If you want anything done right...

don't allow the doctor's office to do it. I am so mad today I can hardley see straight. As I've previously mentioned, Ben suffers from respiratory issues. He's too young to be diagnosed with asthma, so right now they're calling it Restrictive Airways Disease (RAD). Because his condition has been flaring up so frequently, the pediatrician told me to take him to a pediatric pulmonologist, and gave me the name of a doc who is supposed to be the best in town. My best friend backed up that recommnedation because her son is also a patient of his. So, I called and made an appointment. Being a new patient, they couldn't get me in right away, and then we had to wait a little while longer because of our trip. So I made the appointment for May 21st (this was about 6 weeks ago). After that, Ben flared up again and ended up back in the doctor. I told her when the appointment was, and she wanted to try to pull some strings and get us in earlier, before our trip. When I didn't hear anything after a couple days, I called the ped's office to follow up, and found out that nothing had been done (this was my first clue to just leave it alone!). So the girl said she was going to call the pulmonologist and see what she could do. Almost two weeks passed and I hadn't heard anything, so I figured that if they were able to get us in, they would call. Then on May 5th at 4:30 p.m. I got a call from the ped's office saying that the pulm could see us tomorrow. I told her that I'm sorry but I can't do tomorrow, so I'll just keep my appointment for the 21st. I come to find out that she hadn't simply checked the pulm's availability, but she had actually rescheduled our appointment, losing our May 21st slot. I told her she had to get it back for me because she wasn't supposed to change anything before checking with me. I got a call back (with much attitude) saying that she got my May 21st appointment back. So I didn't think too much about it.

Fastforward to yesterday. We get home and there is a message on our answering machine from the pulm's office saying that we had no showed our appointment on the 6th and seeing if we wanted to reschedule. I'm sorry, what??? I instantly knew what had happened and was livid! So I called the pulm's office this morning to confirm Ben's appointment tomorrow and of course was told that his appointment was on May 6th and we had no showed for it. Arg! So now we have no appointment, even though I made an appointment that worked for everyone six weeks ago. I hate having to suffer for other people's stupid and careless mistakes. It just really ticks me off. I called and gave the ped's office an earful... not that they can fix it, but I needed to direct my anger towards the ones who deserve it!

So now the pulm's office is trying to work with us to get us another appointment with the doctor we requested before the end of June, which is their next availability. If we can't see him, then we'll get our initial visit with another doctor and follow up with the other one once we're not considered a new patient anymore, and move up on the appointment scheduling totem pole.

Update: Just got a call from the pulm, and they were able to get us our appointment back for tomorrow!!! Oh happy day!