Why I hate doctor's offices

Thursday I went in for a CT scan for some issues I've been having since my surgery. My appointment was at 12:40. I left the dying workshop early (it was wonderful BTW, but more about that later) and arrived at the imaging office at 12:20. According to the nurse at my doctors office I just had to pick up and drink the barium solution and show up. So I drank the hideous chemicals and went. When I check in, I find out that the doctors office never sent my prescription over. No prescription, No CT scan. Easy enough, the office can fax it over, except they close for lunch

from 12 until 2.

Honestly, who in this country gets a 2 hour lunch? With the obvious exception of my doctors office, NO ONE! One of the receptionists suggest that I go across the street to the office to see if someone is there. I jaunt over to find the doors locked, so I knock. As I'm peering desperately through the glass door I see a nurse. Now I know she can hear me knocking, but she just walks off. RAAAAARRR!!! Back to the imaging office. The very nice and very pregnant receptionist asks me who my doctor is and groans at the response. She is a patient there too. We swap stories briefly about the wonderful doctors and the TERRIBLE office staff. She tells me to try to hang on. They'll try the back office line, and they'll have the answering service fax something in to them to get the scrip.

I'm getting nauseous now. I haven't eaten and the barium and I don't get along well. I sit in the waiting area knitting. Have a pleasant conversation with a crocheter. 1:40 rolls around. I know the barium is passing through my system and they won't be able to do the scan. No word from the doctors office. I go back to receptionist to reschedule. As I'm standing there, a very pleasant radiologist comes running out. She tells me that if I can wait a few more minutes, the office manager is paging the doctor personally on my behalf. They can give me just one small additional cup of barium in lemonade and still take the scan. I agree and sit back down. Another 10 minutes. I feel like shit. The radiologist comes back out and tells me the the office managers wife is also a patient at my doctors office, they were there the day before and the office was open at this time, maybe they'll be open now.

Sure enough when I get to the office, the doors are open and they are admitting patients BUT THE PHONES ARE OFF. They've apparently been sitting there for the past 45 minutes with the phones off and ignoring the urgent faxes from the answering service. The nurse I talk to says that she'll get the prescription for me, then wanders away to talk to someone else. Another nurse comes up and asks what I need, I tell her I'm looking for my prescription. She opens the drawer they are kept in, and looks through, comes back and says they don't have it. WTF???? I tell her that their office MADE the appointment for me, there better be an order for it. She looks again and it's the TOP THING IN THE DRAWER!!!!

I stifle the urge to pin her down, pour a gallon of barium down her throat then jump on her head for several hours, grab the order and run down to the imaging lab. They rush me back and I drink not one small cup, but 2 large cups of barium, then they put in my IV for the contrast solution. They rush me into the scanning room and get my scan done. Once the contrast agent hits my system I start to feel like a truck has hit me. I go home and the headache hits, then the horrendous gastric effects. Hubby looked at me pathetically wallowing in misery on the bad and said "you're stinky". Sigh. I still have a headache today. Utter misery, and all because my doctors office staff SUCKS. I wonder what my doctor (who I simply adore) would say if I told him that I was firing him because of his front office staff. I may just do that.

Anyways, they dying workshop was fabulous and everyone was so friendly, although sadly, I can't remember anyone's name now after my trauma. We did shaving cream dying. I got some great results on the muslin I brought in, and I saw some awesome work on a couple of silk scarves. I can't wait to go to the sit and spin in May!!! Hopefully I'll have saved up some money to have a wheel by then. There are also spinning classes. And their workshop is fabulous. Spinning wheels, looms, carders, Fiber, and a little giftshop. It's inside LibertyTown and it's very inspiring being around so much art and workshops. While we were dying, other people came out to see what we were doing and joined in!

Well I'm off to bed to hopefully sleep off the rest of this headache. I'll try to get pictures of my shaving cream dyed fabric up tomorrow.