Gotta go gotta go gotta go right now

I am blessed and cursed to have my daughter’s care handled by a top-notch medical center that is located about ½ mile from my house. Blessed, because that is what she needs and it is in my back yard. Cursed because it is an enormous place, big enough that it actually has its own zip code (true!), and it has thousands of employees who apparently never speak to one another.

Once again, I have been waiting for the doctor’s ok to renew a prescription. We have been waiting for days. This is for a drug that Maggie has been on for at least seven years and will be on for the rest of her life. However, I cannot get them to renew the Rx without weeklong delays and numerous phone calls. Arrgh. Apparently if there is any sort of issue, they just ignore the request for a refill.

When I finally reached them last month, I was told that Maggie was overdue to see them to have the tests to confirm that the condition she has had since birth (14.5 years ago) is in fact permanent. Ok. Let’s overlook how ridiculous that is for a moment. It is also untrue.

She just had the test done a few months ago when she was hospitalized and saw this doctor then. Oh, that doesn’t count, we have to do it outpatient. Um…why? Because we don’t have those records. Um… why? It’s the same medical center, it’s about 50 feet from your office. Well, we need it in our files as well. Um…why, oh never mind. Let me just made the appointment.

And I did. Or I tried. That woman did not make the appointments. It took about six more phone calls to get the right person. In addition, her voice mail was full for several days. I finally got through and the appointment is next Thursday. Only we ran out of medication yesterday. I ordered the refill last week. Now we are in the same game as last month. Only this time I will skip all the conversation and just get to the point. We are coming in next Thursday. Just give us enough to last until then.

You should know, this is not a narcotic. It is for her neurogenic bladder. There’s not exactly a hot black market call for this drug. At least not to my knowledge. I’m not sure I want to know if there are folks ready to deal on street corners for meds to calm the pressures in bladders.

I do know I would not want to hang out on such a corner unless there was a bathroom very close by.