More Medical Headaches

I tried not to dwell on this, but it’s bugging me, so I thought I’d vent and try to get it out of my system.

Went in for more imaging yesterday; pro-actively checking for any miniscule indications of cancer or pre-cancerous changes. Already had an MRI, and they said xrays and ultrasound were also warranted, as they all have different strengths and could potentially pick up different details. Fine, no need to convince me. We make arrangements for both me and my spouse to get off work early (1 car), go one city over, way across on the other side. Kind of a pain, but this is important. They do the xray, then say the doctor there says the ultrasound wasn’t needed. Uhm, ok, not trying to argue with you, but can you write up something to my docs about that to explain that? They said there weren’t findings on a previous ultrasound, so there was nothing to look for. I was tired, hungry, headache, and honestly not arguing, but I did politely ask if they were writing up an analysis if the xray images, could they add a note why the ultrasound wasn’t needed so that would be clearly communicated to my docs. They said no repeatedly. I went home.

The thing is, I had to call hospital scheduling 3 times just to get this. The first two times, they also said, no, all three images seem ridiculous, you need to check with your doctor to confirm. They usually only want one. When I checked back with them, they were all, yes, we know what we asked for, and we meant it. I went home, pulled up the previous e-mail, where two different providers said yes, we absolutely want all three done. I’m not so paranoid that I think there is cancer and it’s being missed, but I really don’t want to feel like I’m getting scolded by them again saying hey, we told you to get all three. This was not a scheduler, but the MD in charge, and he repeatedly said no. Usually I’m the one who throws a fit, so I tried not to. I just said fine, please add a note to my chart so it’s passed along to the ones who requested the ultrasound. I was going to get his name, but in my stupidity, I forgot. I’m an idiot. Either way, though it should not be this much of a pain. You think my providers are idiots, fine, roll your eyes, try to talk me out of it by saying I was randomly told I’m in a high risk category with finger quotes and let me make a choice. Write a letter to the Department of Insurance and say you think my docs are nuts and ordering un-needed tests and suggest they be instigated. But don’t outright refuse services. I mean, come on. They already made me feel bad enough and implied my doctors are idiots randomly assigning me a high-risk label and I’m a sucker for believing them. But let me get what I came there for and go on my way. I should have been able to get all 3 images done at the same time, but since they refused to scheduled them all at first, I had to do 2 different trips so far. You’d think this isn’t a big deal except that with all the appointments I’ve had for this and pre-op, my foot and my opposite leg/knee, it adds up. If my doctors re-evaluate and say ooops, yeah, we didn’t really need the ultrasound, fine. But if the push back, that’s going to make me really irritated. That’s what I’m dreading at this point.

Oh well. 13 days until surgery.