My month (or so) of medicine explores why September, leading to October, seemed so darn complicated this year. It doesn’t USUALLY land so many events in such a narrow timeframe.
ITEM: I received a telephone call from CVS, a real, live person(!), asking me if I wanted a flu shot. Sure! The next day, I got an electronic message. Do I want the COVID shot too? Why not?
On September 2, I went to my nearest store. Oh, they haven’t RECEIVED the shipment for the COVID shot yet. It wouldn’t arrive until Labor Day. (This was true; my daughter got both shots that day.) Then the text I received indicated that I had DECLINED the COVID shot! What? Anyway, I got one on September 16.
ITEM: I went to my podiatrist on September 11. The office recently switched to a new computer system, so paying the $8.66 balance I owed required going back into the old system, which the new receptionist didn’t know how to access. It took a while. So it goes.
ITEM: I had been seeing someone to remove excessive earwax every three months; yeah, I could PROBABLY try to do it myself, but whatever. The problem is that I was supposed to see my person in July, but their system said they weren’t available until late September. Then I got these tantalizing texts saying there was an earlier opening, always at a time I couldn’t make. Finally, I got in on September 14, and the impaction, which wouldn’t have taken place if I’d been treated on schedule, had created an irritation that required prescription eardrops. I didn’t get them because they cost $170.
I gotta have heart!
ITEM: I was supposed to get a tooth implant, but I couldn’t remember the date. September 21 at 9:30 a.m. Fine.
Then I got a message from St. Peter’s Hospital portal saying my procedure would be fully covered. What procedure? It turned out to be my TRANSTHORACIC ECHOCARDIOGRAM (TTE) W/COLOR FLOW & DOPPLER (CONTRAST/BUBBLE/3D PRN). And this one was scheduled for the morning of September 21. They didn’t ask me; they just informed me. At least Medicare fully covers it.
So, I had to reschedule the tooth implant to mid-October.
I’m guessing my cardiologist’s office will contact me to set up an appointment to interpret my echo results.
ITEM: Teeth cleaning in late September; no issue.
ITEM: I had a follow-up for my cataract surgery from two years ago. But the doctor had to reschedule until later in the month. C’est la vie.
ITEM: The annual physical is in early October. My Primary Care Physician is retiring at the end of the year; I am sad. I was her patient when she worked in a two-doctor office. Her practice, like so many others, was taken over by St. Peter’s/Trinity Health. I have followed her to several locations; the current one is the most inconvenient. If I don’t get a ride from my wife, I have to take a bus to the Rensselaer train station, then an Uber.
But she’s been a great doc to me for over two decades: direct, opinionated, thorough, occasionally quite funny. I’m not looking forward to breaking in a new PCP.