A month ago, both my primary care provider (PCP) and my gynecology surgeon sent referrals to the hospital's gastroenterology department so I could get specialized care for NAFLD (and to see how much the disease has progressed and whether my liver has permanent damage).
A few days after the referrals, I sent a message via my online medical chart to gastro asking whether I needed to call to make an appointment or they'd call me. I received a snippy response saying they weren't doing anything until "the referral is accepted by the liver nurse."
And then nothing. My reaction was to assume that I was not being accepted. That for whatever reason, they rejected me and my fatsolivero. The only thing worse than hearing "Lose weight. Exercise" is hearing absolutely nothing. Crickets. Dead silence.
Last Thursday, I saw my PCP for an annual physical. When I told her the gastro office hadn't contacted me, she looked shocked and annoyed. "You have TWO referrals. Call them back. Today. There's absolutely no reason it should take this long." She loudly typed a message into my electronic chart. Or TO someone FROM the chart.
Within a few hours, I received a call from scheduling letting me know that the GI Hepatology clinic has an opening. On Monday. That's in three days. Either they're highly embarrassed that they had dropped the ball. Or they took one look at my scan and realized I'm dying. I'm pretty sure it's the first scenario. I hope.
My physical seemed a little discombobulated. We weren't sure I needed a Pap test anymore, since some of my ladybits are gone, so that didn't happen until I can ask the gyno. We talked a lot about my liver and lipids and what I did during January to change my life. She didn't do much of an exam, other than looking in my throat and ears and making sure my ticker was thump-thumping (or, guh-gung-ing, as Patrick Swayze described in Dirty Dancing). All seemed fine. She praised my textbook blood pressure. She ensured me that I was doing all the right things. She ordered a mammogram and more blood work. And told me to see her in a year.
"Or sooner. Any time you want. I'm here."
No offense. But I never want to see her.
I'm hanging on to her insistence that I'm doing all the right things. But I'm still apprehensive about Monday's appointment. More information is always preferred over waiting and wondering and speculating and assuming and ruminating and imagining all the horrible ways it could go.
Soon we'll be able to ditch the what ifs, examine the facts, and as needed, adjust all those right things I'm doing.
Photo by Online Marketing on Unsplash
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