Bena Mae’s Kitchen: Is the doctor in?

NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be explained in terms that you would understand.
Okay, here I go spouting off again. I can’t let this one go without venting my frustration. I’m upset with my doctor. And rightly so.

Early Tuesday morning the phone rang. Since I was still sleeping, I let the answering machine take the message. About an hour later, I checked the phone for messages I had missed. The first one was from my doctor’s nurse telling me that the doctor had made an appointment for me to see a specialist regarding some blood work he had done earlier.

“What did the blood work show?” I asked her. “I don’t know,” she answered, “I can’t read the doctor’s handwriting.”
“Well, let me speak to the doctor,” I said. “He’s not here,” she replied.”

“Please have him call me,” I told her. “This is rather upsetting and I need to know what is going on.”
I pushed the button for the next message. It was my son. “MOM, MOM, WAKE UP! PICK UP THE PHONE!” Noting the urgency in his voice, I called him back. “What’s wrong?” I said.

“I got a call from the doctor’s office saying that they had made an appointment for you to see a specialist! I called his office and asked to speak to the nurse who had called. She had already gone and no one there could give me any information.”

The next call was from my daughter-in-law. She had received the same call at her home. When she called them back, she got the same runaround as my son and I. She then proceeded to inform them that they had upset the entire family, among several other well-chosen words. This, after she had been put on hold for ten minutes.
This happened six days ago. I have not received a call from my doctor yet.

So here I sit, twisting slowly in the wind, not unlike thousands, perhaps millions of people who are made to feel that even though it is our health, our body, our life that is at stake, it is really none of our business.
We appreciate our doctors. We marvel at their expertise, their dedication to the field of medicine. In many many cases they are miracle workers. We recognize the long hours, the impossible schedules, the excellent work they do and we wonder how they do it.

But a three minute phone call? Is that too much to ask?