There was a new receptionist yesterday, she made a rookie mistake, and I didn’t correct for it.  I shouldn’t be making rookie mistakes myself by now, that was my fault.
In Family Practice, the receptionists have seemed to me to be empowered to simply create you a same-day appointment if the need is compelling. It wasn’t till after everything settled down yesterday and I’d had time to think that I realized that maybe that’s just through the one woman I know there who’s been on that job for all the 22 years we’ve lived here; she knows me and knows that my doctor and nurse in FP know me–that I don’t waste their time. If I say I need to be seen, I do.
So when I called early yesterday morning to the GI department, I wondered if we might be able to do that, given how compelling the symptoms were to me: just give me an appointment, okay?
The result is that the new receptionist, who I’m sure could not in fact do that, made the mistake of sending a message to a nurse rather than connecting me to that nurse’s voicemail to do so myself. Which I should have insisted on, so that the nurse (who was also new and didn’t know me) would get a clear message of symptoms and would hear my voice in the process–that’s actually pretty important.
So some of the blame is absolutely mine in yesterday’s mess.
Last night was rough. Today not so much–but. I sent a note off to my Dr. R in case he or whoever’s on call might be checking his messages, and something about spelling it all out like that… I think I may well let myself be talked into going to Urgent Care later after all.
Meantime, thank you, everybody, for your support. It helps.