Thursday, March 27, 2008

Bug Hill update

Megan, my coworker who had the baby New Year's day is back at work. The bosses are nice enough to let her bring the baby to work with her. The baby had jaundice that lasted longer than 6 weeks, so they had her move the baby to formula. The idea, apparently, was to see if it was breastmilk jaundice, but they didn't test the bilirubin levels after 48 hours on formula, they just had her pump and dump for 48 hours and then start nursing again. Which seems bizarre.

Happily, Megan did continue to nurse after that 48 hours. I told her I was proud of her, so many women I know would have stopped at the first sign of problems.

Our receptionist, however, is not doing well. I don't remember if I've mentioned her here. She has a failing kidney and needs another kidney transplant. Part of the problem with her kidney is that her periods are lasting 2-3 weeks so she becomes anemic. But she can't get the hysterectomy she needs because she can't pay the co-pay. She looks awful - her skin is much darker and bruised looking. I'm really worried about her. She has a little girl.

3 comments:

Tanya Brown said...

"But she can't get the hysterectomy she needs because she can't pay the co-pay."

Ah, I do love this country's health system!

badmomgoodmom said...

How much is the copay? Our health care system is insane.

Gaia said...

I'm not sure what her co-pay is. But she's having to have dialysis (which is a much smaller co-pay but still a co-pay) which meant working less hours.

She's not working at all. I think (although I'm not sure) she finally got qualified for medicaid and social security disability. I know she was working on that. I just hope it isn't too late.