Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Frustration Leads to Anger

i'm so frustrated and angry over my experience with the doctor on call i saw at my clinic as well as the treatment i received at the Beth Israel Deaconess ER. i keep busting out in tears because i'm beyond my wits with frustration and anger.

i got a call from the doctor i saw at the clinic last night at 6pm. he said that the ER never sent them the X-rays, so he can't tell me what they say. but the ER told me that he saw them and there was nothing to report. do you know how angry that makes me? they didn't take me in to get the xray till 3am, and then they lied to me and said my doctor said i could go because there was nothing on them.

also, the ER didn't send him the results of my urinalysis, saying that it didn't come back by the time i was discharged. but the doctor on call at the ER told me "your urine is clear. it's fine". so which is it? were the results back by 3:30am or not? do i have a urinary tract/bladder infection or not?

and to add insult to injury, the doctor i saw at the clinic who diagnosed this OMG!BAD! UTI called me at 1:56 this afternoon to say that he was going to fax a prescription for antibiotics right away to my local pharmacy and that i'd have it "in an hour or two." so i go all the way there, only to find out that he never called it in! now, keep in mind, this is over two and a half hours later - well past the "hour or two" he promised. what's frustrating about that is that he's freaking me out, telling me that i have to start on this antibiotic right away to clear up any infection i have, yet he hasn't taken the time to actually CALL IT IN! of course, it's past business hours now, so god knows when i'm going to see that prescription.

now i'm not fooling myself. i know i'm not his only patient. i know that i was not the ER's only patient. i know that the pharmacy is not there to serve me. but don't freak me out claiming that i need to get myself to the ER because there might be something seriously wrong, only for me to get there and all they do in the course of 5 hours is take some blood, have me pee in a cup, and then take an x-ray or two, all while telling me NOTHING. don't freak me out telling me i have to get this antibiotic in my system ASAP and then not deliver. don't tell me that i have to follow up when i don't even know what's wrong with me!

i've been relatively healthy for the past year. i've seen my doctor for minor things, like when i stepped on the nail, when i had a sinus/ear/throat infection, and when i had a chest cold. i keep thinking that i should have gone with my instincts and just walked home to sleep the pain away instead of going to the clinic. if i had just done that and then made an appointment to see my regular doctor today, i could have avoided all of this frustration and anger. it's a total waste of time and money for not only me, but all parties involved.

2 comments:

Clurg said...

This makes no sense. It sounds horrible to deal with. Good luck and I hope nothing is seriously wrong. With you anyway, there's obviously something wrong with the health care professionals you're dealing with.

Honey Bunny said...

well, come to find out, i have some serious bacterial infection in my stomach and intestines. but the irony? the jackass doctor called the SECOND ROUND of prescriptions into THE WRONG PHARMACY.

seriously, i'm at my wits end. now i have to wait till tonight to have the wrong pharmacy transfer the Rx to the correct one by my house.

if this was life threatening, i would be dead by now.