Isn't a cancer patient worth more than only getting an answering machine?

     Catching up my posts...Well I called the cancer center ,on  Tuesday May 28th... so Dr Dai is back in to be able to write me the prescription I have needed since last week...I called around 9:00 am and of course you get a machine to leave a message...Since I have been suffering with this horribly sore mouth for the long holiday weekend... and here it is 1:57 Pm and no return call yet...there is an option to push zero if you need to speak to someone NOW and that sends you to the receptionist, when I get the receptionist she says "I can ask but I'm gonna get in trouble as they just want you to leave a message" ??!!geezzzz why did I push zero then?...

     Okay so here's my opinion... THERE SHOULD NOT BE AN ANSWERING MACHINE AT A CHEMO CENTER FOR GOD'S SAKE... WE HAVE CANCER THAT IS THE EMERGENCY !!!! okay my rant is over...though I secretly wonder if Steve Zitney is enjoying the quiet and called them and told them to take their time as I can't speak without pain right now...lol nah he wouldn't do that ...would he??!!o_O

      So, I waited and waited and finally called the cancer center back at 2pm afraid they would call me too late to get anything done... I call the cancer center again planning to tell the receptionist to get someone NOW...after you go through the push this number recording I get the soothing UPMC music you hear in the tv...so I hold and hold and then I get a dial tone...TWICE this happened...Finally I call again and get a nasty receptionist named Cathy who I tell I haven't gotten my MRI results since last week and am in pain, she was not friendly and she said "Ill transfer you" ( I think its to the doc to get results) so it rings no less than 15 times and I get the same damn nurses station machine I got this morning...REALLY???         So this time I left a nasty toned and to the point message and plan to find out who I can get ahold of to fix this...what a mess as well as I plan on telling Dr Dai thanks for nothing for an added weeks worth of stress... I want to hear my results from her in the two days as promised... not 9 days later and still waiting...

    So finally I get a  call from a nurse who proceeds to tell me that My brain Mri was normal , I said why isn't my doc calling me I would hope that I would be important enough to her for her to call me herself with this news, besides I had questions... She said Dr. dai said it was okay for me to give you the results since it had been a couple days since your tests???!!!then why couldn't you give them to me 7 days ago?? I said I had it on Monday it has been 9 days...how would you like to wonder about that for 9 days?? She said you had it on Thurday it has only been a couple days and it takes a long time for them to come back...grrr Lady do not placate me...I may have lost my breast but my mind is fully intact...I said NO I had my test on Monday and it has been a FULL 9 days and I know the results were here Wednesday morning as I called and the receptionist said they were there but only Dr Dai could give them to me and she would be gone until the following Tuesday. Then she said well I will try and see if I can get her, but she is seeing patients ad it may be until tomorrow until she can give you your results and call in the onco mouthwash...So now this really made me angry...I had been in mouth pain over a week due to the holiday weekend and was not waiting any longer...So I posted about all of this on facebook as I needed to vent and was desperate for suggestions as to what to do.I had called early in the morning it was now 2 Pm and the center closes at 4:30.

     Then a wonderful friend on facebook actually quite a few of them who had been through the chemo process said this is NOT the way it is supposed to be. I didn't know what to do until one of them told me to get ahold of the Cancer centers Manager... Didn't know there was one...you are only privy to the answering machine and the receptionist and occasionaly blessed with a call from the nurse.   So, I call the receptionist again and this time crabby Cathy answers again and I tell her I would like to speak to the Manager, she said "why, what do you need from her?" REALLY?? I said . what I need from her I will get FROM HER transfer me NOW please, so she fumbles around and says he cant get the transfer to work...I said I will hold TRY AGAIN... So , what do I get, You guessed it another answering machine...But this time it was the cancer center manager named Jen. I left a detailed message about how wonderful the nurses and doc and staff are when you are there but how once you leave you cannot get a real person ever!!!! Told her how I have been waiting 9 days for Mri results to see if I had cancer in my brain...and every other thing I have experienced trying to navigate their broken system.

     Low and behold just drifted off and got a call from Dr Dai... no more than 15 minutes after the call to the manager...she apologized profusely for not getting back to me with my MRI results, she said that it happened only because she was out of town... but I told her 9 days was TOO long to wait on results that you would like to feel important enough to your own doc that the would be waiting anxiously for those results, she has after all met my family ...and watched Tori sit right there in her office with her fingers crossed waiting for bone scan results, those results mean the world to us...and I did not hold back with telling her how ridiculous the system is...she said she is new there and wasn't even aware of how it is when you call in and get no one but a machine... The manager had spoken to her as well as the nurse...and she said she would talk to Dr Peracha  and see how their system is different...
     I insisted she  have the manager call me in the morning so something can be changed....she took responsibility for her part but also acknowledged the system is broken...I just find it so hard to believe that I am the first one to complain... but I like others didn't know to call the manager thank you Carol Ross because of you giving me that knowledge...nothing was happening when I complained to the other staff. I told her (Dr Dai)I had to call 5 times before I got through and I am in much better shape than the other people there. She said "you can call me with problems"...then she said "hmmm well now I feel bad having told you that I guess you cant if you only get a machine" EXACTLY...I will keep complaining until they fix this... For me and for the others too sick to have a voice

     So the next morning I get a call form the Manager Jen... I told her under no circumstances should a cancer patient be getting the run around from an answering system ... I told her I felt like I was navigating the Verizon call center where you push a million buttons never get a person then the computer tells you sorry I did not understand that command... I said none of us would be calling if it wasn't important...trust me we are so busy trying to get through this and survive that we do not have the time or energy to call just to complain or make unreasonable demands...We are sick and we call because we need help and this is supposed to be our life line. She listened and was kind. She wanted to know names of who to get in trouble...I said there is no particular person...the nurses and everyone there is kind...it is the call system that is terrible.... I told her how when I was at Magee you had every direct number to every person that you were dealing with the surgeon, the asst, etc... you may get a machine if they were in surgery but then someone else checked the line and you were called back almost immediately and whatever issue you had they would deal with.  At this cancer center I find out that the call goes to the receptionist who routes you to the medical assistants machine who then eventually screens the calls, then routes them to the nurses, then they eventually screen calls...then they get around to calling you back sometime after 2PM and decide what to do for you...and most of the time that is to tell you they have to ask the doc and it is too late we will get to you tomorrow.
    Jen wasn't aware of this whole thing (so she said)...I told her that the receptionist are afraid to ask the nurses because its not protocol so no matter how sick you are they will not physically ask someone to help you ,you get the machine...and the nurses cannot ask the docs for help for you as it is not protocol... oy So you get NO HELP...

    So after she listens to me tell her that I spent the first chemo so sick that I lost 6 pounds in 8 days and couldn't walk , screamed when I went to the bathroom among many other symptoms and when I was there for that chemo I got told anything you need call us and we will fix it...and I believed them and trusted them... Then my Husband and I both call because I was too sick to even walk and we were told do not go to ER due to germs...and we could not get a single person to answer the phone to help us...So I sat here and suffered and cried...and then hubby got fed up and called himself and told the receptionist to do something now...so she reluctantly after telling us she was gonna get in trouble got me in to see the Dr. which then decided I was much too sick wrote me out a stack of prescriptions and then I had to have fluid and iv meds...That was 1st chemo... disheartening when you know you have 15 more to go.

    Then I went on to tell her about this last wonderful experience with no MRI results and no meds for my mouth... I told her the system needed to change...and that a person needed to be answering that phone and not dismissing our suffering...that our comfort as chemo patients and the confidence and trust we place in those giving us these meds was so important to out physical and mental well being... I told her I was calling not only for me but for the other broken bodies and broken spirits I sit with in those chairs for so many hours that suffer quietly...too ill or too afraid to speak up.

   So she told me she was glad that I had called that she was unaware of how it was...and that they were going to implement a call tree so that you could reach each person in each department and leave the appropriate person a message instead of it going through three people and each one deciding how to prioritize your call... I stressed EVERY call is important we are cancer patients and are suffering, so every minute counts to us... It took less than 15 minutes from the time I called the manager for her to go to the nurse , receptionists , and the Dr and sort this out... I had meds called in and had my test results given to me...LESS THAN 15 minutes...I am positive it took longer than that for all of the messages to be passed around. And I do not feel that a receptionist who is not a medical professional should have any hand in the decision as to how important my question about my health is...
      I will continue to push this until it is a better system as this is unacceptable...I told her that if I did not finds that it was improving then I was calling the main UPMC line and filing a formal complaint as I had seen it done the right way through my Magee surgical team... they also were always busy but at no time did I feel unimportant or left to my own devices to figure out what to do and left to suffer...
     We shall see and I will be watching...