Hope everyone is doing OK after the “storm”. It wasn’t bad here in Queens, but I know it was worse further out East. I was trapped inside the apartment for a few days, literally. I know there was a ban on public transportation and being out on the roads, but I couldn’t step foot outside of the apartment. Technically, I could…but if I didn’t want to risk falling on my ass the second I stepped on the snow, then it was best to just stay indoors until some of the snow melted away. Aside from slipping and falling on my ass because I can’t feel the ground, I can’t ‘march” in the snow (the way you walk when the snow is higher than your ankles), so I sort of shuffle through the snow…which is kind of a pain…at least when my shoes get soaking wet, I don’t feel the wetness or the cold…. Hopefully, it won’t be too bad this year…
Ok…so I’ve been trying to schedule this surgery and it’s becoming increasingly frustrating as I’ve made no progress and haven’t been given any information. This is not good for me. I need to know what’s going on. I need updates. I’m in the dark and I don’t know what’s happening. It’s killing me. I’m a control freak and the fact that I can’t do anything to speed this up or not getting my emails or phone calls returned is stressing me out!!! AHHHH. In my last email correspondence with the doc, he CC’ed his secretary and surgical coordinator, and said, “ok lets book her at HSS” (Hospital for Special Surgery). I then replied to the surgical coordinator with my phone # so that she could give me a call and we could discuss the next steps. I’ve never had any surgery prior to my accident so I didn’t know what would be involved in scheduling one’s own surgery or the protocol. Like I said in previous posts, I’m just used to a doctor coming into my hospital room and telling me when we’re having surgery and then being wheeled into the OR a few days later. Ok, so I emailed her and didn’t get a call. Two days later, I called and left her a voicemail. She called me back three days after I sent that email. I explained to her that I’d never scheduled surgery before and didn’t know the process, blah blah blah, so I just wanted to be in the loop. She told me that she was waiting on the doc to give her the procedure code and then she would call up the insurance company and speak to them. This doc isn’t an in network doc so she needed to call them up in order to get pre-authorization and then find out what they would cover and what I need to cover…blah blah blah. Basically, $$$. I realize three days isn’t that long to wait for a return call…but it was for me!!…control freak, remember?.. I think this was a Wednesday and she said hopefully she’d have some info by Friday. Naturally, when Friday afternoon came around I called her…got the machine. This was last Friday, I believe. So, this past Tuesday I called to follow up. Machine…again. I left a voicemail just asking for the latest update, if there was one. Thursday rolls around and nothing. I call back. Machine…Aaaagain. I send an email asking for an update and that I’d really like to get the surgery on the books and that if there’s anything I can do on my end to please let me know. Now it’s today, Friday…no email response or call back. I know everyone is busy, but if you sit in front of the computer all day…it takes 2 minutes to email me back!! Just saying! So, I call. I get the machine…yet again…staying that she’s out of the office. I think this was the 2nd or 3rd time this week she was out of the office. Hopefully, everything is ok..otherwise I look like a big asshole here. But if there was something going on that caused her to be out of the office, you’d think someone would be covering…no? When I spoke to her in that first phone call and asked her what she thought would be a likely time frame for the surgery she said that they were booking for March now. Ok…so here’s my concern. This was over a week and a half ago and she told me March. We are now at the end of January and I don’t want March to become April. I know that without getting the authorization from insurance and all that other necessary info, she can’t actually schedule me (so annoying), but I’m worried that because all this paperwork stuff is taking so long, my potential March time frame will get pushed to April. I’m not in a rush to get into an OR again, by any means, but if the surgery is going to put me out of commission for a few weeks then I’d rather get it out of the way ASAP. Also, if this surgery is going to potentially help me walk better, the sooner the better! Am I being overly persistent here? Have I gone into stalker mode too quickly? Do I need to tone it down and take a breath?…OR do I need to call and email more and kick the stalker mode into high gear?!?!?