Mrs. HM Has Been Re-Appointed

I went to an appointment last week that my nurse practitioner had scheduled for two months after the supposed start of my leg therapy. The leg therapy which I had just attended four sessions of (36 total to be done), which had begun only nine days before this NP appointment.

Nothing much was solved here, as you might suspect. I told him how long I'd been going. Showed him that my legs were wrapped, and asked if he wanted to see them. "Oh, no. That's all right. OT knows what she is doing."

Heh, heh. I had asked OT about this appointment. I think it was on my second visit. Would NP unwrap my legs to get a look? "I don't know. But for sure, he won't wrap them back!" Yeah. That takes HER about 15 minutes to do both legs. It takes ME 25-30 when I take them off for a shower.

Anyhoo... I asked NP if I still needed to come back in one month, for a regular appointment he had scheduled in June. A six-month appointment, for bloodwork and BP and such. NP said no. That we could do it in AUGUST. Because I would be done with the leg therapy at the end of July. So to make an appointment for the first two weeks of August.

I went out to the appointment desk. The gal I stopped at didn't seem to know what she was doing. She asked the gal next to her. Which is okay. If you are learning a job, get it right! The problem was that NP had NO appointments available in the first two weeks of August, because he was on VACATION! You'd think he might have remembered that when he told me. So I told the scheduling gal I would take one at the end of August, and that I needed to cancel the appointment I had for June.

You'd think we were trying to schedule the invasion of Normandy! Scheduling Gal again asked her cohort, who told her a different way to get into the calendar. Then she was busy with an old man who had just walked out. Scheduling Gal asked if I wanted a printout of the day's appointment. I said yes.

Scheduling Gal returned from the printer room with a coverless tome of War and Peace. Or at least my office visit printout, of about the same length. She was puzzled. Kept looking at it.

"I think it probably printed a list of my upcoming therapy appointments."

"Oh. Okay. I see that. But I forgot to put in your cancelled appointment. Here. Let me do that. Okay. Do you want me to print that again?"

"NO! As long as you took off the appointment, I can remember not to go."

"Here. I'll just draw a line through that one."

I really hope that appointment got taken out, and they don't say I'm a no-show. I doubt it would be charged, since my insurance always covers it. It's not much, even for a copay.

The left hands and right hands at this medical facility really need to be introduced to each other, so they have a vague idea of what each is doing.