A Bullet Dodged

My heavy weekend schedule brought back all the pain in my wrist and hand and I was looking to make a doctor's appointment for today or tomorrow. Of course nothing was open when I was ready to call so I was just filling time. I have a Stress Test scheduled in my calendar for 7/28 and they had sent me some preliminary papers to fill out and bring with me. They were sitting here on my computer desk so I decided to fill them out while waiting for the doctor's office to open.

When I got to the last page of the papers it said "Date of test 7/18/05". I checked the calendar and that is today. As soon as the clock hit 8:00 I called to verify. Yes they said, I was scheduled for 9:00 am. There were lots of conditions about eating and drinking before the test and luckily I hadn't violated any of them yet so I said I would be there, except that the papers said the test was 4 or 5 hours and I had a physical therapy scheduled for this afternoon. They re-scheduled the pt for tomorrow and I went for my tests today.

The first one started at 9 with an injection into my veins (like the bone scan did) and instructions to drink a full (10 oz) glass of water. After the stuff had gotten through my veins there would be an x-ray type of picture taking. Actually is was like a cross between an x-ray and an MRI. I had to lay flat on a table and the picture taking device, a disk about 3 feet across, started on the far left side of my chest and took about 20 minutes to move over to the far right side. But it wasn't in an enclosure or anything.

While waiting for the vein flow, I was taken in for an echo cardiogram. This was an ultra-sound picture thing that looked on the screen just like the baby picture ultra sounds. I was poked and prodded all over getting pictures from different angles. First from under my left breast, then under my left arm, then in the center of the bottom of my ribs, (she really had to push hard there) then from the throat area.

I dodged another bullet there. She was entering my information of her computer and I could see the screen and she had my first name as Patricia. I called that to her attention and while she was changing it I looked over the rest. They had my date of birth as 2/12/32. When I told her that was wrong, she left to go to the desk and make sure they changed it there. It never did change on her screen though.

I can just see my insurance company getting billed for a 73 year old Patricia Van Houten. How many years would that have floated around before it got straightened out.

I was sent home and told I could have juice until 11:30 and then just water after that. I go back there at 1:30 for the last set, a new injection and more pictures. It is a stress test that does not require me to walk the treadmill. They do it chemically somehow.

Now I have pt scheduled for tomorrow morning. I am too busy medically to go to the doctor.