We don’t usually focus on the negative aspects of health care because nearly everyone else does.  But, this particular episode from a friend caught our attention on some of the idiocy that happens.  This from Mary Koch in Omak, Washington. 

Lady Liberty Reigns: A Widow Bit

My mother slipped her halo just in time to avoid the rockets’ red glare.
           
Three months ago Mom, 91, fell and broke her neck. She ended up in a device called a “halo,” which is literally screwed into the patient’s skull – like Lady Liberty’s crown – to anchor four vertical titanium rods that point into the air several inches above the patient’s head. The halo keeps the neck absolutely stable while the broken bones heal – for three months.         
           
Mother’s beloved granddaughter calculated the timeline and said cheerfully, “Well, Grandma, if you’re still wearing it on the Fourth of July, we can use it to launch bottle rockets!”
           
It was that kind of humor, plus her own faith and determination, that would get Mother through the three-month ordeal. She posted a sign by her bed, pronouncing: “Blessed is she who breaks her neck, for she shall wear a halo.”
           
Late in the afternoon on the Friday before the Fourth, we visited the neurosurgeon. He would remove the vertical rods, send Mother across the street to the hospital for X-rays, and if the bones looked good, the halo itself would go. Problem was, he couldn’t find the proper-size wrench to remove the rods.
           
The tool he had in his office “fidn’t dit,” as my late husband would have said. The doctor excused himself, ran across the street and returned with an automobile tool kit – the kind you get with expensive, luxury cars. Nothing fit. Finally, his nurse called the medical device company that had supplied the halo. Apparently there is only one halo wrench in all of the greater Tacoma metropolitan region, and the technician was loathe to let go of it late on a Friday afternoon. Someone else might need screwing or unscrewing over the weekend. After intense negotiations,  this unique and highly valuable piece of medical equipment was delivered in a brown paper bag and the rods quickly removed.
          
The surgeon put a temporary brace on Mother’s neck to stabilize her for the trip across the street in her wheelchair. Despite the doctor’s specific orders to remove the brace for the X-rays, the technicians said they weren’t “allowed” to.  I don’t know if I was “allowed,” but time was a-wasting, so I took it off. Mother remained in good humor as the technicians posed her in one odd position after another. When they had her raise one arm straight up and cross the other over her chest, she intoned, “I pledge allegiance . . .”

After many communication failures too exasperating to describe, the doctor eventually appeared. By that time, his office was closed, so we couldn’t return to remove the halo. (What!? They don’t trust the surgeon with a key to his own office?!)

BUT, he had the precious wrench, in its brown paper bag, and there, in the radiology waiting room of Tacoma General Hospital, he removed Mother’s halo.

No bottle rockets for Mom, but the brilliant fireworks displays on the Fourth paled in comparison with our pride and joy in her determination and resiliency. 
 
Mary Koch, Freelance Writer & Editor
www.marykoch.com