Officially Having a Bad Day

Have you ever woken up and just had the immediate feeling that it’s going to be a bad day? Well that’s how today started off. Earlier in the year, a friend needed surgery by Hepworth. Again he’s an amazing surgeon, it’s his entire staff that sucks. They had forgotten to submit her authorization to surgery, and this was discovered when she was literally sitting in pre-op.

I was standing outside in the waiting room when she texted me. I was shocked, but not surprised. It’s not the first time “clerical issues” have happened due to their office staff had. They did schedule my surgery at a place that didn’t have the equipment to perform the surgery, which was last year when the first mastoidectomy happened. God I was so pissed then, and was even more pissed that it happened to her after I was the one who recommended him. Just not a good look. But in the end, her surgery was successful, and everything worked out.

But the theme here is people not doing their jobs. 100% dead serious. People are not paying attention anymore. Doing just enough. Checking the boxes. No effort, no compassion, just aimless “I did the thing” mentality.

This morning I had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Lupo, whom did the Mastoid, and has been following me with the ear stuff since last year. Earlier this week, more pus and pain has start d to return with the left ear again, but what puts him apart from anyone else, is that he sees me right away. Not 6 months.

During the exam he noted that the left side of my face is starting to swell more, where the parotid gland is. The swelling begins right under my left ear, and moves forward throughout my face, neck, and jaw. He didn’t want to disturb anything that Hepworths would do, but indicated that the October 25th surgery just needs to happen. 3 weeks prior to this appointment, Dr. Lupo removed a considerable amount of pus from both my left and right ears. Which was exciting for me as this is the first time we’ve been able to remove pus and culture it.

I did ask Dr. Lupo what the results were, but he was unable to find the report. Upon further investigation, the samples were delivered to Quest Diagnostics, but wouldn’t you know, knowing my luck, they never processed the specimens. You cannot make this shit up. As I sat there trying to process this upsetting, and realistically, one of the worst things I could think of to hear, all I could do is just be frustrated. I almost expect this at this point.

The nurse swore that the specimens were delivered to the 2nd floor, and they were taken by a representative from Quest, and stated that she personally was the one who hand delivered them. But Quest says they never received anything.

I fucking swear I hate people at this point, and have lost almost all faith in other people that quite truly, don’t do their fucking job the way they are supposed to. I left the office, and called Quest, but of course got nowhere with the clueless rep that just kept saying that they never got anything.

I explained to both Dr. Lupo and his nurse, that this isn’t the first time cultures were fucked up, mislabeled, mishandled, whatever word you want to associate. They both could see how fucking irate and disgusted I was. Here was one of the only hopes of getting infectious disease to wake up, and get me back on IV antibiotics to help get rid of this shit in my face once in for all. I made sure that this was documented for “future” use.

Nope.

People ask me how I’m doing often, and I just say “eh still dealing with stuff”. But I’m getting close to that point where I cannot deal with this stupid autism that I’ve been trapped in. Ignorance of others as I classify it as. I can not rely on anyone else to do their jobs any longer. I now am just going to become that person whom is triple checking others work simply because I no longer trust the people that are supposed to do their jobs so that I can get to the bottom of this fucking plague, and end it. It’s my life, they clearly don’t care, because it doesn’t impact them one bit.

Seriously fuck you for keeping me trapped here.

Circling back, over the weekend I contacted Anthem to inquire about the authorization for the surgery that as far as I know, is taking place October 25th. They replied this morning saying that they haven’t received an auth from Hepworths office.

I’ll let that sink in. Feel free to re-read the parts where I don’t trust people anymore.

“Of course” I said as I read their response. I’m not shocked. So I called Hepworths office knowing that I get to deal with Stephanie again. And I get to hear all her pathetic excuses. Again.

This person just makes my fucking blood boil. The simplest thing of hearing her down talking, downplaying, and outright rudeness over her being incapable of doing her job, but taking it out on others. Own your shit. Seriously.

She started off trying the tactic of “oh who is this?”. I only said my name, spelled my first, and last name phonetically, and gave my date of birth, the doctor, and the date of the surgery. At this point I’m doing everything I can from exploding. You know exactly who this is.

After she figured out who I was, she said hold on let me look. That already told me that it was submitted, nothing was done. She then told me that she’s on hold with a hospital, and that she might need to put me on hold.

Ok, next tactic is telling the patient that they don’t matter. This person has no fucking clue how to manage anything at this point.

She came back 3 minutes later and explained that authorizations are sent 30 days prior to the scheduled service date. Which by the way we are at 26 days. I said nothing. I just gave her complete and udderly awkward silence.

Surprisingly, she then said, I’ll make sure this is either submitted today or tomorrow by our billing department. And that she would call back and let me know. “ok you do that” I replied with.

I then told her that it is imperative that the surgery happen on this date, and any delays would not be acceptable. By anyone.

I then went on to tell her that I may lose my job over this whole thing. She perked up. Yup. You heard me.

“I’ll do everything I can to move this up”. I’m sure you will was my only response to that. After that I hung up. She hit my limit of patience. If I had to say anything else, I probably would have started saying things that I shouldn’t, and won’t.

Athem called me as I was struggling up the stairs. I haven’t talked to my nurse at Anthem because it wasn’t helping. She was surprised that I am still dealing with all of this, 3 years later. I filled her in with the cliff notes of what’s happened since the last time we talked. I could hear her frustration, disgust, and shock in her voice.

Yep. This is all still happening due to people not paying attention, nor having the ambition to do their jobs.

“Do no harm”. Everything that’s happened up until this point has been the exact opposite. And yes, turn around and say I’m making all this up.

Wake the fuck up people, this is absolutely starting to take it’s toll on me physically, and clearly mentally. I need rest. I need less stress.

But no, let’s just keep adding fuel to the fire tht nobody wants to help me put out.

My Garmin shows me this daily. As you can clearly see, I’m stressed out to the max. This is why I have no patience, this is why my anxiety is through the roof. I can’t sleep enough to calm down. I can’t pay attention to the things I need to in order to calm down, and de-stress. My blood pressure is now needing to be controlled because of everything going on.

I’ll just wait for the day when all of this goes away, and I can sarcastically joke about it all. Until then, this is now my life everyday, until people pull their heads out of their asses that are involved directly/indirectly with my healthcare.

/rant