Why Can't I Have Nice Things?
I'm very ticked that they changed my check-in time for my surgery from noon to 5:45 am and only today, the afternoon before the procedure, left a message on my landline at 3:45 pm to let me know. I got home at 6:30 pm and by then their office was no longer answering phones.
My dad was going to take me in, but he's a three-hour drive away, so getting here at 5:15 am would require him to wake up before 2 am. Though he can still pick me up. He has to, since they won't let me go home without someone to take me.
It turns out that local buses don't really run at that time of morning. There's one local line that starts at 5:08 am. With the transfer to another bus and all the necessary walking, if my trip were optimal and nothing went wrong it'd still be 51 minutes to get to the hospital, making coming in late is guaranteed. The subway doesn't run to that area because Queens. Dad didn't want me taking a bus at that time in the morning anyway, worried about my safety.
Medicare won't cover a car fare--the phone person also asked if the surgery was really necessary--but gave me numbers to some discount charity tax lines organizations... which were of course all closed for the day by then.
Stuck, I'm using a regular car service to get there since it's cheaper than driving myself, putting my car in a pay lot, and having dad and his girlfriend come in to pick me up so she can drive my car back to my home. If we did the "my car and his girlfriend" thing, he worried about me parking outside of monitored pay lots. Though parking on the street in that area is really difficult at any time of day: I've spent 45 minutes to an hour or more looking for a curb spot.
I don't need that craziness at 5 am while contemplating getting cut open how many hours from then. Get there at 5:45 am to check in, wait at least two hours for surgery. When I went in for the right-side lump two years ago, the doctor started on me two hours after the surgery was supposed to start.
At least getting this done stupid early this time means I won't be as hungry and thirsty as long, since either way I was supposed to stop eating after midnight. And I'm not supposed to drink anything starting four hours before surgery. With my medication-based dry mouth, that can suck.
I had one lump removed before, but this time it's a lump from each breast in the same operation. You'd think surviving brain surgery would make this kind of thing old hat to me, but I still worry. It probably doesn't help that my brain surgery wasn't 100% successful and led to many more agonizing procedures that didn't totally work either.
I'll be glad to get this over with. *g*
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My dad was going to take me in, but he's a three-hour drive away, so getting here at 5:15 am would require him to wake up before 2 am. Though he can still pick me up. He has to, since they won't let me go home without someone to take me.
It turns out that local buses don't really run at that time of morning. There's one local line that starts at 5:08 am. With the transfer to another bus and all the necessary walking, if my trip were optimal and nothing went wrong it'd still be 51 minutes to get to the hospital, making coming in late is guaranteed. The subway doesn't run to that area because Queens. Dad didn't want me taking a bus at that time in the morning anyway, worried about my safety.
Medicare won't cover a car fare--the phone person also asked if the surgery was really necessary--but gave me numbers to some discount charity tax lines organizations... which were of course all closed for the day by then.
Stuck, I'm using a regular car service to get there since it's cheaper than driving myself, putting my car in a pay lot, and having dad and his girlfriend come in to pick me up so she can drive my car back to my home. If we did the "my car and his girlfriend" thing, he worried about me parking outside of monitored pay lots. Though parking on the street in that area is really difficult at any time of day: I've spent 45 minutes to an hour or more looking for a curb spot.
I don't need that craziness at 5 am while contemplating getting cut open how many hours from then. Get there at 5:45 am to check in, wait at least two hours for surgery. When I went in for the right-side lump two years ago, the doctor started on me two hours after the surgery was supposed to start.
At least getting this done stupid early this time means I won't be as hungry and thirsty as long, since either way I was supposed to stop eating after midnight. And I'm not supposed to drink anything starting four hours before surgery. With my medication-based dry mouth, that can suck.
I had one lump removed before, but this time it's a lump from each breast in the same operation. You'd think surviving brain surgery would make this kind of thing old hat to me, but I still worry. It probably doesn't help that my brain surgery wasn't 100% successful and led to many more agonizing procedures that didn't totally work either.
I'll be glad to get this over with. *g*
You can comment here or at the Dreamwidth crosspost.
comments at Dreamwidth.