Hi, Nasia!
I hope you are well this cloudy Friday morning- maybe you aren't in the office, I think last week you said you didn't work Friday, but I didn't know if that was every Friday or just last week.
Anyway, we are doing great and
if it weren't for gravity, I am sure
We would like to do something
nice for Dr. Sacco as a thank-you for his care of us, but I don't know him well
enough to know what he would appreciate. He appears to be dismissive of thanks
in general but since I am determined to express appreciation to him, it would
be great if you could help me think of something that would be appreciated by
him, or even just insight into his character/ preferences, etc. so I can choose
wisely.
(Otherwise I will have to just
come up with something that might or might not be appropriate- one man's trash
is another man's treasure and all that.) Can you help?
Delilah
Dear Ang,
The gift basket AND the Weebles toy came for
Vi is doing better every day,
and has had a good day overall. There have been a few rough moments today, but
overall it has just been another day of joy to be home with our baby. We spread
out the meds too far one time today and we all paid the price for it- won't be
trying that experiment again for a while! (We were experimenting with waiting
until she seemed to need the meds versus just giving them on a schedule...
um... bad plan.) It is very unpopular when I have to do the wound care. She
hates it and I am not crazy about it either, as you might imagine- but it's
such a small price to pay to be home with my baby...
The big kids are okay but not
great. I think it will be so wonderful and also pretty hard but necessary to
get them home to us on Sunday. I am a little worried about it because they NEED
to be home with us- tense, stressed, subdued... but they also seem to have
colds and I hate to have them around Vi very much yet. I miss them, they miss
us, Vi misses them. But when they are around it is stressful and loud and
difficult and I know
I am not ready to handle
everything I usually do yet. I hope I will be by Monday.
Thank you for asking.
Love,
Delilah
My goodness, what a day! It poured rain and my car is
still not working, so I couldn't go to Vanessa's and Isaac's Thanksgiving Day
feasts at their schools as I had planned. I had been going to walk if it was
nice weather, but walking through torrential rain carrying
post-op. My sister had said I
could use her old car if I wanted, but even just carrying Virginia outside,
getting her car seat out of my car, walking back around to Nane's car down the
block, or dealing with the gate, installing the car seat, etc. just seemed like
TOO much being out in the rain for Vi's first outing other than two hours at
church on Sunday morning.
Then Dylan's grandpa called me
and he was hopefully coming off the feeding tube and breathing tubes today, and
hoping to be upgraded from critical to serious by the end of the week!!! It was
great to hear from him, I am so glad to have a point of contact. I stopped by
the family ICU waiting room yesterday when I was at the hospital getting
caregivers’ last names to write thank you notes, hoping Dylan wouldn’t still be
in ICU but he was… I was sorry about that, but at least glad I had been able to
leave the family a note and a photo of
Then I visited with Ev on the
phone, and it was such a reassuring conversation. We were talking about the toy
box for Dr. Sacco dilemma and she offered to go to IKEA for me and see if she
could find what I needed (the website said it was out of stock but she said
sometimes they have things that are not on the site, so she'd look for
something similar). I told her about how crazy important it is to me to do a
good job here of showing Dr. Sacco my appreciation, and asked if she felt a
passionate need to show appreciation to Chris's neurosurgeon after his
surgery... if her emotional focus on the doctor was very intense after Chris
had come through. She was able to assure me that if her neurologist had needed
a surrogate mother, she would have offered to bear the woman's child for her.
And that she still goes up there and delivers treats to the staff on the
anniversary of Chris's surgery. So I felt less neurotic about my NEED to do
this, and my strong concern that I cover all bases in order that Dr. Sacco feel
appreciated and affirmed for what he did. I know that God is the one who heals.
But He used Dr. Sacco, and in such a spectacular way... she is doing so well,
it feels so miraculous to me, and I am just determined that he will accept some
appreciation and understand the magnitude of the gift he gave Virginia and us
through her. So it was nice to find out that Ev had felt the same way and that
I am not nuts.
Then the EOB came in for the
hospital. (Not the doctor, anesthesiologist, lab work, etc.- just the
hospital.) $37,570. Yeah, okay. No telling how much insurance is going to pay
on it, right now the EOB says they have paid zero, pending pre-certification
finalization. I hope we only owe $1000 of that, and since it is in network, I
think that is possible. We shall see. The out of network charges are where I
expect we will take a big hit, because of the "reasonable and
customary" thing.
I already know that Dr.
Sacco's office charges higher rates than what the insurance counts as
"reasonable and customary", and the benefits are only paid at a
percentage of the R&C, not the total. So if R&C is $10,000, they would
pay $7000 and we would pay $3000. But if the actual charges are $13,000, they
would still only pay the 70% of the R&C, so they would still only pay $7000
and we would pay $6000. And that is for the neurosurgeon, much less the other
stuff...etc... Considering that usually the financial stuff throws me for a
loop, I barely even blinked at this- God's provision has been so strong, and I
am still so grateful that she is doing so well, especially in light of having
just spoken to Dylan's grandpa about how he is doing, that the money thing
seemed irrelevant. Even without a functioning car.
So finally the rain let up
enough that I thought I would walk to Vanessa's school and see if I could catch
the tail end of her Thanksgiving feast (to which I was supposed to have taken
cornbread, and I had made it but... just couldn't bring myself to carry the baby,
and the cornbread, through the rain), since I knew I had missed Isaac's feast
altogether which started 1.5 hours earlier. We didn't get there in time, they
were done eating by the time we arrived. Bummer... but it was at least fun for
Nane agreed to keep Vanessa
and pick up Isaac for me in her new car, while I took her old car to Furniture
in the Raw to see if they had any appropriate toy containers, so I left Vanessa
a note in her class to that effect and then walked back home with Virginia. I
did the whole car seat transfer thing to Nane's old car and went to Isaac's
school first, to drop off the Thanksgiving build-a-turkey sticker projects I
had been going to bring for his class party and say hello to everyone. Again
Then we drove across town and
Virginia and I enjoyed wandering the aisles of Furniture in the Raw, though we
found absolutely nothing. Argh! So, we headed back home because it was after 4
already and I knew rush hour traffic would be starting soon, especially since
many people have tomorrow off to start the Thanksgiving holiday, and with the
torrential rain earlier today, several highways shut down from downed power
lines, overturned 18 wheelers, etc.
As I was driving through heavy
but swift-moving traffic in the canyon area of downtown
So that man went away, then
another man who had his son maybe age 8 or so, in the car with him pulled up.
For him, I opened the door. He got the car into gear for me and he and I pushed
it out of the exit ramp and onto
DOORS. Which I thought I had
done, but I had hit the power locks, which hadn't worked because the car was
dead. So the time those guys were surrounding the car, they could have just
opened the doors and who knows what. Yikes. I was really scared, and I called
Kurt and Nane in a bit of a panic.
The man with the kid agreed to
stay in his car by me until Kurt got there, and did so, for about ten minutes,
bless his heart. One of the homeless guys came back but didn't approach the car
again like before. I just sat there and waited, and was SO GRATEFUL when Kurt
came. The guy in the van wouldn't leave until I gave him the thumbs up that
this guy was my husband- he was a true Good Samaritan. I was shaking for hours
afterwards. I am so grateful not to have been in a terrible car accident, which
could have been extremely bad for
And, when I got home, Ev
called and she had found the boxes at IKEA and is UPS-ing them to me tomorrow,
so at least I don't have to fret about that anymore!
We took a boatload of food,
thank you notes, and toys up to Dr. Sacco's office, and tins of cookies to all
the different nurses who cared for us in the hospital, to show our
appreciation. Dr. Sacco and Nasia appeared to enjoy my homemade samosas, ginger
cookies, chocolate chip/peanut butter chip cookies, raisin bran muffins, and
sausage balls, along with a box of brain shaped chocolate covered cherries. We
also took some fun toys for Dr. Sacco's office, so that kids will have
something to do while their parents are getting the bad news that their child
has to have brain surgery. My friend Ev in
Dear Dr. Sacco,
We have really struggled to think of a way to adequately
express our gratitude for what you have done for
After much consideration, we decided what you really lack
that we can provide, is a wide assortment of toys for your patients to play
with in your office. Kids like Virginia, Dylan, and Joshua, plus dozens more
who I don’t know, would enjoy having something to do to distract them. And, any
parent whose child requires the care of a neurosurgeon certainly needs their
children distracted, so they can fully focus on what you are saying to them. In
the end, this gift is more for those you help than for you, but it is all we
could come up with. Thank you for returning
Delilah and Kurt Ray
P.S. The brain shaped chocolate covered cherries just cracked me up, so I had to buy them too