{"id":406,"date":"2010-09-11T01:25:38","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T01:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/?p=406"},"modified":"2010-09-11T01:28:29","modified_gmt":"2010-09-11T01:28:29","slug":"when-its-very-very-very-difficult-to-be-happy-about-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/2010\/09\/when-its-very-very-very-difficult-to-be-happy-about-good-news\/","title":{"rendered":"When it’s very, very, very difficult to be happy about Good News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The weather was beautiful today, but . . . <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Early in the morning, my doctor sent an email:<\/span><\/p>\n

“The preliminary reading on your ultrasound suggests some dysfunction of the heart, though I’m not certain this would have anything to do with the episode of loss of consciousness. I’m going to discuss the results with the cardiologist, and I’ll get back to you.”
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’d had an echocardiogram<\/a> last week and was awaiting the results for a recently requested medical report due soon to the DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles].<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2. The doctor did not get “right” back to me. Wouldn’t you be curious, worried, anxious, stressed? I had to wonder whether or not the doctor’s email to me had followed any hospital protocol — or that doctors don’t care what they write and how someone might react, i.e., worry.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3. After 90 minutes, I called the hospital to talk with the doctor.<\/span> <\/em>The “phone-answerer” told me she could get a message to the doctor and he’d get back to me within 24-48 hours OR I could have an appointment in one hour. Which option would you have taken?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

4. I saddled up my bike [remember I cannot drive and the hospital is less than five miles away]. The doctor was very nice and said I had to see the cardiologist because my heart was “overgrown” and pumping out too much blood. \u00a0So he made an appointment with a cardiologist for the afternoon in a different location 15 miles away and NOT accessible to cyclists.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. I called a few of my local friends to see if they could drive me. No one answered.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. I biked home and stopped at two of my neighbors — who were home, and gracious enough to volunteer to drive me. The appointment was supposed to take 45 minutes, and I didn’t want to make anyone wait, so I arranged one for the taking and one for the bringing home. I’d thought that was a “smart” move.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

7. Here’s the “rub,” i.e. the Good News: The appointment took only 10 minutes BECAUSE . . . [fanfare] there was not one thing wrong with my heart. Four cardiologists looked over the results, but the first one had read it wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

BTW, this Good News came six hours AFTER the initial Bad News message. Am I the only person whose blood pressure might have risen during those six hours?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

8. I wish I could say that was the end of the story, but it wasn’t. My ride home and I missed one another: and after waiting 45 minutes, I hopped on a bus to get to Novato . . . and walk the last mile and a half home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you know the moral to this story? I sure don’t, but would love to hear a couple!<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weather was beautiful today, but . . . 1. Early in the morning, my doctor sent an email: “The preliminary reading on your ultrasound suggests some dysfunction of the heart, though I’m not certain this would have anything to do with the episode of loss of consciousness. I’m going to discuss the results with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20],"tags":[53,50,52,49,51],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-griping","category-stories-with-morals","tag-exasperation","tag-hospital-incompetence","tag-merrygoround","tag-wrong-test-results","tag-your-time-isnt-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharisax.com\/DrivingMissShari\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}