My primary care doctor has been on my case to see a cardiologist. She sent me to one practice, who we’ll call “Austin Heart”. I fired them after my first visit. This time she sent me over to a practice we’ll call The Grace L. Ferguson Heart (And Storm Door Co.)
I go in last week. They interview me, do an EKG. Some minor abnormalities on the EKG, but “nothing that really causes us concern”. Still, given my age and other factors, they want to do some tests “just to establish a baseline”. “Fine,” I say, “let’s get those scheduled and get them all knocked out in one day so I can minimize the amount of time I have to take off work.”
So they schedule a nuclear stress test, an echocardiogram, and a PADNET test (for peripheral artery disease) for this morning. Except for some reason they can’t schedule the PADNET test; I have to call The Hospital and schedule it myself. I figure this is going to be just a half-day thing, right? So I schedule only a half-day off work, and spend Monday night and all day Tuesday off coffee, soda, chocolate (not that I eat a lot of that anyway), tea, and anything else with caffeine in it.
Show up this morning. Somehow, the camera for the nuclear stress test had gone down over night, and they weren’t sure it was going to come back up. It takes time for “the heads” to come up to operating temperature.
Fine, we can still knock out the echo and the PADNET, and maybe the camera will come back up. So we do the echo, they call over to The Hospital and move my appointment up, I walk over to The Hospital and check in there.
The Hospital is out-of-network (OK, fine) and I haven’t met my $500 deductible for the year, so they want $500 RIGHT NOW for the test. “How much does this test cost?” <clerk calls manager> “Between $400 and $500.” Fine. Pay the $500. This test basically consists of one guy and 30 minutes of his time, mostly putting on and removing blood pressure cuffs from my arms and legs, and working the machine that actually pumps up the cuffs and takes the readings. You can’t tell me this is a $500 per person machine.
(But, as a side note, The Hospital is VERY NICE. If you’re going to go to a hospital, this is the one you want to go to. It even has a cafe I’d actually be willing to eat in, although part of that may have been that I hadn’t had anything to eat except some Pringles in the morning, and no coffee, soda, or tea.)
So I go back upstairs to Grace after they run that test. They tell me Dr. X (not THE Dr. X) will be in to see me in a few minutes. Then they come back and say, “Oh, the camera’s up, we can do the test now.” So the Nuclear Camera Guy rounds me and the four other people who were also scheduled for camera time up and takes us back down to The Hospital’s nuclear lab. Lucky me, I get to go first, since I had the earliest scheduled appointment. It only takes him two tries to get an IV into me (the second try he stuck the back of my left hand, so I now have a nice little puckered place there). Then I get to spend a half-hour in the imaging camera, which is about as roomy as an MRI machine when working (but without the magnetic fields, which is a good thing, since I had a pocket full of metal). Then they take me out and tell me they’ll come get me in a hour and a half (1:30 PM) for round two.
Of course, I’m supposed to be at work at 1, so I had to call my boss, tell him it looks like this is going to be an all-day affair, get the number to call and change my schedule from him, call and change my half-day to a full-day, wait around, spend another half-hour in the camera, go back upstairs to Grace; by now it’s 1:45 PM or so.
(Of course, since all the tests are done, I stop by The Cafe in The Hospital and tell the woman behind the counter I want an extra-large coffee. If I had been thinking about it, I would have told Nuclear Camera Guy to leave the IV line in, and just had the girl behind the counter inject that extra large coffee straight into the vein.)
“Did you need something else?” “Well, I thought Dr. X wanted to see me after the tests.” “Let me check.” <comes back> “You didn’t see him already?” “No, he was going to see me, but then the camera came back up, and we went down to that.” <wait> Very nice nurse comes out and explains politely that it’s going to take some time for him to look over the results (which I expected), he’ll call me, and I can go ahead and leave.
Leave. Five minutes down the road, cell phone rings. “How far away are you? Can you come back? Dr. X wants to see you.” “I can come back. I’ll come back. I WANT TO GET EVERYTHING TAKEN CARE OF TODAY.” (By this time, I have probably used the phrase “I WANT TO GET EVERYTHING TAKEN CARE OF TODAY.” with the capitalization, at least a half-dozen times to everyone in the office.) “Let me check.” She puts me on hold. Meanwhile, I’m hanging a U turn and heading back. By the time she gets back on the phone, I’m pulling into their driveway. “Can you come back on Friday?” ” I WANT TO GET EVERYTHING TAKEN CARE OF TODAY. If I have to wait, that’s okay.” “Well, Dr. X left for the day (at 2 PM; ah, the exciting life of a cardiologist) and he won’t be back. Can you come in on Friday?” “Okay, fine, if we do it early.”
So now I have to take more time off work so I can go in at 8:30 AM on Friday, which is going to look real good. Plus, it isn’t like I have unlimited time off work.
The thing that really aggravates me is that everyone was so nice and apologetic about the problems with the camera and all the waiting around. Camera Guy kept apologizing to me, and even offered to buy me a Coke if I wanted one (which I didn’t, plus I didn’t think I was supposed to have caffeinated sodas until after the tests were over). I’m very happy with Grace, and with Dr. X, so far, but this was just one of those days.
At least I finished What the Dog Saw
Edited to add: And, since the whole point of the nuclear stress test was to get imaging of my heart: when I see Dr. X on Friday, I plan to ask him if I can order some color glossy prints, perhaps 8″ x 10″s. If I can, I’ll scan them (copyright permitting) and post them here.
Believe me, it could have been worse.