Six words you never want to hear from the radiologist who is first checking your X-ray (while you are still on the table); “Oh my God, what is that?!” Followed by, “Better call her doctor and see what she wants us to do. For now we better get her off the table.”
Yikes! I went from 0 to 60 on the panic meter in a fraction of a second. Both radiologists, a boss and a trainee, approached me with care. “Um, Miss Drayce, there seems to be a problem. Are you hiding anything on your person you shouldn’t have in here?”
“Excuse me?" I was dumbfounded. What the hell kind of question was that?! Mind you, I’m standing there in nothing but a hospital gown and socks with my bare butt hanging out, where was I going to hide something?
“Did you by any chance swallow a metal bar recently?” Blink, blink, “A what?”
“There’s a metal bar appearing in your X-ray.” Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink, "A what?", I was still trying to comprehend what was being asked of me.
"A metal bar".
I've been accused of many things before and sometimes with good reason, but swallowing a metal bar? Never. “I’m really sorry about this but we’re going to have to ask you to lift your gown and inspect you front to back.” I lifted the gown. They began poking and prodding me, turning me this way and that. Hmmm, hmmmm-ing to themselves, and each other, the whole while. Finally one of them said, "Must be the table.” This whole thing was just weird. Weird, weird, weird.
“Must be Table Trolls,” I said. What? I had to add something, at least my two cents worth. That was a at least a two cent comment. "We’ll show you what we saw in just a minute.” Their focus shifted from me to the table. Everything came off, sheets, pillows, and padding. The top was clean as could be. They slid their hands over the entire surface, pulling out slabs and drawers, flipping switches, getting down on all fours looking underneath, checking the camera, they would have made any CSI team proud! “Well, I don’t see anything. Let’s try another room.” They took me through the X-ray reading room in transit to another. We stopped in front of the black and white of my abdomen. Sure enough, and don't know how the hell, but it looked like there was an eight to ten inch metal bar of some sort in my lower intestinal tract.
“Uhhh, I didn’t swallow that, that’s not in me. That would have killed me!”
“Then there must be something wrong with the table.”
Now off to room number Two. They repositioned me, covered the parts that were to be protected, and scuttled off behind the magic window. I'm laying there, tweaked, torked and holding my breath, when SNAP! Zzzzzzzzzzzzt, fizzle fizzle.
In case you don’t know, X-ray machines are NOT supposed to sound like that. “What the hell was that?” I heard them whispering to each other. In the meantime, I’m doing a quick mental scan of my life up to now to see if at any time I may have swallowed a metal bar and over looked it. They came out, checked me over, double checked all equipment, then decided that funky sound must have been a fluke and they should try flipping the switch again. Before going behind the protective wall, which is where I wanted to be by now, the new girl patted my shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry about this.”
“Hey, if things were working as planned, it wouldn’t be my life.” (This is truer than you can ever imagine. The previous day was, well, it was humbling through and through - that's another story for another time.)
The two of them hid behind the wall again, I hear, “Ok, hold your breath” . . . . . . . and SNAP! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt, fizzle, fizzle again! “Ok, guys can we please not do this again cause that doesn't sound right and it's freaking me out here?” Quiet murmuring from beyond the wall and then new girl reappeared. “OK. Well, it appears this camera is not firing correctly.” Oh ya think?, “So we’re going to try a new room but my boss is going to check them first and find one that doesn't have Tabel Trolls or misfiring cameras.”
The new girl and I were chatting when her boss reappeared, “Found one, everything works,” So off we trundled to room number Three with good high-hopes and pleasant expectations. After all, third times' the charm - right? In this case it was. All things mechanical worked properly and after multiple sincere apologies I was set free, released off into the wild to see what other forms of mishap may befall me.
Next stop was the doctor’s office across from the hospital. My doctor told me when we scheduled the radiology appointment that she wanted to see me right after. And no, an appointment wouldn't be necessary since it would only take a few minutes. She'd just squeeze me in.
I arrived in the lobby at 9:00 am, told the receptionist I didn’t have an appointment but this was what my doctor wanted. Sure, not a problem, they did this all the time. “Just have a seat and I’ll let your doctor know you’re here.” So I sat and waited. And waited. An hour went by, then another half. Finally two and a half hours had passed – I knew I didn’t have an appointment but this was ridiculous. At the two and a half hour mark I went back to the same receptionist and stood in front of her. She looked up, “Hi," she says, "can I help you?”
“You already did two and a half hours ago.” Recognition set in, “Oh my God, you’re still waiting?”
“Yep, still waiting.”
“Haven’t seen your doctor yet?”
“Nope, haven’t seen my doctor yet.”
“Well I gave her nurse a note saying you were here and waiting. I’m really sorry, please have a seat and I’ll go see if I can find out what the hold up is.”
“If it’s alright with you, I’ll just stand right over there by the window and watch the construction going on.” Trust me, the construction was far more exciting than anything going on in the lobby. A few long minutes later I heard a whisper, “Pssst, Darcy!” I turned and saw the receptionist motioning for me to join her in her tiny little cubicle. I did an internal eye roll and narrowed my eyes I'm sure – now what? She leaned over her desk and said in a low sincere voice, “I am soooooo sorry, this was all my fault.”
“What’s all your fault?”, eyes still narrowed. “I thought you were here to see Dr. Wong so that’s who I gave the note to. But you’re not supposed to see Dr. Wong - you’re supposed to see Dr. WANG! I’m soooooo sorry! We have a Wong AND a Wang in this office!” I closed my eyes and counted to three. OMG, seriously? "I'm new here, I got confused. Please forgive me, I feel so bad!"
“So all this time . . . . . . . . for over two and a half hours, I’ve been waiting to see the WONG doctor?!” Ahhh Ha Ha!
I was still peeved but she didn’t need to know it. I mean, c'mon, how many times have I messed up?
Did it all work out in the end? No. And yes. Dr. Wang wasn’t even expected in for another hour, and ya know, I just didn’t feel like waiting another hour, or coming back. I was promised, by Dr. Wangs nurse, that the good doctor would call me with the X-ray results just as soon as she'd seen them. And yes, she had already taken care of the doctor’s prior-authorization for the new medication she wanted me to take. Yeah! I should be able to pick up my prescriptions on the way home. That would be awesome since I’d been waiting on this irritating insurance glitch to get ironed out for a week.
An hour later I was at the pharmacy and you’ll never believe (my kids will, they've lived with me), but my insurance STILL wouldn’t cover the medications without some thing, or some such - or a signature from God Himself maybe! However, I was welcome to pay over $300 out of pocket if I liked for the meds. until then. Really? Really? They’d let me do that? Nawwww. Wasn’t going to happen. So I went home having already fought all the battles I cared to engage in for the day.
The only that worked out in all of this was that the X-rays were just fine (yes the doctor called) and I’ll never go to the “WONG” doctor again!!!!
Yikes! I went from 0 to 60 on the panic meter in a fraction of a second. Both radiologists, a boss and a trainee, approached me with care. “Um, Miss Drayce, there seems to be a problem. Are you hiding anything on your person you shouldn’t have in here?”
“Excuse me?" I was dumbfounded. What the hell kind of question was that?! Mind you, I’m standing there in nothing but a hospital gown and socks with my bare butt hanging out, where was I going to hide something?
“Did you by any chance swallow a metal bar recently?” Blink, blink, “A what?”
“There’s a metal bar appearing in your X-ray.” Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink, "A what?", I was still trying to comprehend what was being asked of me.
"A metal bar".
I've been accused of many things before and sometimes with good reason, but swallowing a metal bar? Never. “I’m really sorry about this but we’re going to have to ask you to lift your gown and inspect you front to back.” I lifted the gown. They began poking and prodding me, turning me this way and that. Hmmm, hmmmm-ing to themselves, and each other, the whole while. Finally one of them said, "Must be the table.” This whole thing was just weird. Weird, weird, weird.
“Must be Table Trolls,” I said. What? I had to add something, at least my two cents worth. That was a at least a two cent comment. "We’ll show you what we saw in just a minute.” Their focus shifted from me to the table. Everything came off, sheets, pillows, and padding. The top was clean as could be. They slid their hands over the entire surface, pulling out slabs and drawers, flipping switches, getting down on all fours looking underneath, checking the camera, they would have made any CSI team proud! “Well, I don’t see anything. Let’s try another room.” They took me through the X-ray reading room in transit to another. We stopped in front of the black and white of my abdomen. Sure enough, and don't know how the hell, but it looked like there was an eight to ten inch metal bar of some sort in my lower intestinal tract.
“Uhhh, I didn’t swallow that, that’s not in me. That would have killed me!”
“Then there must be something wrong with the table.”
Now off to room number Two. They repositioned me, covered the parts that were to be protected, and scuttled off behind the magic window. I'm laying there, tweaked, torked and holding my breath, when SNAP! Zzzzzzzzzzzzt, fizzle fizzle.
In case you don’t know, X-ray machines are NOT supposed to sound like that. “What the hell was that?” I heard them whispering to each other. In the meantime, I’m doing a quick mental scan of my life up to now to see if at any time I may have swallowed a metal bar and over looked it. They came out, checked me over, double checked all equipment, then decided that funky sound must have been a fluke and they should try flipping the switch again. Before going behind the protective wall, which is where I wanted to be by now, the new girl patted my shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry about this.”
“Hey, if things were working as planned, it wouldn’t be my life.” (This is truer than you can ever imagine. The previous day was, well, it was humbling through and through - that's another story for another time.)
The two of them hid behind the wall again, I hear, “Ok, hold your breath” . . . . . . . and SNAP! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt, fizzle, fizzle again! “Ok, guys can we please not do this again cause that doesn't sound right and it's freaking me out here?” Quiet murmuring from beyond the wall and then new girl reappeared. “OK. Well, it appears this camera is not firing correctly.” Oh ya think?, “So we’re going to try a new room but my boss is going to check them first and find one that doesn't have Tabel Trolls or misfiring cameras.”
The new girl and I were chatting when her boss reappeared, “Found one, everything works,” So off we trundled to room number Three with good high-hopes and pleasant expectations. After all, third times' the charm - right? In this case it was. All things mechanical worked properly and after multiple sincere apologies I was set free, released off into the wild to see what other forms of mishap may befall me.
Next stop was the doctor’s office across from the hospital. My doctor told me when we scheduled the radiology appointment that she wanted to see me right after. And no, an appointment wouldn't be necessary since it would only take a few minutes. She'd just squeeze me in.
I arrived in the lobby at 9:00 am, told the receptionist I didn’t have an appointment but this was what my doctor wanted. Sure, not a problem, they did this all the time. “Just have a seat and I’ll let your doctor know you’re here.” So I sat and waited. And waited. An hour went by, then another half. Finally two and a half hours had passed – I knew I didn’t have an appointment but this was ridiculous. At the two and a half hour mark I went back to the same receptionist and stood in front of her. She looked up, “Hi," she says, "can I help you?”
“You already did two and a half hours ago.” Recognition set in, “Oh my God, you’re still waiting?”
“Yep, still waiting.”
“Haven’t seen your doctor yet?”
“Nope, haven’t seen my doctor yet.”
“Well I gave her nurse a note saying you were here and waiting. I’m really sorry, please have a seat and I’ll go see if I can find out what the hold up is.”
“If it’s alright with you, I’ll just stand right over there by the window and watch the construction going on.” Trust me, the construction was far more exciting than anything going on in the lobby. A few long minutes later I heard a whisper, “Pssst, Darcy!” I turned and saw the receptionist motioning for me to join her in her tiny little cubicle. I did an internal eye roll and narrowed my eyes I'm sure – now what? She leaned over her desk and said in a low sincere voice, “I am soooooo sorry, this was all my fault.”
“What’s all your fault?”, eyes still narrowed. “I thought you were here to see Dr. Wong so that’s who I gave the note to. But you’re not supposed to see Dr. Wong - you’re supposed to see Dr. WANG! I’m soooooo sorry! We have a Wong AND a Wang in this office!” I closed my eyes and counted to three. OMG, seriously? "I'm new here, I got confused. Please forgive me, I feel so bad!"
“So all this time . . . . . . . . for over two and a half hours, I’ve been waiting to see the WONG doctor?!” Ahhh Ha Ha!
I was still peeved but she didn’t need to know it. I mean, c'mon, how many times have I messed up?
Did it all work out in the end? No. And yes. Dr. Wang wasn’t even expected in for another hour, and ya know, I just didn’t feel like waiting another hour, or coming back. I was promised, by Dr. Wangs nurse, that the good doctor would call me with the X-ray results just as soon as she'd seen them. And yes, she had already taken care of the doctor’s prior-authorization for the new medication she wanted me to take. Yeah! I should be able to pick up my prescriptions on the way home. That would be awesome since I’d been waiting on this irritating insurance glitch to get ironed out for a week.
An hour later I was at the pharmacy and you’ll never believe (my kids will, they've lived with me), but my insurance STILL wouldn’t cover the medications without some thing, or some such - or a signature from God Himself maybe! However, I was welcome to pay over $300 out of pocket if I liked for the meds. until then. Really? Really? They’d let me do that? Nawwww. Wasn’t going to happen. So I went home having already fought all the battles I cared to engage in for the day.
The only that worked out in all of this was that the X-rays were just fine (yes the doctor called) and I’ll never go to the “WONG” doctor again!!!!