“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Because I was impatient after breakfast this morning I called Pete Harpending’s office at 8:30. He wasn’t in. I left a message, and he called fifteen minutes later. I explained the insurance situation to him. Pete said that few such cases go to litigation—which surprised me a bit. In his own experience, he’s handled only one such case. I gave him the names and phone number of Kathy Hagen, the Blue Cross supervisor who had seemingly turned down our major medical claim, and read to him the statement as to why that Andrew Fife had given me yesterday afternoon. Then I gave Pete Mary Krebs’s phone number, in Utilization Review at the hospital; she determines the level of patient care, reviews medical records, etc. Pete said he’d call back.

(I also told Pete that Andy Fife had told me that Jane had been rejected by the other facilities in the area, because in their opinion she required too much personal care. This was news to Jane and me; I’d forgotten that Jean Sweeney-Dun had taken me around to those places months ago. Jane broke her leg after that. I’d thought A. Fife mistaken yesterday, but he’d repeated the same thing to Pete, and gave him file and form numbers.

(The rest of the morning was quiet. I wrote a note on a sympathy card for Sue and her mother.

(Jane ate a good lunch and began reading yesterday’s session at 3:00. She was halting, but got through it pretty well, so overall she did okay, I told her. She said that when I came in this noon she didn’t ask me how I made out this morning because she was going to wait until after her lunch, in case I had bad news. I told her I felt quite cheered by the morning’s implications, and that we d take it from there as best we could.

(I told Jane Margaret Bumbalo called me at 12:30, as I was getting ready to leave the house, and told me there were two does in her backyard—so I had to take a few minutes to watch them. They moved leisurely across Holley Road into our own driveway, nibbling at fallen sumac leaves and the bushes. Margaret is to visit Jane in a day or two.

(4:10. Lynne took Jane’s blood pressure and pulse. Without our saying anything, she remarked on how well Jane’s ulcers were healing, and how much better she was. When people finally stopped coming in, Jane said she did want to have a session. Her Seth voice was quite good. The day was dry but overcast, and the light was already starting to wane.)

(The session had run late. At 4:45, before I turned Jane on her side, Lynne came in to tell me I had a phone call at the nurse’s station. It was Catherine Murdock from social services. She said that next Tuesday at 1:00 PM one of the heads of placement at the Chemung County Infirmary a block away would be at 330 to interview Jane, with an assistant, and could I please be there too? I said sure. It seems that as a result of the call she’d received from Pete this morning, Mary Krebs had contacted the Infirmary. It seemed further that there might be a chance that a bed there was opening up. The thought was broached that Jane could be moved—nothing definite. This was the last thing I wanted to hear. Catherine said names could be moved up and down the Infirmary’s list—evidently Jane’s had been shifted several times when it was determined she was too ill to be moved. There was something about having a private nurse for 16 hours a day, if the staff there couldn’t take care of my wife. I said that was pointless and that we couldn’t afford it.

(I was already thinking that we didn’t want to move in any direction until the insurance matter was cleared up, lest it appear that we were running scared. If we moved now, I thought, we might end up stuck with a bill for $50,000, if the insurance refused to cover it under our old setup. I knew I’d be calling Pete first thing Monday to tell him about this. I also knew there were few private rooms in the Infirmary, and that if we lost our privacy it would interfere greatly with our work together—and that the creative work is as much a part of therapy as anything else. Why did this have to happen now? I wondered as I hung up, just when it seems we might get somewhere. But actually, this latest twist was a result of our trying to get somewhere, and might actually work to our benefit with the insurance company, once they were told that my wife couldn’t be moved. That was the message I want to get across to them, with Pete’s help.

(“I’m not moving anywhere,” Jane announced adamantly when I tried to explain about the call. And maybe that stand was a good one, I thought, since it was definite. Seth can comment. I told Jane I thought the whole thing was one more piece of the puzzle falling into place—that above all I didn’t want her to worry, to just forget it. “I’m not going anywhere,” she stated again.

(Jane called me at about 9:35 tonight, as I was typing this. Cathy helped her. I’d thanked Cathy for helping Jane call me several times recently. Sleep well, Sweetheart. Tomorrow is another day.)