Ups and downs! Highs and lows! What a thrill ride it was! But now, as a family caregiver, roller coaster rides have an all too different feel to it. The high hopes all too soon come crashing down to disappointments. Confusing insurance clauses and loopholes make you dizzy to the point of nausea. You just want to get off this ride, have a straight unhindered direction, but always there is another hill to climb only to plunge down the other side, facing another set back. It is even more stomach churning when the doctors and insurance adjustors who are supposed to help you are racing around on different  tracks. The surgeon states you need rehabilitation but insurance says you don't. Physical therapists claim it is unsafe to send you home but Medicare says it will not pay for more days in care. Then the appeals begin, whipping you from this department to next until your head aches.

Okay, have you had enough of the roller coaster analogies? Sorry but I have been on this ride continually for two days and I am tired of it. (I know, many of you are saying, "Two days? I have been on it for two years!") Well, as it applies to my husband, it all revolves around rehabilitation. On paper, a hip replacement is a simple procedure. Up walking the first day, up and down steps the second, home by the third. Well, we are technically at the third day and Gregg can barely get out of bed and, with help from his PT, walk to his door and back to a chair. By the time he sits, he is trembling in pain, citing it at a 9. The PT looks at him in disbelief. "It shouldn't be that bad."

Gregg glares at her, I brace myself for the obscenities to come.

Anyway, before she left, the PT states he should go to rehab. This is the same sentiments of his surgeons, but the Kaiser Permanente caseworker declares, hip replacements do not qualify for extended rehabilitation. The Medicare worker nods along with Kaiser like a dummy with a hand for a brain. They then suggest I ask my church to help financially or create a Go Fund Me account.

"WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE INSURANCE IF YOU WILL NOT PAY FOR NECESITIES!??"

Well, I now have an attorney and contacted Social Services; the attorney to help with appeals and Social Services to prove that it would be unsafe for Gregg to come home. Once again, I am hoping we are on the uphill climb of this ride and when we reach the top we will easily glide into the home station, i.e. rehabilitation!

Really, it really shouldn't be this hard!