Reby's Weight Loss and Breast Cancer Journey: Crazy doctor visit yesterday

I promise that I WILL get to putting up more pictures of Emily and Lowell's visit this blog, but I have to describe yesterday's doctor visit.

So many things were just wrong.

We have left our previous doctor and her office because she moved to Tampa. A new family physician was highly recommended by a friend in Solivita, a friend in the Cove, and the nurse in my Med Onc's office. We officially changed earlier this year, and Mark actually saw her back in May about his headaches. She seemed okay and sent him for a head CT scan, which was negative.

All fine so far.

While we there in May, I went ahead and filled out the five pages of paperwork including my lengthy list of surgeries. They also copied my insurance cards and driver's license. We filled out papers for them to have our records from the old place sent over.

A few days later in May they called and said the records were sent over but in a CD. They can't read a CD. So I had to go pick up the CD and try to print out the records. They are all on paper files at that office. Oh, yay. Stepping back into the '80s.

So none of that was off-putting, even though their parking lot was packed both times in May and we had to park on street parking two blocks away.

OK, that's not a bad walk, but there was no one in the office to account for the huge parking lot being filled. When I picked up the CDs, I asked about it. She said people use their lot to go to doctor's offices in other nearby buildings. Hm...so apparently, I can park in those doctor's office lots and not worry. Weird, but not terrible yet.

Now for yesterday.

My first appointment, a sort of welcome visit and physical, was scheduled for 9:30 and Mark's was for 10:30.

Here's how it all went wrong.

1. When we arrived, we were informed the doctor was not in, and we should have received a call to reschedule. We did not receive that call. WHY? Who didn't do their job?

2. They had no record of my paperwork. They had not made a file and lost all of that. I had to sit there and fill all the papers out AGAIN and they took pictures of my insurance cards and driver's licenses, again. WHY? Sloppy office.

3. We NEED prescription refills because we are leaving on the three week trip come Monday and we do not have enough. I was OUTRAGED because I had called their prescription refill line TWICE on June 16 (time enough to have gotten them from my mail order service) and then again a week ago when I realized they had never called back nor sent the prescription in and now I was taking the last Lipitor. I called and said I need a prescription TODAY (last Thursday) at CVS so I can go get it. I WAS IGNORED. No prescription, been off Lipitor six days at that point. So I told the office manager all of that. She apologized profusely for not calling me back and said she could get us both in to see a nurse practitioner just to get prescriptions sent to CVS for me and Publix for Mark today. I was so IRATE at that point that it took me awhile to stop fussing at them. WHY didn't I get a call back? Somebody is NOT doing their job there.

4. Mark tried to print out the CD records, but the old office had password protected it and did not give us the password. He did find out it was SEVEN HUNDRED pages long. I'm sure they don't want that in their files. So we will have no records at this place. We might try to get the password, but really we probably will never get around to it.

Once we went in with the nurse practitioner, we both liked her. She did what we needed and we got prescriptions. I picked mine up at CVS last night on my way to the choir rehearsal. Still, I was so frustrated! We have now made appointments for the end of October to see the doctor for that physical. It will then be a full year since we have seen a family physician or had blood work done. That has not happened to us since we moved to Florida. We also got blood work papers, although we were in the car about to drive away when we realized they had not handed the papers to us when we made the appointments. We had to get out of the car and go back in and ask for them. They apologized profusely again. They are apparently really good at apologizing after screwing up. We should have asked for them ourselves, but seriously, WHY? Every other doctor's office has them ready at check out to hand to you.

Enough ranting. Today we have a great day planned. We are going to our NARFE meeting and then off to Disney's Hollywood Studios for a concert of Pixar music my members of the Orlando Symphony orchestra and then a new fireworks show. Going to be a long, hot day but it should be less frustrating than yesterday.

We had a great Fourth of July, but I ate WAY too much Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm up four pounds in two days. UGH. Depressing.

So now for the pictures I promised you. After Epcot on that Monday we went to Animal Kingdom on Tuesday with Lowell and Emily. We had fast passes for the new rides in Pandora. The new land is beautiful and so is the new Rivers of Light show at night. We were there from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Long day including a hard downpour which made us a bit soggy for many hours. Our shoes took two days to dry out!