Possibly in a bind

[Emileeeee]

I have my surgery date scheduled in a couple months, and right now I have people to cover getting me out of the hospital and the week after, but I'm not so sure I'm going to have them when the time actually comes. The marriage is more than a little rocky and I'm starting to get concerned about my wife backing out of her part in this. Anybody have any ideas on backup options? I'm in the Philadelphia area.

[Dena]

You are far from local to me so that's out. Next option will be how long you are in the hospital. If you are in around 8 days, you should be able to take care of your basic needs. If you are getting out 2-3 days after surgery, some help would be a good idea. Taxies and Shuttle buses can supply ground transportation and a wheel chair can be arranged for in advance at an airport. If you will be home by yourself, prepare food in advance and have easy to prepare food available. Now they have you walking two days out of surgery but your endurance will be minimal so any task you take on you will want to complete quickly.

[Emileeeee]

The surgeon requires a 1 week stay in a hotel near her and I have to be accompanied for it. Finding someone to pick me up at the hospital would be the easy part. It's the 1 week that's going to be hard to fill. I don't know anybody without a job.

[Dena]

That complicates matters. Throwing money at the problem would solve the problem but I am not sure what you can afford. An extended hospital visit would meet the doctors requirements  but would be costly. There are recovery facilities like the one I used after my plastic surgery. They are no where near as costly as a hospital room and have skilled nursing staff 24/7. Last but not least, I suspect the doctor have contacts that would allow you to hire a nurse or skilled care taker for your hotel room. Other than that, you would have to find somebody willing to spend vacation time or who is retired to stay with you. It's a difficult problem and I have spent the additional money when I needed extra care instead of receiving care from others. It would be best to talk with your doctor and find out if other options exist.

[FTMax]

Can you talk to your surgeon at all about your concerns? My surgeon is actually relocating. I had planned to see her close to home (maybe 50 miles away), but she's going to be relocating about 5-6 hours further out before surgery could be scheduled. I expressed my concerns about being able to find someone to come with me, traveling, etc. Her solution was to lengthen my hospital stay, so instead of staying a week in the hospital and then another week locally, I'd stay for two weeks in the hospital and then go home. That way, somebody just has to travel up to pick me up and take me home instead of spending a whole week up there with me.

If you're not able to get an extension on the hospital stay, could you look into a home health aide? I'm not sure if that would fly with your surgeon, as you probably wouldn't be accompanied 100% of the time. They'd come and look after you for a few hours a day, make sure you're fed, run errands, bathe you, help with wound dressings, etc. and then they'd head out.

You could also maybe check with Mazzoni and see if they have any recommendations. They may know of some specific trans friendly home health people or surgical companions.

[Emileeeee]

Ok. Thanks.