Monday I will be having surgery on my nose to correct a deviated septum on each side. I also have a loose blood vessel in my nose which causes me to bleed profusely through my nose and mouth at random times, and hurts like a jerk. It will also be fixed. Even though I know the process will be painful and I will be down for a few weeks, I am really excited to be able to breathe properly out of my nose for the first time in my life. If I was a good dancer, I would totally dance just to celebrate.
You may be wondering where I'm going with this as I always have stories to go with every little thing I start out telling you all about, but I promise I'm getting there. There's just a few things I need to address first so that you're caught up to what's going on before I tell you the story part of this.
The first thing you need to know is within the first paragraph of this blog. The second thing is that my doctor is amazing. He has taken care of me since I was a young child and I have the utmost trust in him and his skills to make my nose a place to breathe out of. I couldn't be more comfortable with him, and if he wasn't doing the surgery, I would probably be iffy to even get it done. That is how much I trust this guy.
The third thing you need to know is that I am unsure if anyone in his staff is able to tie their shoes or put on their pants without outside help. Obviously they can not get help from each other, as I don't think if you put them all together they could figure it out.
I have talked about this same staff in a previous blog. This is the same staff with the infamous lady who told us to park in one place, and then the next time we came back told us not to park in that same place or else we'd get towed. As you can see the fail margin is high.
Basically, what I'm saying is that I love the doctor but his staff needs to follow the scarecrow and find a brain. All of them. I know this sounds harsh, but stick with me and I will prove why this is not. You will also understand why I chose to go to a hospital not directly related with the office I see my doctor out of or his staff, for the surgery. I'd like to live through it, and being as this isn't really a surgery you particularly are apt to die from, it's kind of scared that I have that fear anyway just knowing his staff, therefore going elsewhere just to avoid them.
When I had left their office upon scheduling the surgical appointment last month, I was given a paper by one of the nurses that stated I needed to send in clearance from my heart doctor to say that I could withstand the anesthesia, and also that I had an EKG done on my heart. This was a fairly simple request, rendering me no reason to worry about anything. Or at least that's what I stupidly thought.
I had gone to the heart doctor about two and a half weeks ago, and while there they physically faxed over both things that the doctor's office had requested prior to the surgery while I actually watched them do it. In turn, I knew they had sent the papers over and that I should, again, have nothing to worry about. But something kept eating at me today, and I just couldn't get rid of the feeling, so I decided to call up to the doctor's office of which was doing the surgery and make sure they got the papers, even though that's not really my job and I knew they were sent.
Holy crap, it was more than a good thing I did. Let's just put it that way. Enter; the story.
I called up to the office once, heard the girl pick up, heard her hit a button, and then was hung up on. Okay, obviously she doesn't know how to use the phone system despite being there for years. Whatever, I called back. This time the line was busy. At best guess it was because the same girl was probably yelling "hello" into the phone repeatedly, wondering where the person who had just called and gone, and not realizing that she had hung up on me. I hung up and waited a few minutes before calling back. This time I actually had success in the form of her knowing how to answer the phone. It went downhill from here.
I explained to the girl why I was calling in a chipper, but somewhat slow tone just to make sure she got it. She put me on hold to go and talk to Jamie, the lady who apparently takes care of the paperwork for all the surgeries. I was shocked and amazed when she actually managed to put me on hold and not hang up on me. Then she came back and all of the previous shock and amazement went away.
I had simply told her that I was calling to make sure my paperwork was in order for the surgery. When she came back she told me that it was not, and that the doctor's office never faxed over the paperwork. I told her that I knew for a fact that was absolutely untrue as I was standing there almost three weeks ago when they had done it. In a very shocked voice she asks "HOW LONG AGO?" I tell her and get put on hold again. This time for several minutes, but I still didn't get hung up on, so that's a point for her. This point still does not bring her into the positive, but it's a start.
Oh yeah, and did I forget to mention that she also claimed it wasn't her's nor Jamie's job to know if they received the paperwork or not, because that's exactly what she told me. Uh, it's not my job. I don't work up there. I can't inform myself or know if they actually put it into my file or not, so yeah, it's kind of absolutely their job.
After she finally came back, she once again told me that Jamie hadn't gotten my papers, but then decided to let me actually talk to Jamie. Oh man, because I totally wouldn't have thought of letting me do that the first time! Oh no, I would have waited, gone back a second time, asked her the same question, and THEN let me talk to her. Where in the hell is the common sense?
One would think that once I had Jamie on the phone the fail would stop, or at least subside some. However, the fail just continued on even worse. I explained to Jamie that I was physically standing in the doctor's office when they faxed the papers, after she asked me several times if I was sure the papers were sent. Trust me, I was definitely sure.
She then proceeds to say that since she didn't receive my paperwork, she was going to go on ahead and cancel my appointment. I asked her when she was planning on telling me this and she claimed it was not her job. Umm, yeah, I'm sorry but that is the EXACT definition of your job. You really can't just cancel someone's appointment and not tell them. I could have smacked her, but since it was a phone call and smacking someone is illegal, I obviously didn't.
She then says to me, and I urge you all to prepare yourselves...
Let me just give you all a minute...
Ready?
"Well, I do have a large group of papers that have been sitting here for the last couple of weeks. Maybe your papers are in there."
This is verbatim people. I can not make this shit up. My mind, although creative, is not creatively stupid enough to come up with this kind of verbal crap. But what really wins this is that she was going to cancel my appointment without telling me before she bothered to go through paperwork that has been sitting on her desk for several weeks. Yep, she's a real winner.
Remember people, she's also getting paid to be this big of a winner. Kind of makes you wonder where you went wrong, huh? All that education, all that common sense, only to find that you've wasted all that time in school and fine tuning your common sense for nothing. You could have just been an idiot and got a job at a doctor's office. *Sigh*
So while she sifted through the papers, I waited patiently on the phone, my wireless minutes slowly wasting away while she did something she should have done weeks ago. Then, HARK, my papers magically seemed to appear inside of this pile of papers she had. She seemed so shocked by this that you would have thought someone actually had told her she was doing a good job. (A sentiment I'm sure she's never heard.) She just downright told me that it was just so amazing my papers were in that group on her desk.
That's not exactly my definition of amazing. Had she gone through that pile ten times and they not been there, I could understand. But the fact that the papers have been sitting on her desk and she's never touched them, I wouldn't exactly call finding my papers within her absence of doing her job amazing by any sense of a divine miracle. What do I know?
If this was the worst part of the story, that'd be one thing, but alas, it is not.
Jamie then follows up all the shock and excitement of what one can find when they actually do their job by telling me that she received my clearance and EKG, but not the results of my blood work. My response:
WHAT BLOOD WORK?
She then laughs and says, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you that you needed to get blood work done. Well, you have to get it done tomorrow or we can't do the surgery.
*Thunk* The sound you hear is my head hitting the coffee table repeatedly.
Let's just start with the fact that this isn't very funny and someone needs to Agent Gibbs her if she thinks that it is. And second, THAT IS A HUGE THING TO FORGET. Let's just keep in mind here that had I not called today she would have canceled my appointment and not ever told me, so I would have still showed up for my surgery Monday.
Now let's also keep in mind that even though I did call, had she forgot to mention the blood work to me in any way, shape, or form then I would have gone in Monday to only be turned away and have to reschedule. This would not have gone well for her, as I would have sent her a letter for each day I had to wait to have the surgery done expressing my joy that she has a job she can not do. No really, I would have.
Now the blood work would not be that huge of a deal even though it is extremely inconvenient, except that I just made the drive to get my blood pulled today, and had I known I had to have blood pulled for my surgery Monday, I could have saved myself a trip and a needle poke by getting it all done at one time. There's also the fact that I have had about 70 tubes of blood pulled since the end of last November, leaving so much scar tissue in my veins that they are unable to retrieve blood out of my arms without putting me through a serious amount of pain, several jabs, and having issues doing so. I already knew for the surgery that they were going to have to put the IV via my hand, but now I have to go back and get blood pulled through my hand, too.
I would be really put off by this and angry, but my life tends to think things like this are funny. What are you going to do? Grin and bear it. One day this will be funny.
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