A Bit of Humor and a Gripe

So the cats have been very good about not destroying our Christmas tree thus far. We have these pretty plastic realistic looking icicles which we put on our tree each year. They catch and reflect the light so beautifully. Hubby said he found one on the floor. I started searching to see if there were more and picked one up beneath the tree. Then I noticed an irregularity with one of the bottom limbs. An ornament was where it shouldn't be and one icicle was lying on the branch instead of hanging correctly. I started looking closely at the tree and came nose to nose with...my cat Wilbur who was lying on the branches like he belonged there! **sigh** What possesses a big cat to think he can climb into an artificial tree? I mean he doesn't have any claws, and there's no trunk to...well, I guess a trunk wouldn't be good for a clawless cat.

And then I have a gripe. Hubby has been having a lot of trouble with his feet. Last week the doctor ran blood tests to check for possible gout. He gave him a six day dose of steroids which did reduce the swelling and inflammation, but now the pain is coming back. Still no word from the doctor. Hubby called today. Doctor called and left a message for hubby to call his nurse who is "better equipped" to deal with this sort of thing. So hubby called the nurse and left a message on her answering machine. I hear all this second hand. When I ask hubby what "this sort of thing" is, he doesn't have a clue. So, I called and asked the doctor to call me on my cell phone. He finally did--at nearly 7pm tonight. I briefly told him hubby was still having pain and that he hadn't been able to reach the nurse and she isn't in on Wednesdays. Doctor says, "Well, we need to get him in some better shoes. He needs to take Aleeve. Keep off his foot." So I ask, "Does that mean the blood work didn't confirm gout?" Doctor doesn't have a clue. He asks, "What did the nurse say?" Okay, wasn't he listening to me? I explain again that we haven't talked to the nurse. Doctor says he will try and look in the computer for the lab results. I realize now there is a real problem. See our doctor is associated with Mount Carmel East and he likes all lab work to go through them so it is automatically fed into his computer system. Nope. Our insurance insists that all our lab work must be done through Labcorp in order to be covered. Labcorp faxes the results to the doctor and they never do anything with it!! I swear it's the truth. Now that they won't use the manilla folder but rely on a computer to look at patient history, they can't read results from another lab. And...they never update with the correct medications...but that's another story. I digress. So I tell the doctor that we had the test done through Labcorp. Doctors says, "Well, that explains it. I won't be able to find it. Who knows where it is." Long story short, he asks me to call the lab and have them fax it to him tomorrow. I say, "They already did and you don't know what happened to it. I'll have them fax it to me." His reply. "Good. Call me with the results. I won't be in the office on Thursday."

Arghh. The cost of health care keep going up and the quality keeps going downhill. So next time the doctor tells me to get my blood work done, I'm going to refuse. He never sees it anyway. Why waste money?