most recently, we received two bills for one visit, for a regular visit, his post-op check up, one from the doctor, which we paid and another facility fee. We've done about eight of those visits, never having been charged a separate facility fee. When I called to ask why this was, since we had never been charged this fee before, I was told that the billing policy had changed in June. I asked why, the answer was because it changed. I said, yes, but why did it change, because in June it changed. Very helpful. We paid the bill (although it was addressed to Elijah, rather than one of us or the parents of, and we were highly tempted to let them try to collect it from him), just so we wouldn't have to deal with them anymore, and as we've learned to keep receipts and records scrupulously when dealing with them, we have a whole file ready for when they come at us in six months about it.
Anyway, back to Dominic. I'm hoping he'll be feeling up to eating the meal he helped make when he gets back. Please pray that he will heal quickly and with a relative lack of pain.
Update: They are on the way home, quick and easy, and Rich said the doctor was pretty funny, though a little quick for a seven year old who had just smashed his chin. Rich told him how we had decided not to use the place across the street, even though they had a pediatric center, and the doctor replied that although he'd done over a thousand cases like this, he was still waiting for the other doctors to come over and teach him how to do it on children. He asked Dominic how it happened, and Dominic kind of missing the point told him the story of how he was helping make dinner, and was giving him the long story. Which all people who deal with children regularly recognize as a child's way to confuse you about what he did. The doctor looked at him and said, "You were screwing around, weren't you?" Rich told him he wasn't familiar with that terminology, so he changed it to messing around, and asked if he hadn't been paying attention to what his parents told him. Dominic said yes, and was a brave little boy. As for the actual doctoring, he gave Dominic a quick shot, stitched him up, and said because he was such a trooper he could have more than one treat out of the goodie bag, which said take one and call me in the morning, so all his siblings have dessert courtesy of a nice doctor and Dominic's good behavior there.
This last time was in the kitchen, near the sharp counter edge, the hot oven and skillet full of hot food for dinner, and his arm waving near the recently sharpened chef's knife. Thank God, he missed all of those. However, he did topple the stool he was standing on, turning it on its side, getting hit in the hip and putting a rather deep gouge under his chin. He missed his jugular, though.
Big sigh. This is getting to be too much. My poor children are living a little too dangerously for my liking.
We had been having a home ec lesson, and he had done well with the can opener, sharp knife, with the grater, and was getting ready to help fill the pan for the casserole and sprinkle his freshly grated cheese over the top. All was going so well, and he was paying such close attention to the safety precautions I kept repeating. Then, he decided to lean over the stove from the stool on one foot.
This one looks like a similar split to Amira's, and, like hers, a cold compress seemed to stop the bleeding. It doesn't look quite as deep as hers, but that may just be because hers was at such a thin spot on the skin, while his has a little more room. Poor little man. So, Rich took him off to get stitches, neither of them has eaten dinner. We took him to the prompt care rather than the urgent care that is across the street, even though the urgent care has a pediatric department because for one, the urgent care is anything but prompt, and their billing is nightmarish and their parent hospital is well known for over billing, double billing, and other billing shenanagins (which we've had to deal with, since they are also have the specialty children's hospital where Elijah had his surgery). If you're in our area, go with Franciscan, not Multi-care (who also tried to block the new hospital being built on our side of the bridge, because it was Franciscan).
A year and a half after Elijah's surgery, our insurance had paid their portion, we had paid ours, we received a bill saying that they didn't charge us enough and we owed another $1200, they did not seem to agree with us that this was kind of their problem now that it was a year and a half later, and we'd already had to navigate their insane billing department which lost documents, sent inaccurate bills, double billed, etc. Most recently, we received two bills for one visit, for a regular visit, his post-op check up, one from the doctor, which we paid and another facility fee. We've done about eight of those visits, never having been charged a separate facility fee. When I called to ask why this was, since we had never been charged this fee before, I was told that the billing policy had changed in June. I asked why, the answer was because it changed. I said, yes, but why did it change, because in June it changed. Very helpful. We paid the bill (although it was addressed to Elijah, rather than one of us or the parents of, and we were highly tempted to let them try to collect it from him), just so we wouldn't have to deal with them anymore, and as we've learned to keep receipts and records scrupulously when dealing with them, we have a whole file ready for when they come at us in six months about it.
Anyway, back to Dominic. I'm hoping he'll be feeling up to eating the meal he helped make when he gets back. Please pray that he will heal quickly and with a relative lack of pain.
Update: They are on the way home, quick and easy, and Rich said the doctor was pretty funny, though a little quick for a seven year old who had just smashed his chin. Rich told him how we had decided not to use the place across the street, even though they had a pediatric center, and the doctor replied that although he'd done over a thousand cases like this, he was still waiting for the other doctors to come over and teach him how to do it on children. He asked Dominic how it happened, and Dominic kind of missing the point told him the story of how he was helping make dinner, and was giving him the long story. Which all people who deal with children regularly recognize as a child's way to confuse you about what he did. The doctor looked at him and said, "You were screwing around, weren't you?" Rich told him he wasn't familiar with that terminology, so he changed it to messing around, and asked if he hadn't been paying attention to what his parents told him. Dominic said yes, and was a brave little boy. As for the actual doctoring, he gave Dominic a quick shot, stitched him up, and said because he was such a trooper he could have more than one treat out of the goodie bag, which said take one and call me in the morning, so all his siblings have dessert courtesy of a nice doctor and Dominic's good behavior there.
Labels: Family, Prayer Requests
