Skip to main content

Staying out of the hospital

A year ago today, I was discharged from the hospital after a 3-day stay due to shortness of breath and recurring blood clots. My blood thinner had failed...for the second time in 5 weeks. This was my third hospitalization in 2 months. For a long time afterwards, my daily goal was simple: stay out of the hospital. Every day I didn't return to the hospital felt like a victory. I am still nervous about being too far from medical care. 

Getting a shot twice a day is not fun. The injection often hurts, and I always have bruises and/or hard lumps on my stomach and arms. But the blood thinner is working: I haven't had any more blood clots. I'm thankful for the attending doctor and my oncologist who figured out and tested a solution during my hospital stay, and follow-up telehealth appointments with my hematologist at UPMC. I'll meet with him next month to discuss switching to a less expensive blood thinner (my medication was $41/month with Aetna and now costs $180 with Highmark). This other medicine would involve only one shot per day, which is very appealing. (Eliquis is taken as a pill, but that's the medication that landed me in the hospital last September.) We'll have to decide whether these benefits are worth the risk of another potential medication failure.

I'm hoping that hospital stays become a distant memory.

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 23, 2023 at 3:45 PM

    Esther, your strength, determination, and faith over the last year and a half has been incredibly inspiring to watch. Hospitals. Enough said. I totally hear you. That said, where is the worst part of the hospital to hide? In the ICU. Sorry for that? I couldn't resist. Thank you for updating us. You are so loved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Esther PrinsSeptember 24, 2023 at 8:03 AM

      Thank you, anonymous friend. That's a great joke.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousSeptember 25, 2023 at 6:40 PM

      It’s Laura, dear friend 🥰

      Delete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 23, 2023 at 4:24 PM

    Thinking of you & hoping the meds keep working well for you! M&M

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 23, 2023 at 6:04 PM

    Hey Esther, thanks for reflecting back over the year and keeping us updated. I’m sorry those shots are painful, that stinks. But happy with you that the hospital visits are becoming memories. Big big hugs, miss you and hope to see you soon. Henson

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 23, 2023 at 9:58 PM

    I am happy to reflect and pray together! Hope your hospital would be a distant memory!

    Jh

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousSeptember 24, 2023 at 7:56 AM

      Here's hoping this just becomes a speed bump in the rear view mirror. xoxo

      Delete
    2. Esther PrinsSeptember 24, 2023 at 8:04 AM

      Thank you.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Healthcare costs and insurance woes and victories

Those of you who have read this blog from the beginning may recall my posts about how inexpensive healthcare is in Germany compared to the US. I now have additional proof. I've been receiving "explanation of benefits" statements from Aetna detailing the cost of my hospital stays and other healthcare services since the end of July. Close your eyes and guess how much these amount to. Higher. No, higher. Still higher. Well over $200,000. Of that, I have paid maybe $100 plus some $20-30 co-pays for doctor's visits. Add to that my cancer and blood thinner medications, which would cost about $16,000 per month without insurance. I have no idea what people in my situation do if they are uninsured or under-insured. My recent interaction with one of my German doctors illustrates another stark difference. Before leaving Germany, I had asked my doctor what to do if I received bills from the LungenClinic after we had moved and closed our Deutsche Bank account (all bills in Germany...
15 comments
Read more

Indolent nodules

We met with my oncologist (Dr. Villaruz) and radiation oncologist (Dr. McCall) at UPMC in Pittsburgh yesterday en route from visiting family in Grand Rapids, MI. The main nodule we were watching grew by another millimeter or so. Dr. Villaruz described it as “indolent.” I asked what that meant and as she started to say “growing very slowly,” I recognized the word and blurted out “lazy!” I remarked I’d never heard indolent used in a medical context, and Dr. Villaruz said she’d never heard of it outside of medicine. So we both learned something. She and Dr. McCall said that there is no urgency, but that within the next 9-12 months, they would want to radiate the more clearly defined nodule and another one close to it. A third one looks like “ground glass,” a term for something that is hazy and not quite solid, but you can’t radiate something that is ill-defined and can’t be clearly imaged. It will be much easier to do radiation in the summer than during a busy semester or the winter b...
23 comments
Read more

Four years

Sunday, June 14 marked 4 years since I was diagnosed with lung cancer while living in Hamburg. Those of you who have followed my journey from the start know that my family and I went to hell and back several times during those first six months. Here I am before, during, and after. The photo below was the last taken before my life unraveled. I went on a photography outing with the American Women's Club of Hamburg. When my doctor said my x-ray showed "infiltration" and I should get a CT scan, I put it off for a day so I wouldn't miss this event. That's how unconcerned I was. The possibility of cancer never crossed my mind, despite my severe shortness of breath. This was my hospital room at the LungenClinic, where I learned my shocking diagnosis. I was sitting at the little table with the doctors and Leland was on Zoom. Leland had to travel to the hospital by train (an hour-plus trip) before we could process the news together, shellshocked. This photo shows me in the...
22 comments
Read more