Home :)

By: brandy nicole on 3:57 PM

I live an hour and a half away from the hospital so I was prepared for a long ride home. We had my scripts filled at the hospital pharmacy so if needed I could take them on the way home (which I ended up doing because of the timing). The ride actually went a lot more smoothly than I thought it would. When we got home, I decided to sleep upstairs. Biggest mistake ever. I couldnt get out of the bed. My poor mother had to help me and I screamed the whole time. I look back on that and feel terrible that I pretty much screamed in her ear, but it was uncontrollable. I was in that much pain. I decided to try my parents couch next which I did for the next few nights. That first week I was on morphine 15mg twice a day, oxycodone every 4-6 hours, and valium every 6 hours.

After three days, I decided I had enough of my parents couch and decided I was heading back to my place. I was able to get in and out of my bed and I was much happier being in my surroundings. So this next part I need to give a bit of a back story to. My doctor didn't discharge me from the hospital, he had gone on vacation that day (nice huh?) and a Nurse Practitioner discharged me. She said because she was an NP she could only rx me a very limited amount of my narcotics and that I would have to call that week to get a new script. My paperwork said to expect to be on narcotics for up to three months. My discharge instructions on the bottle AND paperwork said, "Take 1 to 2 tablets every 4-6 hrs". In the hospital I was given two Oxycodone every 4 hours and the NP told me to continue that for at least the first week. I was only given I think 25 oxy from the NP so that wasn't going to last very long but she assured me it would be no issue to get a new script from my doctor. Which it wasnt. We explained what she said and it was all in my chart so the doctor gave me my script with the same instructions. The problem lies with my insurance company. They said they interpreted the directions as taking 1 pill every 4 hours or 2 every 6 hours. I can see how they would think that, I was a pharmacy tech at one point so I can get that...but then they said I was only allowed to take 4 tablets a day because I should be "Sleeping and not need them" at certain points of the day.

I'm sorry insurance, but you are absurd. When you have metal rods and screws and plates shoved drilled into your bones then you can talk to me about pain tolerance and sleeping patterns. I understand that their method behind this is to lessen the risk of addiction to narcotics, but seriously? A week into a 12 week recovery from a spinal fusion and you are telling me I can only have 4 tablets? So my insurance wouldn't pay for my script because they said it was by their standards, "too early to fill". The pharmacy read the script just as I had and interpreted it the way I was told by the NP that technically you could take up to 12 tablets a day (I wasn't but still) and he said given my circumstances, he was not going to let me go without pain control. That surgery was too major and he didn't feel that it would be right to not fill the script. So he said if we could pay the cash price(since the insurance wasn't covering it) and not push it through insurance he would fill it. He said it was not too early to fill at the insurance were basically being assholes. So we had to pay roughly 60$ when we shouldn't have. Insurance is silly.

The first two weeks I had a lot of rough moments. I tried to walk as much as I could but I was physically exhausted. Surgery takes sooo much out of you. More than people realize. I was on the morphine twice a day for one week before I transitioned off of that. A lot of the pain was from muscle spasms I was having. I'll stop here for now. Next entry will be about my setback.

One week post op incisions (the gray is surgical glue)