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May. 5th, 2011 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichI just got back from what will become a routine office visit at my oncologist's - you know, blood tests and all of that.
The experience brought me to tears. And when I got home, I fired off an email to him with suggestions for a patient 'visit fact sheet' that would help first-time folks know what to expect, what to avoid, and what to do - because being chewed out three times by three different people for making mistakes during a visit is NOT the way to deal with a patient who is already (probably) overwhelmed by their illness.
Skip the below stuff unless you need a laugh... it was truly a 'Terri is stupid" kind of day.
For instance - the main hallway to the labyrith of office halls has two doors facing each other on each side at the end, with a set of chairs outside each door. After getting my name called along with a couple of other people and wonderingly trailing behind them and the tech, I watched them go into the lab room, or rather, the blood-drawing room, and sit down in the two available chairs. So I sat in one of the chairs in the hallway to wait my turn. Uh, no. I was scathingly corrected by the lab tech, who couldn't believe that I had not followed her into the room. Then told that 'food and drink are not allowed in here' with a dismissive sniff, which would have been nice to know before I brought my (closed-lidded) bottle of soda in with me.
So I get my blood drawn and get told that I'll need to make an appointment for the next draw. Okay. I go down to the main desk and wait. Then get informed by a bewildered attendant that I was at the wrong desk and need to go to 'scheduling'. She goes back to her work. I interrupt her - "Where," I ask, "is 'scheduling' located?" Just down the hall... in fact, it is the door opposite the lab. So down I go. There's a few people sitting in chairs in the hall and a woman has just left the scheduling desk. So I walk in. OH NOES! Error, Will Robinson! Error! Those folks in chairs in the hall? That's the waiting line for the scheduler. As I was informed by a highly incensed old man who acknowledged that he'd heard me say that this was my first visit and I didn't know what to do - but whoa nelly, I surely needed to be chewed like a raw recruit anyway.
The scheduler tells me that I should know if I need another appointment "after you go into the back". "Eh?" I ask. Oh - after each blood draw, one is supposed to return to the waiting room to be called by another tech and taken down to the treatment center, where one's temp will be taken and a nurse will go over one's lab results with one. And that is when it is determined if you should return for a doctor's visit or how soon you should come back for more tests.
Good to know. I'm glad the scheduler took pity on me and told me that last bit, else I would have been headed home to bed (I'm not feeling my best) unaware that I would have been shirking my patient's duty. As it is, I did see a nurse and my numbers are fine. And before I saw her but after I was taken to the treatment center, I met a sweet young girl who overheard my phone conversation with Arni (I don't know if that was allowed or not), and she told me that she'd had the same problems when she started coming in for her therapy. That was reassuring.
And then I came home and sent the email to my doctor. Because, really - no one who is fighting a terrifying disease derserves to be treated like a moron just because they haven't intuitively grasped the routines of an office they've never been in before.
Or so I say.
[insert indignant *sniff* here]
The experience brought me to tears. And when I got home, I fired off an email to him with suggestions for a patient 'visit fact sheet' that would help first-time folks know what to expect, what to avoid, and what to do - because being chewed out three times by three different people for making mistakes during a visit is NOT the way to deal with a patient who is already (probably) overwhelmed by their illness.
Skip the below stuff unless you need a laugh... it was truly a 'Terri is stupid" kind of day.
For instance - the main hallway to the labyrith of office halls has two doors facing each other on each side at the end, with a set of chairs outside each door. After getting my name called along with a couple of other people and wonderingly trailing behind them and the tech, I watched them go into the lab room, or rather, the blood-drawing room, and sit down in the two available chairs. So I sat in one of the chairs in the hallway to wait my turn. Uh, no. I was scathingly corrected by the lab tech, who couldn't believe that I had not followed her into the room. Then told that 'food and drink are not allowed in here' with a dismissive sniff, which would have been nice to know before I brought my (closed-lidded) bottle of soda in with me.
So I get my blood drawn and get told that I'll need to make an appointment for the next draw. Okay. I go down to the main desk and wait. Then get informed by a bewildered attendant that I was at the wrong desk and need to go to 'scheduling'. She goes back to her work. I interrupt her - "Where," I ask, "is 'scheduling' located?" Just down the hall... in fact, it is the door opposite the lab. So down I go. There's a few people sitting in chairs in the hall and a woman has just left the scheduling desk. So I walk in. OH NOES! Error, Will Robinson! Error! Those folks in chairs in the hall? That's the waiting line for the scheduler. As I was informed by a highly incensed old man who acknowledged that he'd heard me say that this was my first visit and I didn't know what to do - but whoa nelly, I surely needed to be chewed like a raw recruit anyway.
The scheduler tells me that I should know if I need another appointment "after you go into the back". "Eh?" I ask. Oh - after each blood draw, one is supposed to return to the waiting room to be called by another tech and taken down to the treatment center, where one's temp will be taken and a nurse will go over one's lab results with one. And that is when it is determined if you should return for a doctor's visit or how soon you should come back for more tests.
Good to know. I'm glad the scheduler took pity on me and told me that last bit, else I would have been headed home to bed (I'm not feeling my best) unaware that I would have been shirking my patient's duty. As it is, I did see a nurse and my numbers are fine. And before I saw her but after I was taken to the treatment center, I met a sweet young girl who overheard my phone conversation with Arni (I don't know if that was allowed or not), and she told me that she'd had the same problems when she started coming in for her therapy. That was reassuring.
And then I came home and sent the email to my doctor. Because, really - no one who is fighting a terrifying disease derserves to be treated like a moron just because they haven't intuitively grasped the routines of an office they've never been in before.
Or so I say.
[insert indignant *sniff* here]
