Rants with Alice

You know how I said I was going to return to the horoscopes on Friday?  Yeah, I lied.  See, my physic abilities have taken a hiatus, and I’m not sure when they’ll be back.  What I do have in abundance, though, is lots of AliceRage.  So I thought we could do a nice Friday special about this.  I call it “Rants with Alice”.

I was going for the Bob Ross look.

Today’s rant is about: Doctor’s Offices.

Now I spoke of adventures in the doctor’s office before in another post, but this one is different because this is like the 18th doctor’s visit I’ve had since contracting Lung Crapola (the saga continues!), so by now I’m just pissed before I even walk in the door.  This is my second follow-up appointment, since it was determined at the last appointment that I was still sick and I got another week off. 

My rage begins when I first get to the counter and meet the receptionists.  What’s fun is the way they pretend they don’t see you.  Their motto is “don’t make eye contact”.  They will look off absolutely anywhere but straight in front of them.  It’s like two-year-olds when they close their eyes and think they’ve disappeared.  I want to say “I can still fucking see you.” 

So I get through the receptaraptors, and now I get to wait on the doctor.  And wait.  And wait.  I have no idea why they even schedule appointments, since the doctors are never on time.  But the waiting is not so bad, because besides the T.V. (Fox News!  Yes!) there’s always good reading material available, covered in lots of patient germs.  Stuff like fishing magazines and Highlights for Children from 1985.  Don’t you just love that Goofus and Gallant?  If I were Goofus, I would have offed Gallant a long time ago.  You know he wants to do it.  No one is that freaking annoying and perfect and gets to live long. 

I’m hoping Goofus runs into Gallant with the scissors up.

Finally I get in and go through the motions, and then I usually see the doctor, but this time I am so lucky and get a blond doctor student.  I have nothing against blonds, it’s just that I never bothered to read her name tag, so I’m just calling her blond student which beats what I want to call her, which is really not printable. 

Blond student is way too fucking chipper to be in a doctor’s office.  I ask for meds to help me sleep temporarily.  She is so amused that I sleep so much during the day (because I’m exhausted from no sleep at night).  “There’s your problem!” she says.  “You just need to stay awake during the day!”  Brilliant. I never fucking thought of that. 

She examines me by listening to my lungs and checking my oxygen levels.  “You sound great!” she happily exclaims.  I inform her that I sounded “great!” when I my entire right lung was coated with fucking pneumonia.  She gives me this “I’m going to humor this hypochondriac” look I just adore.  She asks me how I’m feeling (fabulous, bitch) essentially asking for what I just told the nurse a while ago.  I am forced to defend being sick, despite there being oh you know FREAKING XRAYS showing I was sick.  Nope, nope, clearly I have Munchausen’s.  If so, then put me in the damn loony bin and write me a note for work.  At least I’ll get some rest there, and I hear the Jello is excellent.

I go wait for an Xray, because it has been an entire week since I’ve last been exposed to radiation.  When I’m done, I get to wait some more!  Blond student comes back.  Shit.  She yammers at me some more, but I just watch her stupid lips move and her head tilt back and forth and I realize she reminds me of that Janis puppet from the Muppets.  I repeat everything I repeated already, again, and real doctor shows up!  She grins and informs him that I sleep like four hours a day!  Isn’t that fucking funny?  Look, bitch, I’m still sitting right here in front of you.  By the way, I hate you.

 

Fur Suuuure, Blond Student!

Real doctor tells me that hey, I can take Tylenol PM, when stupid blond student said I couldn’t take anything.  Bite me, blond student.  For the 80th time I tell someone, this time the doctor, about how I have tons of fucking paperwork to fill out in order to qualify for sick leave that will not kick in until a week after my regular leave runs out, which means there will be at least a week of me not being paid (hooray!) provided they fill out the forms right and then payroll does what they’re supposed to do and I really think that’s way too much to expect.  I’m so not getting paid this month.

I am allowed the rest of the week off, which has so far allowed me to A) take care of sick child B) run around in circles trying to get this damn paperwork completed and C) have several mini mental breakdowns.  So it’s going super well.  Next week I go back to work half days, and this should be interesting since it’s been so long since I’ve been there I’ve almost forgotten what the hell I do.  I can hardly wait.  End Rant.

21 responses

  1. I feel you…believe me, I feel you. We are sisters in rage.

    1. I hope you find a new doctor and staff soon that are competent and your former doctor and nurse get tonsils the size of tennis balls. It’s karma.

  2. Although I am so sorry you had this experience, it did make a very funny blog entry 🙂 Hope you are feeling better soon!

    1. Thanks. I’m doing better but Thing Two has had a rough time. That’s because we also got an incompetent pharamacist (that told us to give her too little medicine). Morons. The saga continues.

  3. Alice I feel your pain. The UK docs are just as competent at making their patients sicker as their US counterparts. I’ll share the article I wrote after offspring’s tonsillectomy.
    Hugs to you for the shittiness but you are still stupendously funny.

    1. Thanks. I think Speaker would enjoy it as well. I quit going to our pediatrician because of their staff – and their damn phone tree. Press one for this, press two for . . . . skj;akjkji8ei;akd.

  4. Alice,
    These rants should make regular appearances on your blog… Just sayin’… Now I am not suggesting you visit a doctor weekly for inspiration. But.
    Le Clown

    1. I’ve actually been to that fucking clinic three times this week (2 for Thing two based on pharmaceutical incompetence) and one for me. I should just freaking work there. Except I’d hate it.

    2. Come to think of it, my experience w/ that would make a great article for Black Box Warnings. It was unreal. And I think the rants will make regular appearances as long as I keep having to live among people.

  5. I have a theory- love the doctor, hate the staff and vice versa…

    1. Amen, sister. My doc and especially my nurse are fabulous. I just can’t freaking get to them.

  6. Hearing these stories makes me miss Germany the most. I’m NOT going to tell you how that would be different, though, you seem miserable enough right now.
    Get well soon : /

    1. Is that one of those awful countries with socialized medicine so like people actually get health insurance and whack stuff like that?

  7. I am so sorry. But you are, as always, hilarious!

    1. Your words make my lungs cough with joy. 😀

  8. It could be worse. In addition to the idiot staff blocking the way to the good/liked doctor and NP here, I have to deal with the reality of an urban practice. That is, everything is not all done conveniently in the clinic. You have to drive to the chain lab to get your blood drawn, and to the radiology place to get an xray. It’s not all under one roof.
    I hope you get through the bureaucratic obstacle course okay. Do try and rest at some point!

  9. I find that my best impression of an angry pterodactyl generally gets the ball rolling with medical students. Last one almost needed a doctor herself…good times.

  10. Medical students are scary, because they generally haven’t a clue about how much stuff they actually do not know. Thank goodness you did get to a proper doctor eventually.

    1. Yeah. Good for her too. I was about to pop her one.

      1. That would not have been beneficial to all concerned… For some reason they don’t like patients hitting the staff, even when the staff are really annoying idiots.

        1. Yeah, I might have hurt my hand.

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