Whats UP down South

I've been sorting though some EOBs this morning from my health insurance provider. I truly think they print these things in a foreign language just so that you'll get frustrated and say "to hell with it" and go ahead and pay the bills that they are stalling over. Insurance companies are on the top of my PISS ME OFF FAST list. Hospitals and doctors are right up there close to the top too.

The last time I was in the hospital with this kidney thingy I have, I had talked the doctor into letting me go home from my appointment with a promise to be in admissions bright and early the next morning. I arrived, cranky, hungry, feverish, and in pain to an empty waiting room in admissions where I still had to wait for half an hour for someone to call me in to do the paperwork. Finally an orderly came to escort me to my room where I sat, and sat, and sat, until I couldn't bear to sit anymore and climbed upon the bare mattress and went to sleep. Three hours later, I awoke still hungry, even crankier, and even more feverish. I still had not seen the admitting RN, hell, I had not seen ANYONE except the various personnel walking past the door. I decided to call my daughter in law who was the safety secretary in the hospital and meet her outdoors in a little gazebo for a quick smoke while I continued to wait.

As I stumbled down the corridor, I met the X-ray tech who'd come to take me for the tests that the doctor had ordered (aha,,,someone knew I was supposed to be there!), so I gratefully accepted the ride in the wheelchair down to the x-ray department. I told the radiologist that I had not really been officially admitted, had not seen a nurse, had no hospital bracelet, but if he'd do the tests so I could at least have a cup of coffee, and start my IV (cause by this time I was certain that I didn't want the delayed nurse to do it), that'd I wouldn't even cry when he stuck me.After the tests Michael wheeled me back where a nurse was finally waiting with a look of panic on her face. I told her to please just do what she had to do then get the hell out of there and leave me alone.

I spent the next three days in there, drugged and in pain, until I was finally able to pass the kidney stone that had landed me in that house of horrors. When the doctor told me I could go home, I went through the same waiting period that I had when admitted. I finally said, to hell with this,,after another 3 hour wait, took my own IV out, showered, dressed, and stopped at the nurses station and asked them to give me whatever I had to sign cause I was GOING HOME!