IT TURNS OUT I AM NOT HAVING SURGERY TODAY - SURPRISE SURPRISE (ADDENDUM)
So, I was on a liquid diet yesterday and fasted last night and took a deep scrubbing shower with anti-bacterial soap and got up at 0530 and got everything set for the kitties to spend a night without Dad, and my friend came by at 0700 and we spent an hour (!) going the 12 miles from here through the most congested freeway interchange on the planet (US101/I-405) and crawled through traffic to get to the West LA VA hospital, and I was there on time, and all seemed well…
Until the young doctor who called my name took me into his office and proceeded to start doing a consult on what treatment I wanted.
WTAF???!!!!!
Oh, Mr. Cleaver, the machine to do the operation you’ve told us you want isn’t back yet (Because with the shutdown they can’t pay for the repairs! Or that’s the story now.). We notified you this meeting would be a consult. We are working on doing an alternative so you can receive treatment privately.
I reply, “The last conversation I had with anyone there was early September, when I canceled the appointment set for September 8 - because the machine was broken - at which time I was told the machine would be back in November and I got this appointment for November 4.”
“Oh, no, nobody set you a new appointment. It’s not in the record at all.”
WTAF??!!! Doctor, I may be the age I am, but I am not some old guy who can’t keep track of things. I damn well know the difference between setting an appointment for a consult and an a surgery appointment!”
The end result is I walked out no longer in need of coffee to wake me up, and they know that if this is the way it is, I want my treatment at Tarzana Medical (5 minutes away) or Northridge Hospital (15 minutes away).
Oh, and to top it all off with a nice cherry on top of the shit sundae, the Phonaks worked a whole three days before they stopped re-setting while charging at night, and then they stopped recharging. I can hear better without hearing aids than I can with these. I went up to the VA clinic in the Valley to drop them off (as I had been told I could do) but for this, I have to have another appointment. Which I do. On December 5!
I’ve been going to the VA for 19 years as of next February, and when there were all the complaints seven or eight years ago, I was the one who said “Not in LA!”
Oh, and then just for shits ‘n’ giggles, I found out from a nurse when I went to the cafeteria and bought breakfast, that yes, all the TVs are on Fox. And if one gets changed to a different channel, this little Trumpturd assistant to the Big Trumpturd who’s now in charge of the hospital comes down from on high and demands to know who changed the channel and why. Yes, folks, my hospital is no longer located in West Los Angeles. It’s in East Berlin. Behind the wall.
You think you have a good idea of how bad things are, then Reality comes along and rubs your nose in what’s really happening, and you discover that as much as you think you know, you actually haven’t got a clue.
ADDENDUM: so, I got a call this afternoon from a woman over at VA - who wouldn’t give me her name once I informed her I was taking notes of all communications with VA to substantiate my understanding of said communications from now on - I’m now scheduled for a “phone consult” with one of their doctors. On December 19!! And another department will call me “in the next 14-21 workdays” to let me know what “private community care” they have authorized (I did get confirmation that VA pays for 100% of this bullshit). And then I can call those people and schedule my care once I have that phone consult. I have now completely lost all belief in the VA system, which I now see is even more fucked up than it was when all the complaints were being made during Maladministration I - they still have no explanation why someone couldn’t take 30 seconds to tell me what they’d decided I had (not) agreed to. What was the best care in America now ranks somewhere below my opinion of that fucked-up pit of hell, Kaiser Hospitals.
Oh well, I get to watch the election returns, so I’ll ave something to say tomorrow. In the meantime there’s this cool model I’ve been waiting for that showed up on my front porch yesterday… if there’s anything that can get my blood pressure back to normal, that’s it.
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This. Is. Infuriating. Medical NON-system. I do hope and pray your procedure is soon, safe and most satisfactory.
I must have missed the post about surgery. When you write today that “the machine is broken “ I got nervous for you. My late husband had robotic surgery to remove his prostate. He got an unrelated infection and nearly died. He came through all that to live another almost 20 years. But I’ve always wondered if the robot missed a few cells that resulted in him getting other cancers, one of which he died from.