After a couple of days to sink in...

Friday's events are becoming real. They were so dreamlike, I needed the time to assimilate them.

The lady in the neuro's office is gone. While my neuro is on vacation for a month, the parent company--a local medical center--fired her.

My mother and daughters all wanted the results to the MRI. Usually I wait to hear from my neuro on that, because they have a better idea what it will actually mean, and I won't get hysterical or so depressed.

This time, however, everyone was waiting, so I called the neuro office. The phone rang a very, very long time, and was finally answered by a shaky-sounding fellow who mostly handles the ortho's business. He informed me that the lady was gone, but he would dig up the results.

The results were negative. Huh? What's that mean? It said it was "normal." (Much more on that later.)

At that point, I panicked. But I am not well, and my work insurance will cancel, and I will need to return to work, and I will need to travel three hours every day again. Et cetera.

The nice man couldn't help me and I could hear the phones ringing in the background as he told me that the lady who processed the neuro's stuff was now gone, fired in the early part of the week. Stunned, I thanked him and hung up the phone.

It was a pretty fair bet that they didn't file the papers I sent them on Monday. The fired lady took her time about everything, usually smiling and telling me they would be fine, sweetie.

Yes, sweetie. I called my family and informed them that the MRI was normal. My younger daughter told me to call my GP and ask him what we should do.

Duh. I never thought of that.

I called the GP, who immediately--and I do mean immediately--called back and told me to ride the neuro's office until I had proof that those papers went out. The GP couldn't help me at all, because it would all cycle back to the neuro.

Well, I went in person to the neuro office, and found the poor fellow rummaging through files, with a phone in one ear, and the other phones ringing incessantly, and people still waiting for the ortho, lined up nicely in the waiting room.

After waiting until I was sure he took care of the others, I approached him again and explained my troubles. It seemed to me that we simply needed to find out if papers were faxed to Aetna.

He brightened right up and began rummaging again. He took care of the waiting ortho patients, and finally unlocked the neuro's office--remember how the neuro had gone on vacation-- and came back empty handed. He began to look desperate, then wandered out to the "back room" and came back with my folder.

He actually told me I needed to look at the folder and tell him what was significant! There, right on top, were the papers that needed to be sent. I sighed with relief and pointed them out to him. He shook his head and said, "If they had gone out, there would be a notation on it."

We looked them over, page by page, and ultimately found that the last paper needed to be signed by me.

I signed the paper, and he faxed them to Aetna on the spot, returned copies to me. Those papers included the "office notes" that should have been sent weeks ago. The nice man marked a paragraph for Aetna that gave the time period that was needed for my recovery: three months.

Mystery solved; immediate crisis averted. I thanked him profusely.

Now I have to work on the uro's office. They were supposed to call me with a date for my tests.

That was last week, so here we go again.

pb
Little Pond