>What were your medical needs that qualified you for 24 hour nursing when you
>first came home? Even 80 hours a week that you have now sounds like a lot.
> I've been told Medicare will pay for only one hour a day. My mother does
>has supplemental insurance, and I haven't checked what they'll pay for yet.
Just being totally dependent on a vent to breathe requires me to have
someone around 24 hours. I just had very good insurance from my job that
paid for 24 hour nursing. It's Medicaid (Washington state) which is
covering my nursing now.
>You mentioned a cuffed trache that you first had in the hospital. What type
>of trache allows you to speak now? How long did it take you to learn to
>speak with the trache, and how long had you been not speaking before you
>tried to learn?
If you deflate the cuff (the balloon around the trach) air can pass the
vocal cords so you can speak. I have a cuffless trach now. There is also a
talking trach which I had at one point, it has a connector which you
connect to the hospital oxygen for continuos air flow. To speak someone
puts thier finger over the opening (sort of like a suction catheter). I got
the talking trach while in ICU, so that was about 1 1/2 months after.
Speaking with the cuffless trach about 3 months later.
>If your paralysis came on suddenly, what kinds of emotional things did you go
>through?
> Were you depressed? What kinds of things that other people did helped you
>with the adjustment that you had to make?
I was depressed somedays, just being in the hospital is depressing. My
family and friends came to see me everyday I was in the hospital, both in
ICU and Rehab. That was a big help for me. I didn't really have much
trouble adjusting mainly because I'm still able to do the things I enjoyed
doing before. I don't remember ever feeling "why me". I've always felt that
things happen for a reason, and I believe this was God's plan for me.
Because of my condition I have been able to help a lot of people. That
makes me feel good and gives me a purpose for living.
Jim
Jim Lubin
http://www.eskimo.com/~jlubin
http://wwp.mirabilis.com/1524784
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