Carrie T.
Call from psychiatrist
Oct 08, 2012
I went to see my regular therapist on Thursday. I really didn't want to go because I was up all night Wednesday night with a stomach virus, but I knew that if I called in to reschedule, they'd charge me another $35 and I didn't want to have that happen.
I drove the 30 minutes to her office. When she called me back, she could tell something was wrong, so I told her I was sick. She started saying, "Why did you come then? We don't want your germs!" So I told her that I didn't have the money to be paying the $35 again, and she responded with, "If you were legitimately sick, we wouldn't charge you that." I told her, "The last 2 times I was sick, you charged me the $35, so I wasn't taking my chances."
I handed her the plans that my mom, Josh, and I had written out. She didn't even read them. I was like, "Aren't you going to read them?" So she read over them, then handed them back to me. Her job was to keep them and send them to the insurance appointment psychiatrist (Dr. Hazelton) in Greenville. She told me that it's not her responsibility to do that.
I wasn't in her office for 5 minutes before she wanted to tell me time was up. I didn't get up, shower, dress, and drive 30 minutes (one way) while legitimately sick just for her to have me leave 5 minutes after I got there!! She also said that she didn't feel there was a need for me to go back to see her a third time. I told her that she needed to call Dr. Hazelton and talk with him about that. Then, I decided to talk in very precise detail about what's going on with my thyroid so I could drag out my session to the full 35 minutes.
When I got home, I called Dr. Hazelton but he wasn't in his office so I left a message. He called me back at 3:30 this afternoon and I told him what happened with Kris and he said that he was planning on calling and speaking with her again. He said that he may just call it even and release my notes to my surgeon, or he may have me go see him one more time. I don't have the gas money to run back and forth to Greenville (an hour from here, one way) when I could just as easily mail these plans to him and we discuss it over the phone.
I then told him about my thyroid and that I'd find out what was going on with that by tomorrow afternoon. He said I need to get a second opinion. WTF? I'm pretty sure that Dr. Petruzziello will be my FIFTH opinion after my friend's mom (who's a nurse), the ER doctor, the ultrasound doctor, and my regular doctor! If I had just taken Dr. Jensen's advice (which actually counts as my first opinion), I would still be thinking this is my lymph nodes, instead of my thyroid.
I like how Dr. Hazelton just assumes I'm trusting the advice of one doctor. *SMH*
