Is it Me? Part 2

It's happened again. My doctor's office staff has proven that they are inept (see Is it Me?). Basic requests seemed to get lost in translation. Follow through has no meaning. No wonder people today have less and less patience - inadequate customer service happens everywhere.

My back went out on Sunday morning so I went into my own personal crisis mode (please note that my doctor is fully aware of my crisis plan). This entails an ibuprofen and vicodin drug therapy. Massage and chiropractic work (sometimes a rolfer is added to the payroll depending on the severity of the "outage" and on personal finances - rolfers are not cheap and insurance does not cover visits). Hot Epsom salt baths, icing and stretching. LOTS of stretching.

I realized that I only had several vicodin pills left so I proactively contacted my pharmacy on Sunday so they could fax a refill request to my doctor's office where it would be waiting on Monday morning. I figured I had enough to get me through the next 24 hours and by then, my doctor's office would have gone through their prescription requests and given the okay for the refill. This was not to be.

On Monday mid day I contacted my pharmacy to check the status of my refill. They had not heard back from my doctor's office. I decided to give them a little more time to get through their refill requests so I waited a couple of more hours. By now I had run out of vicodin and my back was feeling worse than it did on Sunday (it had moved into full spasm from the initial injury).

I contacted my pharmacy again and they suggested I contact my doctor's office to make sure they received the faxed refill request (they would also fax another one). I did as they suggested and spoke with a very nice woman who took down my message to give to my doctor/nurse). I thought we were now headed in the right direction. Sadly I was mistaken. I never got my prescription refilled on Monday. That night I toughed it out with ibuprofen and Tylenol. For those of you who have never had your back go out, you may not understand the level of pain and may think I am being over dramatic - it is not like I did not have the ibuprofen and Tylenol... But I would like you to consider what it would feel like to be hit by a Mack truck and be given a vitamin to help ease the pain. You with me now?

I called my pharmacy again this morning. Nothing. However I did receive a message from my doctor's nurse. She said that I need to contact my pharmacy so they could fax over a refill request. That the procedure for prescription refills was to contact your pharmacy - not the doctor. Excuse me? That is what I fucking did fucking yesterday that apparently was fucking ignored. Maybe the nice woman who took down my message got it wrong - but I had explained that my pharmacy had indeed faxed over a request. Maybe the nurse did not understand the message or did not read the whole thing (man they need to get voicemail over there)? Or maybe my pharmacy did not actually fax over the refill request (twice) like they said.

It must be said that I have actually maintained self control. I have not lost my temper (thank goodness) with the pharmacy or doctor's office (although I am silently cursing their existence). Most importantly, I have maintained my composure with Kelan and Lauren - no sick days for mom (note that Dan did come home an hour early yesterday so I could go and get a massage, and is contemplating cancelling his business trip so he can take care of me and the kids - I have the best husband!).

I put in another call to the pharmacy to have them fax over a third request. Additionally I called my doctor's office - again - to let them know that I do understand the prescription refill procedure, and that I had only left a message alerting them to the fax because the pharmacy had not heard back from them. Is it me?