Almost two weeks ago I had an appointment with my infectious disease specialist. The really exciting news of the day was that my PICC line came out, which I had not been expecting at all (I'm not complaining though!). Some of the more routine news was that my doctor was going to schedule my next set of scans. We all agreed that it is to soon after surgery for an MRI or CT scan since the bone needs time to fill itself in, so we decided on a Bone Scan instead. A bone scan is a really cool thing. Basically, you are injected with radio active material (no, not enough to give you super powers), and put through a scan, and then asked to come back several hours later for a repeat scan, and in my case the next day as well, to see if there are clusters of the radio active material around the area (e.g. the limb) in question. The radio active material clusters around infections, so on a computer screen, attached to the scan thingy, you can see all the white dots (radio active stuff) moving throughout you. The really cool part (at least in my opinion) is that the radio active material is absorbed in your bones (hence the name 'bone scan'), and will pinpoint if/where something is going on.
The doctors at the hospital schedule all of the appointments for their patients, so the whole thing is 99% fool proof. No way a patient has to worry about booking thing or remembering to call that number, etc. You are supposed to get a letter with the date, location, and time, with any instruction about your procedure/appointment/scan/etc. from the hospital through the mail. However, that doesn't always work. Last summer I missed my first appointment with a new orthopedic surgeon because 1) either the hospital never sent the letter (they didn't call either) or 2) said letter got lost during the postal strike (just like my new bank card). Then in October (I think) my surgeon wanted to order a ultrasound guided needle aspiration to see if he could culture the fluid collecting in my shin. We heard nothing about this until several weeks after my latest surgery (April 18th), almost 6 months after I had last seen that surgeon. My mom polity told the lady calling from the hospital that we would not be at the hospital (2 days later) for the procedure as I was seeing a different surgeon and had already had surgery. The scary part is that for that procedure you have to stop certain medication at least a week prior to the day of. I wasn't on any of those medications, but I have a friend who is. It is frustrating (and I think negligent) that you can be called out of the blue and told that you have a medical procedure in 48 hours that you knew nothing about. So back to my bone scan. I never received the letter telling me when the appointment was scheduled for. Just yesterday my mom and I commented to one another that we should call my ID specialist. Low and behold, today we get a call from the hospital. The lady on the phone says that my bone scan, scheduled for nest week Thursday and Friday has to be rescheduled, until, drum roll please, this Thursday and Friday! once again, my mom told the lady politely that we had received no letter at all. If the hospital had not called, we would never have known about the missed bone scan until the next visit with ID on July 12. No don't get me wrong anything. I am extremely pleased with the care I have been getting, but something has to change with this "we will send you a letter" thing. How long will it be before I, or any other patient, actually misses an important appointment/procedure/scan/etc. because letters were accidentally not mailed out. I understand that mistakes happen, but this should be kept at a minimal. Sick people are stressed and feeling icky as is.
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