Urologist, Deferred

After my last lithotripsy procedure under the supervision of the Unsuitable Urologist (tm), said UU told me I needed a follow-up appointment.

Well, yes.  But not with him, thanks.  I quietly didn't make an appointment, and the UU's office hasn't called ME about it, either.  So the breakup is mutual.

I already had an appointment with Dr. L-- down in Detroit set up for early March.  I hadn't cancelled it despite my little fling with the UU, so I decided I would use that as my follow up.  I got all my records and notes from the UU's hospital (including the operating room notes) and readied them to give to Dr. L--.

Brief aside.  Despite the fact that the awful Winter of Five Operations is a couple months behind me now, and I'm not in pain anymore, I still have to psych myself up for a urology visit.  Days beforehand, I have to build myself up and tell myself it'll be fine, nothing's going to go wrong, this will be routine, I won't need any more operations, and so on.  It takes a fair amount of mental work to keep myself out of a victimhood/survivor state of mind, and it doesn't always work.

So anyway, my appointment with Dr. L-- was coming up, and then I got an email message from his office.  They had rescheduled my appointment to be with someone else, but on the same day.  The new person was a female PA.

My experiences with having a female urologist taught me to avoid them.  This isn't because I feel female urologists are less qualified than males.  It's because the female urologist I had before made me feel tricked more than once, and because of other personal psych reasons I don't want to go into here.  And then there was the female nurse who wrongly, and embarrassingly, admonished me over some post-op care.  So my experience with women in urology has not been good, and I'm not up for more of them.

I called Dr. L--'s office.  "This new appointment won't work for me," I said.

"Is there a problem?" said the receptionist.

"I don't really want to see this PA," I said carefully.  "I'd rather see Dr. L--.  Can we reschedule for a day he'll be in?"

This was possible, but it would be nearly three weeks.  I wasn't in pain or other dire straits, and this was "just" a follow-up appointment, so I agreed to faraway time slot.

"Just so you know, though," the receptionist said, "our PAs can do everything the doctor does except surgery.  They aren't residents or interns.  They're fully qualified."

"I understand that," I replied politely.  "But for this particular problem, I need to see a man.  It's nothing against the PA; I just need to see a man."

"Not a problem," said the receptionist, and the new appointment was made for a Monday in late March.

This Monday, as it happens.

As I said, urology visits take some psyching up for me, and I'd been working on this for a few days, readying myself and getting myself into a "You've got this" kind of mood.

And then my phone rang.  It was during my prep period, so I was able to answer.  It was Dr. L--'s office.  They needed to cancel Monday.  Again.  The next available appointment wouldn't be until late April.

I was more than a little miffed here.  I'd been rescheduled twice now.  Is there something about urology that makes people unreliable?  What the heck?

But before my miffed-ness could go too far, the caller explained that Dr. L-- was on medical leave of his own.  Yipes!  He was expected to return in mid-April, but it might not be until later.  My miffed-ness changed into sympathy, and we worked out an appointment a couple of weeks after his earliest return date, just to make it more likely he'd be seeing patients again.

So while I'm hoping everything goes well for Dr. L--, all that psych-up work went out the window, and I have to do it all over again next month.

Really, more than anything, I want the appointments to stop--or at least drop to a once-a-year checkup.

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