Anatomy of a Dr's Appointment

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Make a doctor's appointment, confirm, show up, see physician, return home. Cut & dried. Nothing to see here people, move along.

Unless, of course, you happen to be handicapped or the wife of a handicapped patient. The last appointment that was scheduled was on 5/15. It had to be cancelled for transportation issues. I re-scheduled that appointment for 5/27 at 11:15am. I called to make a transportation reservation on the day that I re-scheduled the appointment, which was 5/15. The Medicaid transportation dispatch company requires a 5 day advance notice to schedule the ride.
12 days should be more than enough, right?

Don't make me laugh! I thought we would be set as far as transportation was concerned. I juggled things around so that I could be off the morning of the 27th in order to go with John to his appointment. It's the first time his primary care physician (PCP) has seen him since his hospitalization/rehab stay. Lots of things to talk about. Lots of questions. I wanted the doc to see the ulcer on his left heel. I believe it's infected but I'm no physician.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 0730. I get up trying to be positive. The previous evening I was told the transportation company called and said they had not been able to find my husband transportation for his appointment. WHAT? They've had 12 days I rant to my daughter, who
was the unfortunate soul that delivered that news. I couldn't believe it. I called them and was told, "that's correct, Mrs. Frxxxxxx, we haven't been able to find him transportation." How, I asked the idiot, I mean person on the other end of the phone line, can you not find him transportation in 12 days? If you can't find him a ride with 12 days notice how in the world can you do it in 5? "I don't know" is the answer I get! "We're still looking though." Ooooookkkkkaaaaaayyyyy. Like you're going to be able to find a ride with less than 24 hours to go.
I tried to be positive like I said before. But things were not looking good. I called the transportation company at 0800 to see if anything had developed overnight. "No, we're still looking. We'll call you when we find someone." Yeah...ok...right. I start to immediately search for alternative ways to get him there. I won't allow him to miss this appointment. His foot needs to be looked at. I ran into brick walls at every turn. It's $159/day to rent a handicapped accessible van. I've yet to apply for the Handi ride that's a part of the public transportation system here, so that's out. I desperately search the Internet for anything that can help. Nothing. My husband's aide comes in and says, "why don't you just take the regular bus?". HUH? I say. He can't get on a regular bus. She proceeds to tell me that all of the buses are wheelchair accessible. I say. WOW, I had no idea. Immediately we go to the website for the local bus provider. We "attempt" to read the schedule. I didn't not know that a master's degree was needed for trying to read a friggen bus schedule. Apparently, there is. Needless to say, we chose the wrong bus. Got off at the transfer station and walked to this doctor's office from there. That's about a 2 mile walk. We reach the office at 12:30pm. Notice that's an hour and 15 minutes after his appointment time. We walked because the nice, little bus driver told us we could get there quicker by transferring to another bus (the #2 she said). She told us this after she told us that we should have taken the bus that stopped on the other side of the street from where we were. I had just about had it by then. I paid $8.50 for all day passes for both us, the bus took us about 3 blocks to the transfer station.

The doctor did see us. He spent a total of about 5-10 minutes with us. Lucky us! He closes early on Wednesdays. We barely made it! Whew! He didn't look at his foot nor did he listen to his chest. He did call his name and John looked up at him like he was crazy. Gave me a prescription for a broad spectrum antibiotic because "his foot is probably infected". He determined this because I said it looked "gross and had an odor". He also told me to tell the home health people to call him while she was here on the following Friday and to culture the wound. We made a return appointment for 6/29 and off we went. I ate lunch at the little cafe' in the building and then we headed out. We walked home, correction, I walked, my husband rode in his electric wheelchair. The distance was 2.6 miles. The chair almost ran out of juice. We ended up in some places that I didn't know existed in this city. Why you ask? Because not all of the sidewalks in this city have ramps for wheelchairs, so at times we were forced to double back and walk on the road.

I didn't plan to take the whole day off but I couldn't go into work after that fiasco. We got back home around 3:00pm. My feet, legs, back and arms were hurting. My husband was sleeping. I drank copious amounts of water and collapsed on the sofa.

I phoned the transportation company the next day to inquire about what really happened with my husband's transportation. It was explained that they had booked him a ride and that company cancelled the day before the appointment. They are allowed to cancel up to 24 hours prior to the appointment. That explains why the transportation company didn't call until Tuesday. The supervisor advised me that I should always schedule him as a stretcher transport because there's a whole new set of rules for stretcher transports. So stretcher it is. Vive la stretcher!

Just another day in the life of a caretaker and their charge.