Today's rant is about a pet peeve not completely limited to pain doctors. I go to a lot of doctors. Let's see we have the Urologist, my PCP, Pain Management, Hematologist and now a 2nd Orthopedic surgeon. With 2 very notable exceptions I hate going to the doctor. Doesn't matter when your appointment is, you won't be seen on time. The wait is anywhere from an hour to three hours at my last orthopedic surgeon. In fact at his office I have heard the front end staff begging people to come back the next day who had been waiting for over 3 hours. Of course they said no. Then they got nasty and said the doctor had left. The 2 exceptions have been my PCP. where I have never been in the office for longer than an hour ever. It freaking great. The other is my Hematologist. This is a huge and extremely busy office. I swear the waiting room looks like it is 2 blocks long. You would think they would be backed up but nope. Both times I went there I was in a room or getting my blood drawn for labs with in 10 minutes of arriving. Both times I was seeing the doctor within minutes of my scheduled appointment time.
We have all waited at the doctor's office. It really sucks. Besides the 6 month old magazines and crappy choice of TV channels there is those wonderful torture devices that most doctors call waiting room chairs. Is there a freaking factory that makes these things to be as painful as possible to sit in ? Today I had to see my new orthopedic surgeon. I expected a long wait. I was not very surprised when my appointment time came and went and they hadn't even called me up to register yet. I was very surprised by the seats. This was the very first time that I could actually get comfortable in a doctor's waiting room. I wanted to steal one of the chairs. Not at all like the barrel chairs or low slung couches at my old orthopedic surgeon's office. These had decent padding and proper support for bad backs. Still it was almost 45 minutes past my waiting time before I made it to the back and then got put into a mini waiting room that quickly overflowed with patients waiting to be led back to exam rooms. Then once you get back to the exam room it is time for more waiting. Yippie. Now you get to look at even older magazines left here by patients 2 years ago. Now it was typical of every other office. No place to sit except a crappy chair or the exam table. Neither one is good for a guy like me with a screwed up back.
So in comes the doctor. He looks over the CT scans for both lumbar and cervical. Basically tells me I am screwed and that my back has declared war on me and the best option is to nuke it. Well okay not quite that bad. He wants an MRI ( sending me to a place where it costs only $600.00 bucks which is pretty cheap.) I figured he would really need one. He wants to see it before we go into everything. Bad news is he told me that my fusion looks like it didn't take completely. Sure the screws and such are embedded good but I did not get as much bone growth between the discs to fuse them as he would have wanted. He did say I had a lot of bone growth where he wouldn't want it such as at the nerve root at L5 on the left side which is why I have so much fun with my sciatic pain in my left leg. Sorry, if you heard that it was just me screaming ! He said we could take the whole shebang out but that would leave me right back at the start of my journey 5 years ago. THAT FREAKING SUCKS!!!!!!!! The only people who have benefited from all my pain are the doctors and hospitals who have been treating me. Me I am left with the pain and limited movement. I am the one who can't sleep well. I am the one who can't go to the store alone. I am the one who has to have his wife do so much for him. Sorry another scream.
Feeling a bit low right now. Meant this whole rant to be about waiting for the doctor. I have had plenty of experience with that. I bet just about everyone else has as well. It isn't too many doctors who are like my PCP and the Hematologist. You know it really pisses me off to wait for 2 hours just to see the doctor and they come in and act all rushed like they have no time for you or your issues. We pay them and the insurance company pays them pretty decent, you would think they might want to take a few minutes and make sure you are ok. Forget it. Now it is wham bam thank you ma'am and out the door. You're freaking lucky if you get 15 minutes, most of the time it is 5 or 10 minutes. I sometimes wonder how much they actually hear of what I am telling them. I think I will conduct an experiment with my next appointment. I will tell them I have a green and blue 3rd testicle growing out of my body and see what happens. I bet I get "That's good" back. Hey let's all try that at our next doctors' appointments. Make something completely outlandish and slip it in and see what they say. If they catch it at least you know they have been listening. I am betting a lot of them will not.
Today he seemed to be half listening to me, more energy was devoted to going through the CT scans. Okay I can understand that. Was a bit upset at how much time he was taking until I realized he was looking at L4 and L5. That is the area where the radiologist who prepared my lumbar CT scan report spent about a page and a half going over the damage there. I am getting to the point where I can read them a bit myself. Crap that just takes me back to the bad mood. I am so fed up with my back. There is just so much damage and so many bone spurs growing where there shouldn't be anything. He was able to see a lot of the damage but he wants clearer pics than he got from the CT scan. Meanwhile I go on hurting, raging and screaming. But then that's freaking LIFE
Fri May 08, 2015 at 3:58 PM PT: Wow. I sure touched a nerve with this and from both sides. Sounds like I need to do a little studying and write a diary about how Hospitals are gobbling up doctor's practices left and right and then trying to mandate every little interaction to maximize profits. Anyone who wants to lend a hand let me know