Thumbing a ride...

Hitch hiking is against the law in most states. But at times I wish that wasn't the case. Today would be one of those times.

I got a call from my husband's caretaker today at around noon. She says to me, "they just picked him up for dialysis." What? That can't be. They're scheduled to pick him up at 10am. She says, "yep, they just picked him up like 5 minutes ago." Wow, I say. What happened, why are they so late?

It turns out that these particular drivers can't be in 2 places at once. Really? Then you're not trying hard enough is what I want to tell them so badly when they say that tired, old excuse. They just came on at 10am and they had a patient scheduled for pickup at 10:15am on the other side of town (amazing how that always happens). So who determines who gets picked up first? Is there some evil dispatcher sitting around in his or her underwear in front of their home computer randomly deciding who gets precedence? Apparently so. My husband is usually the rider that takes low priority. He's always the one that gets passed up for the person that lives "on the other side of town".

So what affect does a 2 hour late ride to dialysis mean? It means that my husband's treatment for today was shortened by 1.5 hours. Instead of getting his 4.5 hours of dialysis, he got 3 hours. Does that have a detrimental effect? Maybe or maybe not. It's hard to tell. But it sure throws everything out of whack. The dialysis centers are often run like a well oiled machine. Everything depends on the thing before. The center opens it's doors for the day and if their first patient is 30 minutes late, that could have a domino effect on the rest of the patients for that day. So the centers make executive decisions and someone always gets short changed. You can't really blame them, they have numerous people in need of this treatment and have to serve the greatest number they can. It's the transportation companies that bear this shame.

I called the dialysis center's social worker and complained and she will try to find a replacement company. Hopefully, the new company will have a slot for my husband and we can move on. Somehow I don't think it will go smoothly. Nothing ever does when you're in mine and my husband's shoes.

Perhaps hitch hiking would avoid all of this and he could get his 4.5 hours of lifesaving treatment. It would save the state a nice chunk of change.