So, last night I decided, yes, this really is a low-level bladder infection I'm dealing with, and I called my doctor's office. They're open till 8 PM most nights and I called about 6:30, maybe 7 PM. Got an appointment for 8:30 this morning. Okaaaaaayyyy - I'm used to a quicker response during normal business hours, like come pee in a cup now, yep you have an infection, here's your antibiotic prescription. Particularly since I now have only one functional kidney, courtesy of past doctor-induced "accidents."
But I'm not in pain, I can cope till the morning. So I do.
I show up at the office at 8:30 AM. Five, maybe ten-minute wait to be called into an exam room. Fine. The nurse comes and takes my blood pressure and temperature. Fine.
She gives me the sterile cup and sterile wipes and shows me to a bathroom. A small bathroom, with no sink and no shelf for putting down things like sterile cups. I manage to produce a small amount of the required liquid, getting half of it on my hand in the process and cursing the whole bathroom arrangement as I go. You'll be happy to know there was a sink immediately outside the bathroom. Fine.
I go back to the exam and await events. The doctor comes in somewhat later, apologizes for keeping me waiting - apparently, the server for the electronic records system went down, holding things up. Fine. She takes my history and symptoms, and prods and pounds my back (no pain - yay!) and my bladder (a little discomfort, hmm). Fine. She goes away to await the lab results on the required liquid. I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
The doctor comes back, apologizing again for the server being down, which apparently is holding up all medical progress for 50 yards around.
I wait some more. I read the WebMD magazine and the large-print Readers Digest in the exam room, but I skip the Scholastic Parent and Child magazine. I am thoroughly bored. I wish I had brought my knitting.
The doctor returns, asking if the lab results had been brought. They have not been. She goes off again and returns 10 minutes later with the results, apologizing yet again, as apparently the non-functioning server screwed up communications with the lab. This is not a big hospital we're talking about here; it's a small-town clinic. Whatever. Fine, dammit. (I like this doctor, whom I haven't met before; she looks very sweet and nice, but quite obviously has no tolerance for nonsense like this. Her steely eyes give her away.)
And why, yes, I DO indeed have a bladder infection. Fancy that. The prescription will be called into the local CVS; however, since I am already 90 minutes late for work - yes, that was NINETY minutes I waited around that exam room - and since I know CVS won't get around to filling the prescription immediately, I go to work.
Whereupon I find our computers at work are screwed up and we have no internet access, which means we have no email, and oh, by the way, we can't access most of the drives, either. I think it's all a big conspiracy to get me to file all the papers on my desk, seriously.
But the computers eventually return to their normal semi-functional state and I can finish an email conversation with the guy I'm seeing, who would like to spend all 4 days of Thanksgiving weekend with me, and because I am just a little stressed and weary and worn down and FINE, DAMMIT, I would like two of those days to myself. Alone. Quiet. Me time. We're dating, not living together, dear.
The work day ends and I drive the hour home to my local CVS to pick up the antibiotic before I dash home to grab something to eat before the Planning Board meeting tonight.
The prescription hasn't been filled yet. They just got it from the doctor's office, some - let me count - eight hours after my office visit concluded. I politely say I'll be back at 8:30 PM to pick it up. I go home, gobble dinner, and go to the Planning Board meeting at 7 PM.
It's short and sweet and we're out of there by 7:20 PM. Which means I might as well go home for an hour before I go back to CVS to pick up the prescription. Which means I have plenty of time to vent here to my very dear and patient blog-readers.
FINE.
In other news, we have half a sleeve. If I had taken my knitting to the doctor's, to work, to CVS, I'd have a whole sleeve by now.
And how was your day?
ETA: You guessed it - I should have taken my knitting to CVS this second time, too. Will I never learn?
7 comments :
Crap. Even deep breaths won't help a day like that.
Bring your knitting everywhere. You might burn some extra calories toting it, and it will always be there when you need it.
Or you could stack sheep on your iPhone.
Sorry about your crappy day. I learned the hard way with prescriptions and CVS. MD's think that electronic sending of the prescription is faster. What they don't realize is that there's a lag period before it gets to the pharmacy and then goes into a queue with everyone else's prescription. I *always* ask for a paper prescription that I hand deliver to CVS now and wait a much, much shorter period of time.
My knitting bag is in my car always and I have had to go back out to get it when sh^t like this happens.
Hope your week improves and that your symptoms subside quickly.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Um. What there is of the sleeve is pretty...
I hope your four-day weekend goes well.
And you didn't call me so I could return the favor of you listening to me vent & whine the other day - what's up with that?!
By the way, "FINE" has a clinical definition, at least around our house, courtesy of some Italian cabinet makers Carl worked with during his divorce. "FINE" = Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic & Emotional.
Hope today is better and you get some alone time this holiday! I, too, am planning to attempt some; we'll see how well that goes over.
You earned that rant. I have a history of bladder infections and can't imagine toughing it out that long before starting treatment.
I hope it's doing better now.
Hope those antibiotics are kicking in by now, at least you didn't have terrible pain!
(might have been a good thing that you didn't bring your sleeve to knit after all-might have knit some bad juju into it....heh!)
Wow, how frustrating! I had a gyne who somehow never manage to see me until a good hour-and-a-half after the time I was supposed to be there, so I sympathize.
Hope the antibiotics are working and you're feeling better by now.
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