The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Managing Pain & The Power Of Advocacy
The healthcare system doesn’t hand out a manual or a how-to brochure for that matter about how to deal with health issues. After a hospital discharged us with no pain meds and no clear plan because we declined surgery, we faced a stark choice: wait and watch strength fade, or push for access to a team that could actually help. In this episode, I walk you through the messy middle—how we navigated private medical transport when an ambulance wouldn’t cross districts, how a simple wheelchair pivot got us through ER doors, and why a 26-hour stay still felt like progress once a thoughtful plan came together.
You’ll hear what advocacy looks like at eye level. I talk about the emotional load: the exhaustion of showing up every day, the friction when a long-time diabetic gets talked down to, and the constant triage at home with pets, traffic, parking, and the Halloween lights that stubbornly stayed on while life and its challenges kept moving forward.
This conversation is for anyone who loves someone in pain, anyone juggling chronic conditions with acute crises, and anyone who suspects that “trust your doctor” needs the companion phrase “and verify the plan.” We share the small wins that sustain momentum, from a wheeled recliner that gave needed sleep to a care team willing to explain their thinking and aim for a selective nerve block once blood thinners clear. It’s a candid look at how to move from helpless to purposeful, one decision and one question at a time.
If this resonated, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need the courage to advocate today. Your story could be the nudge another caregiver needs.
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Welcome to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life? That you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulthood. By doing so, welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. Today I'm gonna talk more about an ER visit that we had recently and just the state of medicine. But I'm also going to talk again, I believe I've talked about this before with you, about advocating for your loved ones' health. This is a really important topic. If you love anybody, because anybody can get sick or injured at any time. And sometimes finding the right care is vital to their health and well-being. Now, if you're a regular listener, you know that early in October, my husband was in the hospital because of some falls that he had here at home. And that he has two bulging discs in his back that were causing him some issues and still are causing him some issues with pain and weakness in one of his legs. The hospital discharged him as soon as we told them that he didn't want to have surgery. Surgery isn't always the best option for a lot of reasons. Well, they sent us home with no pain meds and really no clear plan or referrals on who to go to. But we did get home health. We got a visiting nurse, we got physical therapy at home or PT, we got a bathing nurse once a week, and we got a wound care person once a week as well, because he had um uh not a bed sore, but he had been using the heating pad initially, and he had gotten a blister from that. So we did have some support. Now, his pain was increasing though, and that was worrisome to me and to him because he really couldn't get out of bed after three weeks at home. He was in too much pain to even sit up. I started thinking about where this was all going. Do you ever do that for any scenario in your own life? Where are we headed? What's gonna happen? What are the next steps? Sometimes this is really important, right? You can't always rely on the experts or the professionals. And again, we were really up a creek without a paddle. I talked to my husband and I said that we really needed to go back into the hospital, if nothing else, for pain control. We had a limited amount of norco because narcotic pain relief is so hard to get in a home setting, right? So I could see that he was really suffering, but we didn't have enough pain meds to really cover him for very much longer. And if you've ever watched a loved one in pain, it's really a helpless feeling. Okay. So we talked about what to do, what are our options? And some of his best doctors, his spinal surgeon, who did the two neck fusions on him back in uh 2017 and 2018, and also his nephrologist, who operates mostly as his general practitioner, are both at Cedar Sinai. Now, even if you don't live in the Los Angeles area or even the United States, I know a lot of people have heard about Cedar Sinai because it's where a lot of Hollywood's elite go to be treated for whatever reason. And it's on the edge of Beverly Hills. It's in a posh area, shall we say. But it's not just all about appearances. Cedar Sinai has a really great medical team, really great facilities, and really great doctors. Sure, not everybody's great. Sure, there's problems, but overall, and certainly in comparison to what we experienced in the first hospital visit, it's far and above. Okay. We live about 14 miles from Cedar Sinai. So the way things work, I can't just call an ambulance and have him sent over there. Because an ambulance is only going to take him to the nearest hospital. I started calling medical transport companies. And most of them said, no, we can't take you. He has to go on a gurney, right? If he could sit in a wheelchair, it would have been easier, but he has to go on a gurney because he can't sit. It's too uncomfortable. I did talk to one company that said that they could do it, but it would cost about $2,000. Now, I I have the resources to do that, but the guy felt bad, you could tell. And he said, Why don't you call this person? And that's what happened is each company gave me another company to call. Finally, I found somebody that was willing to take him for $300. Not too bad. I knew it would be a rough trip, right? Okay. So that morning the truck pulled up and I went out to talk to the guys, and um they weren't completely filled in on the process. And when I told them, they were like, well, you know, they're not gonna want to take him, they're gonna get mad at us. I said, let them get mad at me. I didn't really understand. And and if you're a medical person, please be patient with me. Because after going through this, now I do understand. But I'm gonna explain it to you. Well, I was ready to get down and beg, right? Hold on to their legs, cry at their feet. But in the end, we decided to go. They loaded them up in the gurney and off they went. I followed in my car. They got there first and they called me and said that they weren't gonna take him. When I got there, the driver and his assistant said that they talked to a security guard who explained that if we could get him into a wheelchair, it's a padded wheelchair, but still, that they would take him. He could be wheeled into the ER. So that's what we did. We got him into a wheelchair. Now, my poor husband gets very car sick. He has a lot of motion sickness in a car. And imagine laying flat in the back of a van. Well, he had thrown up all over himself. I mean, I I felt so bad. I should have brought some towels with me, but I didn't I didn't think about it. So we got into the ER and they were asking me questions about his condition. And we had to wait for triage, we had to wait for vitals, we had to wait for the EKG, we had to wait for the blood work, and all the time he's screaming in pain. Well, the guys from the transparent company were great, and they found a recliner and they lifted him into that, and he promptly fell asleep, which was a good thing. We waited about two and a half hours until they called him in. Luckily, the recliner had wheels on it, and they wheeled him into the back, and then these things just warmed my heart. About six people gathered to pull him out of the recliner onto a gurney. Now, I get it, because we were on a gurney in a hallway next to the nurses station. Yes, it was that busy. It was it was busy. It's because they're so good, and it's and it's also, I'm sure, other reasons as well. Staffing, insurance, resources. But we were inside. They eventually moved him to an enclosure with a TV, which was great. But in total, he was in the ER for 26 hours. I get it. There just weren't a lot of extra gurnies around. I looked, believe me. The care so far has been great. Yeah. Does he like everything? No. My husband can be grumpy sometimes, and especially because he's in pain, he's not always the happiest of campers. But there is a plan. They want to do a selective nerve block in his back, but they have to wait until the blood thinners get out of his body. I just have to say that advocating for yourself or your loved one is so important because if we hadn't taken this proactive step, he would have just languished in bed. There was no way that I could have gotten him in the car to a doctor's appointment. I had checked in uh the week before with his um spinal surgeon's office, and we could have done a video call or a phone call, but to schedule that would have taken another month. And I just don't feel like we had another month to languish here. And in the meantime, I was doing everything for him. I mean, everything. Um, because he couldn't get out of bed. And, you know, they say that for every day that you spend in bed, you lose so much of your strength. I forget what the um what the formula is. I'm worried about that. And I'm also worried about bed sores because now he's been laying in bed for about a month and a half. And, you know, we can't have any more wounds. We can't have wounds on his feet, we can't have anything else go wrong, but just the fact that he's been in bed so long is a big issue, right? So yeah, it wakes me up in the middle of the night and I can't go back to sleep. But I know now that he's in the best possible place. Um, everybody's very caring and they're looking at everything and they're trying, they're trying their best. And they really are a cut above uh all the other hospitals, and certainly the last hospital that we were at. It doesn't even compare. I I'm just rem reminded of my parents in the last few years of their lives. Um, my dad was uh type two diabetic, and he had, you know, other issues as well. But I remember my mom telling me that they they both trusted their doctors. And I remember talking to my mom about diabetes, and there was a lot that she didn't know about being a diabetic in regards to my dad's condition. And sure, she was older, and sure she had Parkinson's, and she was I mean, she wouldn't admit to this, but of course, but she did seem to have some dementia. And so talking to her about all of this was a little confusing to say the least. But I think a lot of people do just trust their doctors, and sometimes you have to look beyond what your doctors are telling you and and what the care is that you're getting, because especially if you have chronic conditions, you just need to really push. You really need to ask the hard questions, and you need to really make sure that everything is going in the right direction. And so I've tried to spend every day at the hospital with my husband. He is able to advocate for himself. I've I've kind of I've kind of taught him that. But it's but it's frustrating and it's tiring for him. And I feel like at least he needs moral support, right? He needs to have somebody there on his side. I mean, not that the medical staff isn't on his side, but he doesn't always like to be told what to do. And being a diabetic for so long, he's he's been told a lot of times, oh, you should do this, you should do that, and he already knows, right? And so he feels like he's being talked down to, and that's frustrating and and tiring for him. And I think it's especially hard if you're in pain, right? So I've tried to go every day. I've tried to be there for him and support him. Um, I'm not I'm not going today. I'm gonna try to take the day off. His brother's gonna go. But it's it's not an easy drive through LA traffic. There's not really a direct freeway to get there. You have to go through busy streets, and parking is not easy, it's not cheap either. But I'm getting more walking in. Um, and I think the other thing that's hard on us is our pets. Our dog and our cat miss him. They also have to be at home a lot by themselves. And that's that's hard on both of them. I have to be mindful of my cat because he gets anxiety and he doesn't like to be here by himself, and he wants to have his routine. Um, it was hard for him before because people were coming and going to see Bill from home health, and now, you know, mommy and daddy are both gone most of the time. I just, I just I worry about everything. But we're getting through, and every day brings kind of a new challenge but new hope as well. So still trying to see the glass is half full. Although some days I'm a little too tired to really do that. Also, I've I'm that neighbor. I am, because most of my Halloween decorations are still up. And yeah, yikes. And I just I haven't been here. I haven't really had time or the energy. It's not a priority for me. I need to go out today. I'm gonna unplug the stuff, at least so when I turn the corner at night, it's not all lit up like a Halloween, you know, showcase. But it's been a little bit uh frustrating in that regard because I'm, you know, taking care of the house, taking care of the pets, taking care of myself, doing what I have to do here, and then driving back and forth, taking care of my husband, doing I have to bring him stuff every day or do th do things for him, make sure his you know, devices are charged, and then I'm also working. So there we are. Um, this week is Veterans Day, so thank you to all of our veterans for your service, it's a very important thing. Um, and we'll see what happens this coming week. We haven't gotten um very much input on when the procedure will be or when he might get out of the hospital. So that's where we're at. Um next week. Well, we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries Podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on. And consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page, Only Child Diaries, or Facebook, Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Will. And these are the Only Channel Diaries.
