sorry. abrupt transition. today, I want to talk about sunscreen. this is my collection: a full range of face and body uva/uvb protection from spf's 15-50. a veritable arsenal. so why, then, if I am such a diligent wearer of the 'screen, did I have the following phone conversation this afternoon?
(for the record, I tried to come up with clever alliterations to describe my sunblock use. I'm stuck. if you've got any, feel free to share.)
secretary: good afternoon, dr. ____'s office.
michaela: hi, I'd like to make an appointment, please.
s: are you a current patient?
m: yes, but it's been a while. I've got some freaky moles that I'd like to get checked out asap.
s: dr. ____ is booking new patients starting mid-october.
m: I'm not a new patient.
s: I'm sorry. that's just the way it works.
m: so since I haven't seen dr. ____ since I had acne in high school, I'm now magically a new patient and my potentially cancerous moles can't be seen until october? can you call me if there are any cancellations?
s: I'm sorry. dr. ____ is out of the office this week on vacation. [ha! the truth comes out!] I won't know anything about cancellations until this time next week, if you'd like to call back. if it's an emergency you can go to the er.
at this point I calmly thanked her and hung up the phone. then I called three - THREE! - other dermatologists' offices and no one can see me until 2016. since I live alone right now and have no one to flip out to about this, I'm going to ask you to take a seat so that I can rant freely.
let's start with her suggestion, that I go to the emergency room. (1) a weird mole (or two) is not a medical emergency, especially in the absence of other symptoms. if I go to the er, I am going to sit there for an entire day until maybe, FINALLY, when all the real emergencies have been handled, I will be seen, and when I am seen, they will just refer me to derm for a biopsy. (2) my health insurance is an hmo, which means I need referrals from my primary doctor before I do anything. going to the er and having those doctors give me a referral to derm overrides this condition, on the condition that my er visit was a medical emergency. not a medical emergency? = not covered by insurance. I don't know if you've heard, but I don't have a job. so I'm not exactly padded with extra cash to cover an off-books er visit.
so let's skip back a step to the part where I don't have a primary care physician's referral to see a derm specialist in the first place, yet I spent a good part of my afternoon shopping myself around. truth is, my primary doc is kind of a wizard and takes care of my whole family. if he needed me to, I'd be more than willing to take pictures of my lovely moles and let him do a consult via e-mail (everyone calm down, they're not in any PG-13 or R-rated places). whatever it takes. I have full faith that he would come through on a referral. but I'm really trying to avoid paying a $20 copay to my primary doc to get the referral and then wait even longer to fork over a $40 specialist copay to the dermatologist all to win the chance of a lifetime to have chunks of my skin chopped off for biopsy. see above, about the joblessness. I'll take a $40 job over a $60 one any day.
end of rant.
perhaps this is a medical overshare for my little blog, but I'm pissed off that I'm in this situation at all. I take care of my skin. I wear sunscreen. I eat healthy and I exercise. yet on the very rare occasions when I do need to see a doctor, I get dicked around. so tomorrow I will hopefully be less cynical and cranky when I pick up the phone and call my primary care physician and BEG HIM to squeeze me in for an appointment. I don't know what kind of biopsy wizardry he'll be capable of, or if he can find a dermatologist willing to step off the golf course for long enough to do their goddamn job, but I figure it can't hurt to have my doctor on my side, right? right.
wear sunscreen, kids.
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