Kathleen A. Gagne

Kathie Gagne died 4,583 days ago.

July 24th, 2012 @ 2:43 pm

Nurse Cheryl from Woodland Terrace just called me. (At first I thought it was Rosa Rivera because their voices sound very similar.) She said that she had my mom “close by” and wanted to know if I had time to talk to her.

I said, “Yes! Of course I do!”

Nurse Cheryl said she would get her and asked me to hold on. After almost a minute, Cheryl said, “Okay, here she is,” and then I heard the familiar sound of my mother gasping for breath for a full eight minutes.

I spent almost the entire time saying things like, “Try to take a breath, mom,” and, “It’s okay, mom. Just try to relax.” I could also hear Nurse Cheryl repeating, “It’s your son, David,” and, “Say, ‘Hello,’ to him, Kathie.”.

I said, “It’s okay, mom. You don’t have to say anything. I know you can hear me. Just try to take some deep breaths so I can tell you understand.” But I couldn’t ever really tell if she did that.

Eventually Nurse Cheryl came on the line and told me they had to take mom down to dinner. She asked me if I could hear mom whispering, “David,” over and over, and I told her that I could not, and that I had no idea she was saying anything the whole time. Nurse Cheryl said she wasn’t sure, but that’s what she thought she was saying.

She said that she’d try to call me before dinner each night from now on so at least she could hear my voice. I thanked her very much and told her I would really appreciate that.

A Phone Call with Shelly

July 23rd, 2012 @ 10:07 am

I got an email from my sister letting me know she had talked to Shelly Sparace at Woodland Terrace:

Hey, David.

I talked to Shelly this morning. I asked her to call you and share with you what she told me so if you had further questions she could answer them. 
She said she could not check the Medicaid status today because Sylvia is not in, but that she would send them the information regarding the CARES level today. 
She also said she could sign the authorization forms if we wanted which I thought would be ok since those need to be faxed to Medicaid ASAP. 

Also, did [name redacted] get a hold of you yesterday? She called me while she was with Mom. She found Mom's glasses in the bottom of a box. She tried to get Mom to talk to me, but all Mom did was cry. She said "yes" through some sobbing once when I asked her if she could hear me. [name redacted] thought she said my name, but I don't remember hearing it. 

Love you

A Call from Rosa

July 23rd, 2012 @ 7:50 am

I received a voice mail from Rosa Rivera in the admissions office at Woodland Terrace. Here is a transcript of the message:

“Good morning, David. This is Rosa at Woodland Terrace in the admissions office. I’m calling ’cause we received (uhm) only about a few of the consents and acknowledgements that were sent and I’m looking to see if there would be any possible way that the remaining of them can be (uhm) sent over today. We do need to complete this chart. I’m sorry but I’ve had it sitting on my desk for way too long and the business office needs to have ’em, and also the nursing station needs a copy of every single consent and acknowledgement that I sent to you. If you can please call me back (386) 738-3433 just to let me know how soon you can do this. It’s been quite a few days and the nursing station usually has to have everything for state purposes. Thank you. Buh-bye.”

Being Kept on the Floor

July 21st, 2012 @ 3:43 pm

This afternoon at 3:43PM PDT I called Woodland Terrace in another attempt to talk to mom. Someone named Marty answered and I asked to speak to Kathie Gagne, in room 207 on the West wing. Marty asked if I knew if she was in the window bed or the hallway bed, and I said I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter because she doesn’t have a phone in her room and needs help to talk on the phone. Marty acknowledged and transferred me to the nurses station.

Nurse Dawn answered and, after I explained who I was and who I was trying to reach, she asked for my phone number and told me she’d call me from mom’s room. I said okay and hung up the phone.

At 3:51PM my phone started ringing. I managed to answer by the third ring, but I just heard a voice say the word “work” and then the line went dead. A minute later the phone rang again and I answered immediately. It was Dawn, and she said that there was no phone in mom’s room and that the portable phone’s signal didn’t reach that far. I told her that mom had been there over two weeks now and I’d only been able to talk to her one time and I was starting to get frustrated.

Dawn asked me when the last time was that I had been there to visit mom. I told her that I lived in Los Angeles, and that I had last seen mom around Mother’s Day when I was there for almost a week. I told her how she had been at Coastal Rehab then, and how when I got back to LA there was a voice mail telling me that they had rushed her to the ER at Halifax and she’d been there until two weeks ago when she was transferred to Woodland Terrace.

She said that mom wasn’t “cognizant” of her surroundings. She told me, “we’re keeping her on the floor on mats, because she keeps trying to get out of her bed. She’s mostly curled up in the corner on mats on the floor all the time.” She said that when they put her in a wheelchair, she, “flops on the floor like a fish.” Nurse Dawn said she was sorry to have to tell me that, and she knew it was probably rough to hear, but she wanted to make sure I was aware of mom’s “condition”.

“Okay,” I said. “Now let me tell you how she got to be there,” and I began the twenty-minute, long version of mom’s history.

I got about five minutes into it — I was just telling her about mom going into an increasingly worse depression after the bank foreclosed on her house in Gainesville and she was forced to move into an apartment in Port Orange — when Dawn said, “David, I’ve got a resident seizing. Let me call you back.”

Another Miss

July 20th, 2012 @ 5:21 pm

I called Woodland Terrace when I left work tonight in another attempt to talk to mom. When the receptionist answered the phone, I simply asked for the West wing. She asked me which room I wanted, and I said, “My mom is in room 207, but she doesn’t have a phone in her room and needs help getting to the phone.” She said something like, “Okay, hold on and I’ll transfer you.”

Just a few seconds later Nurse Cheryl came on the line. I told her who I was and she remembered me. She said that they had just fed mom dinner — she ate about 75% of it, Cheryl told me — and that she was asleep now, but she’d try to wake her.

I told her that if mom was asleep I didn’t want to wake her, and that I would try to call tomorrow morning.

Incorrect Fax, More Rudeness

July 20th, 2012 @ 9:10 am

I just attempted to send a fax to Woodland Terrace. I had signed or initialed eight of the forty-six pages in the big PDF that Rosa Rivero, the Admissions Coordinator, sent me on the 16th. Rosa’s email didn’t include the fax number to which she wanted me to return these, so I checked their website. There is a fax number labeled “Admissions Fax” quickly visible at the bottom of the right sidebar, so I attempted to send it there.

The line rang and then made a bunch of strange beeps, but it didn’t sound like a fax machine on the other end, and it was clearly not working.

I called Woodland Terrace and someone I strongly suspect was Rachel answered the phone. I told her I was trying to send a fax and asked if (386) 738-3420 was the correct number. She said that it wasn’t and gave me a different number, which, as she was reading it to me, I noticed was also printed on the right sidebar of their website. I said something like, “Okay. Thanks. You should let someone know that the number on the website is wrong,” in the most polite and helpful way I could.

She replied with something along the lines of, “Okay. Thank you,” in the absolute rudest, most sarcastic way you could possible say something over the telephone. I hung up.

Update: I successfully sent the eight pages to (386) 740-8303 at 9:11AM PDT.

Update: It is now 5:07PM PDT and I have not received any acknowledgment that the fax was received. I suppose I will call Monday morning to see if anyone got it. <sigh>

A Call from Shelly

July 20th, 2012 @ 5:40 am

Shelly Sparace called me and left this voice mail:

Hi, David. This is Shelly from Woodland Terrace. I received a message yesterday that you had called me. You can reach me at (386) 738-3433. Thank you.

I Missed Shelly

July 20th, 2012 @ 5:40 am

My phone rang at 5:40AM PDT, but I didn’t get to it in time to answer. It was a message from Shelly Sparace in response to my call yesterday. She left her name and the main number for Woodland Terrace, (386) 738-3433.

I returned the call while I was driving to work at 7:56AM PDT. The receptionist laughed with me about our shared ignorance of the correct pronunciation of Sparace and then transferred me to her line. I got the same voice mail box as yesterday — the one with the man’s voice saying simply, “Social Service Director” — so I left the same message for Shelly.

Update: I suppose I won this round of phone tag, as it is now 5:05PM PDT and Shelly hasn’t returned my call. I find it hard to imagine she’s going to call me after 8:00PM on the East coast, or that I’ll receive a call over the weekend. <sigh>

Still Trying

July 19th, 2012 @ 5:09 pm

When I left my office tonight I called Woodland Terrace in an attempt to get mom on the phone. It was 5:09 PM PDT, which means it was 8:09 PM EDT there. I figured that surely by this point they’d resolved whatever issues they were having with their phones and, that late at night, it wouldn’t be too difficult to find someone to help me talk to mom.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang. It rang at least twenty times before someone answered.

“Good evening. Woodland Terrace. How may I help you?”

I said, “Hi. I’m calling to talk to my mom. She’s in the West wing.”

The woman who had answered said, “Hold on; I’ll transfer you there.”

I waited for about thirty seconds — I’ve learned to time and count everything over the last eight months — and then the exact same woman said, “Good evening. Woodland Terrace. How may I help you?”

I said, “Hi! I just talked to you a minute ago and you were going to transfer me to the West wing.”

The woman, who was clearly annoyed that someone in the West wing hadn’t answered, said, “Nobody over there picked up? Hold on and I’ll try again.”

I said, “Sure,” and then I waited on hold for five minutes.

The same woman answered the phone and, very politely, explained that there was nothing she could do. She said something about how there was no way she could force them — the people in the West wing — to pick up the phone. She was, to her credit, apologetic about it. She suggested that I hang up and call back, and that this time she simply wouldn’t answer the phone, so someone in the West wing would be forced to “pick up”.

I said, “You mean you want me to call this same number again?” She said that was what she meant, so I said, “Sure. I’ll do that. Thanks.” Then I hung up and immediately called the same number again.

I let the phone ring for exactly two full minutes and then I gave up.

I tried to call the alternate number that Lisa had given me a few days ago, but nobody answered that line either.

I waited a minute and tried the “regular” number again, but it just rang and rang. I only listened to the sound of it ringing for a minute the second time, though, before disconnecting and finishing the long drive home in silence.

Update: I emailed the content of this post to Sherri Spillman <wtadminterr@wterrace.com> on July 20th, 2012 @ 8:31AM PDT.

Informed Consent Form [Update]

July 19th, 2012 @ 2:40 pm

Marsha Porter from Halifax Hospital responded to my request for more information regarding the informed consent form:

Mr. Gagne,
Thanks so much for your assistance with the consent form. I'm not sure if you will hear from any of the people at CARES unless they need more information. I'm not sure of the protocol after CARES get their information they will probable deal with the nursing home directly in trying to get your mom qualified for the insurance and funding. 

You were not suppose to hear from me regarding CARES issue or any matters concerning the above because after the patient is accepted and discharged to the nursing home, then I do not work with them on a outpatient basis. I simply helped with inpatient process by faxing the appropriate forms to CARES that they needed from the doctors, and ensuring placement and a safe transfer to the nursing home. The form that you assisted with was a request from CARES to assist with the process for nursing home Medicaid.

It appears that you did the right thing in faxing it the informed consent.

Again thanks for your assistance with this matter.

I replied:

Okay.  Thanks.