My sister (30F) lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is a bartender at an average bar making not-great money: I'm guessing $32K or less. She has personal healthcare (I don't know what it is.. more on that in a minute) but from what I've heard it's rather terrible.
Yesterday, she just jumped off the roof of her 4-story apartment. She hit an awning on the way down, which actually broke her fall. Her skull is fractured. They had surgery to remove a whole portion of it to remove a massive blood clot, and she still has intense brain swelling. She's going to need a steel plate ordered, built, and surgically added. It’s now day 2, and she’s going back into surgery. They're going to fix the fractured side of it by (I believe), but from what I gleaned, may not require a plate on that side. She has fractured ribs, which caused her lungs to collapse, and they had to inflate her lungs with tubes. She has a variety of other smaller non-fatal fractures like in her clavicle, and some facial fractures, etc. They had to put a “line” (I think I overheard that) into a vein in her neck.
She has been sedated this entire time, in a medically induced coma. I can’t remember what the drug is called that they’re using, but it begins with a P.
When the lowered the dosage last night as a test, she started moving rather violently, her whole body, which was a good sign I suppose - she’s not paralyzed. They then upped it again, and she went back to fully sedated.
The entire ICU team at this hospital seems to be on her case. She’s surrounded by dozens of people constantly.
We’ve been told, best case scenario, she gets through surgery, day by day she stabilizes — then she faces multiple weeks at the ICU/hospital until the brain swelling goes down. After that, months of physical therapy (and of course, I’d imagine, psychiatric help).
In the meantime, doctors are constantly appearing in front of my parents, asking them to sign and approve all of these various tasks/procedures/etc. Paper after paper after paper. There’s not even enough time to read the papers, we’re just signing yes to everything, hoping whatever the doctor is explaining to us will help.
Everything has been so chaotic, a detective who was on the scene first has her cellphone, which I need to acquire. Then I need to somehow get keys to her apartment to find her license and insurance card.
Why? Because the hospital keeps asking for it, over and over and over.
On my way out of the hospital, their garage charged me $52 just for my car being there overnight.
My parents and I are absolutely destroyed by this. But I’m trying to get ahead of the financial cost of all of this, because I know it’s going to be life-ruining. I’m looking for whatever preliminary help you might have. Let’s say my sister’s insurance is simply crap — what… do… we do? This is going to cost hundreds of thousands? Millions? I don’t even know what to expect, or how we can possibly hope to handle this.
Can anyone provide me any ammunition or things I need to start researching and looking into now, so I’m well-equipped no matter what happens?
Submitted May 15, 2017 at 03:07PM by HelpThisBrother http://ift.tt/2qlpHjy
