womzilla | Minor health update

I felt noticably better yesterday than the previous couple of days. Infection still obviously present, but perhaps receding? I'm still tired and prone to bursts of anger, though.

Thursday evening, I went to what I thought was my appointment with the vascular specialist at the cardiology department of my local DOCS. (I had made the appointment through DOCS when I was visiting the very nice orthopedist who said this was outside her balliwick.) It turns out that they had made the appointment for *next* Thursday. But maybe, out of the goodness of his heart, the attending cardiologist, who is not a vascular surgeon at all, would take a look at it if I wanted to wait. They made me fill out all of my insurance information again, despite the fact that I had been at DOCS four times in the previous 31 days; I did this on a tablet computer which then tried to make me watch advertisements about bladder control products at the end of the signin. About an hour after I arrived, they asked me for my co-pay; I explained that I wasn't going to pay them anything until I could ask the doctor whether he would actually be able to do anything for me, since I *already knew my diagnosis* and I was simply there for treatment.

They refused. The doctor literally would not come to the door to talk to me about whether he could possibly help me unless I agreed to pay my co-pay--which would in turn allow them to charge my insurance company for the whole visit. I left without being seen.

My haemotologist recommended a vascular specialist in White Plains, and I have an appointment there on Monday. When I called DOCS yesterday to make sure that they canceled my appointment for next Thursday, they couldn't even access their own calendar to check.

God bless the best health care system in the world except for the 37 which are better including Cuba.