New one-shot story: Aftercrud

This was not originally meant to be 14,000 words.

@$#% it, me.

*sigh*  Well, try to think of it as Value For Pledge.  In any case...

In the most recent blog, I said this was inspired by my mother's recent experiences with Cardiology.  I'm going to explain what that means here first, as a bonus for my sponsors.  But in this case, I'm encouraging everyone to read the actual story before they go any further in the pledge post.  It'll give you a little more insight into what's going on.

Come back in a few.  Or a while.

.

,

,

,

,

,

Okay.  The picture is of a Zio monitor, and that's what she got after the aortic valve replacement.  She was supposed to wear it for up to a month, or until her cardiologist said she could remove it.  (Once it's removed, it gets sent back to the company and recycled for another user.)  It registers anything unusual going on with her heart and sends the data to a monitor account.  It goes on with adhesive, and the skin is deliberately abraided first.  You can't take long showers, you can't take a bath, you can't sweat too much, you can't take it off, and you have to stay within ten feet of a signal booster gateway at all times.  The last part is the worst, because she didn't use the belt clip, I couldn't find her hip bag or a fanny pack, and once she was home, she kept wandering out of range.

On Day Five, the adhesive gave out.

She did nothing wrong.  There was no opportunity.  The adhesive just [i]congealed[/i].  The instructions said to rub the adhesive with your fingers and then reapply:  this turned the residue into ridges just before removing it.

So I went out looking for skin-suitable adhesive, preferably in patch form because she couldn't have been the first person to have this problem.

Pharmacy:  nothing.

Next pharmacy:  also nothing.

Surgical supply store:  nope.

Halloween supplies?  It's that time of year for gluing things to the skin...

...possibly a bad idea for long-term use.  I went back to the instruction book and, as the first pharmacist had advised, called the company.  (A few hours later, anyway.  Different time zone.)  

I was shuttled between case managers.  And then I was told that, put bluntly, this did not happen.  The unit never fell off under normal circumstances.  Yes, the unit could be recycled and that meant fresh adhesive pads were available, but they weren't something I could just put on at home:  factory change only.  Just turn the unit in to your cardiologist.

By happy coincidence, we actually had an appointment with him the next day.  I agreed and hung up.

Around noon on Tuesday, I walked into his office with the box, set it down, and stared to explain --

-- this wasn't his.

...excuse me?

He didn't issue it.  The cardiology team in the hospital did.  Meaning the surgical group.  

...okay.  The surgeon whom I have not been able to contact since the procedure.  Good to know.  I'll just... take the box with me.

So now I have to find some way of getting into the hospital and finding this near-ghost.  But first, I have to bring her home --

-- and there's a Fedex overnight box in the stairwell.

They can't send us more adhesive pads.  They sent in a whole new Zio.

Which can only be activated by a cardiologist with a company account, because that monitoring data has to be transmitted somewhere.

So as it stands now:  I have not been able to get her into the hospital.  (I want to.  Her heart has not been showing problems, but...  it's been a bad few days for her confusion.  Let's just say this story's composition was interrupted by my frequent pleas for her to head into the ER.  None worked.)  The new unit is inert. The old one can't be reattached.  I haven't heard a message on the answering machine saying "Excuse us, but there's no data:  is she dead?"  And I have two high-tech, probably very expensive, completely useless units, waiting to go back to their manufacturer -- except that I'm not the one who's supposed to send them in.

It is, put mildly, kind of a mess.

But it also gave me an idea for a story...