The latest drama includes my super sore, infected ingrown toenail gone wrong. The slightest pressure on the inside of my right foot is enough to bring me to tears. Obviously it needs to be taken care of. To give you the reader's digest version of what I've gone through these past two weeks, I've made 23 phone calls to Priority Health, urgent care, the hospital and three DIFFERENT doctors offices. I even drove to Muskegon at 6 AM the other morning to see a nurse that did absolutely nothing for me. In short, I have been denied care by every single place for one reason or another. You're a new patient. We don't have your files. You can't see an OB and a MD. We can't refer you. There's a long wait. We can't help you, seek elsewhere. You need a referral. We have a new computer system, so I can't add you.
Bottom line, I'm effed. And pissed.
So God bless our healthcare system. One that denies care for the stupidest effing reasons ever and employs some of the dumbest people I've ever met. Sorry family and friends that work in healthcare, but after the past two weeks, I'm ready to amputate my own toe and seek further treatment from a witch doctor.
On a slightly related topic, let's chat about medical records. Dear parents, please be your child(ren)'s health advocate and keep very detailed records regarding all procedures, vaccinations, check-ups, tummy aches, etc. Don't hesitate for a second to interrogate the crap out of the doctor so you know exactly what's going on. The only records both my sister and I can rely on are the ones kept by our mother because our childhood doctors did a piss poor job at accurately documenting information. You can only imagine the problems we ran into with sports physicals, school immunization checks and so on.
I was recently updating my vaccination spreadsheet for Brody and found out that, at only four months old, he already has a few discrepancies in his file. I pulled out every medical document I have on him (and trust me, I do have every single one) and discovered the following:
- There's no record of the Hepatitis B vaccinnation he got at birth.
- They did not administer a Hepatitis B vaccine during his one month appointment (which I'm told he should've gotten.) Yes? No?
- The vaccination printout that I received from the hospital stated he should've received six vaccinations during his two month appointment. I was given seven vaccination "follow up/side effect" handouts, his appointment summary listed eight vaccines and the MySpectrum summary only lists four.
What the eff is going on?! When you choose to work in healthcare, do you not realize that you are dealing with people's lives and their well-being?! The shit you do (or are suppose to be doing) is extremely important and should be taken seriously and handled in a timely, accurate manner.
Jesus.
So have a great weekend everyone. I'm just gonna sit around and wait for my toe to fall off. Maybe then someone can squeeze me in.
