10.28.2012

annoyed and frustrated

This past Wednesday, Pablo had his post-op appointment (for his pacemaker surgery last month) in Toronto. The appointment was scheduled for late Wednesday morning so to be safe, we went to Toronto Tuesday and stayed overnight. Due to seizures, Pablo lost his license which means I have to do all the driving and 10 hours of driving in one day would make me lose my mind - hence dividing it up into 2 days. Pablo's appointment was 40 minutes behind schedule and then lasted a total of about 45 SECONDS. His surgeon looked at the incision, said it looked good, asked Pablo if the pacemaker was working, Pablo said yes, then he told Pablo he wants to see him again in 6 months. THAT WAS IT.

$150 in gas.
$100 for hotel and parking.
$125 for food for two days.
10 hours of driving.
2 days off work.

...all for an appointment that lasted less than a minute.

And this was appointment #7 in Toronto for this ONE SURGERY. A few of the other appointments were just as short and useless as this one. Pablo has asked many times for an afternoon appointment so that maybe he could take the bus or train and do it all in one day but NO. That would be too much to ask. His appointment in 6 months is at 10 am AGAIN - IN THE MORNING. I'm thinking maybe we won't be able to make that appointment and any other appointment we're given in the morning and see if they take the hint.

We're annoyed and frustrated.

5 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry. How totally frustrating. I'm thinking you definitely need to not be available in the morning. Be a hard ass. I know it's hard since all Canadians are nice but I'll try and channel through you! ;-) Hang in there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That sucks.
    You know what we do?
    We bundle it up with a whole lot of other stuff -
    ie: art gallery, shopping, restaurants, visiting family.
    Makes the whole thing much more palatable.
    Oh yeah - and we make sure we have lots of stuff
    (most of it totally unnecessary!) to talk to the doctor about
    so we feel like we've got our money's worth!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr's/Specialists in the states are doing video appointments for patients who are remote from their offices. They order pre-appointment blood/urine testing in a local lab and deal with the results in the video conference...This would seem to be ideal for appts such as this where they are just checking for your concerns...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't worry Collette - Pablo let loose on the surgeon's secretary - which is probably why she gave us yet another morning appointment. LOL! Keep channeling - it's working! :)

    We ended upa getting to Toronto early enough that I could do a few hours of shopping at the Eaton Centre - my fav. It's got a ton of stores that we don't have here in Ottawa (ie. H&M) so I managed to get all Simon's birthday gifts, my nieces birthday gifts, some Xmas gifts, new nikes for Pablo and some winter clothing for me. I ended up passing out in the hotel room at around 8:30 - 5 hrs of driving then 3 hrs of shopping right after = EXHAUSTING.

    A video appointment would have made COMPLETE SENSE in this case but no one seems to want to worry about the patient's needs. We could have even sent the surgeon a damn photo of the incision and a quick phone call would have been more than sufficient.


    ReplyDelete

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