I have decided that the true name of my HMO is not Kaiser Permanente.  It is Fucking Kaiser.

I almost never have interactions with my HMO without, at some point, thinking (and sometimes saying out loud) “fucking Kaiser”.

At least this time, it was not one big ass disaster of frustration that leaves me screaming into a pillow.

This was more a string of stupid things that just leave me shaking my head and quietly muttering “fucking Kaiser”.

I had my quasi-final meeting with the oncologist.  After this, I should only be seeing her every 6 months or so. 

Yay!

The visit did not start out well – but that was on me – because I had mixed up this appointment with the one I had for the next day – and I showed up more than an hour early.  Well fuck.

I felt really stupid, but then, as I sat and waited patiently (reading my Kindle because, although I have never been a Boy Scout, I try to be prepared), I noticed a lot of the people going up to sign in were at least as befuddled as this fat old lady. People showing up for appointments that had been canceled or the time/date changed; people having to leave because they had forgotten stuff in their car; people without their Kaiser card and people without their photo ID. 

Clearly oncology is the land of the befuddled. I’m guessing it’s a side effect of cancer. At least, that’s what I plan on blaming my own (considerable) befuddledness on from here on out.

Anyhow, I finally got called in and right off – they wanted to take my blood pressure.  With the fucking machine.  Of course, they did and of course they did not have a cuff that would fit. So the nurse said she’d do it on my lower arm – with me pointing out that it would not be accurate.  As I know and as she should know, the way to get an accurate reading is by doing it manually.  She took it twice.  It hurt like a bitch both times – leaving me with lovely streaks of broken blood vessels on my arm. 

And I told her that Kaiser’s inability to properly take the blood pressure of fat people is one of its biggest failings (okay – not it’s biggest failing, but at least it is one that they could easily rectify and yet refuse to do so). 

So the nurse hated me and while I didn’t hate her, I was not very fond of her.

In the examination room, the nurse handed me one of those paper faux gowns, which I refused, telling her, “Like that’s going to fit.”  So instead she gave me a paper sheet and told me to strip down to the waist and wait for the doctor.  (Why Kaiser now provides cloth gowns in sizes that fit large people but still insist on handing fatties these bitsy paper gowns asking us both to pretend that it could possibly fit, is one of the mysteries for the ages.)

Okie-dokie.

Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting. 

(Remember, I had already about hit my limit for waiting before I was called in.)

Doctor comes in.  We talk about her putting me on the hormone suppressant Anastrozole; to which I have become resigned.

Then she wanted to do a full exam. 

I told her that I had seen my surgeon just a few days earlier and she (my surgeon) did a full exam and didn’t she (the oncologist) trust the surgeon to have done a thorough exam?  The doctor looked at my records and said she hadn’t realized I had just seen the surgeon and sees that the surgeon did a full exam.  And then to doctor proceeded to do the exam anyhow.

Okie-dokie. 

Finishing up the appointment and the doctor sends the prescription for Anastrozole to the pharmacy right across the hall from oncology. 

I said, since the pharmacy was right across the hall from oncology they probably just kept a barrel of Anastrozole and filled the (many) prescriptions by scooping them out of the barrel.  We both had a nice laugh over that.

Silly patient.

I get dressed.  I go across the hall to the pharmacy.  I go up to the window and tell the guy I am there to pick up my prescription for Anastrozole.

Tippy-tappy on the computer.

And he says, “I’m afraid we don’t have any.”

And I literally said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.  It is prescribed to almost all post-menopausal women who have or had breast cancer.  You are across the hall from oncology and you don’t have it?” 

“I’m sorry for any inconvenience.  Should I mail it to you?”

“No.  I want to start it right away.” 

“Let me see if another pharmacy has it.”

“That would be great.”  (I lied, it would not be great.  Great would be having the fucking pills at the one pharmacy where one would expect them to be – fucking Kaiser.)

The pharmacy in the next building has it.  So off I go (only now I’m toting two kind of heavy bottles of Pedialyte because I still have fucking diarrhea after three straight weeks and my regular doctor told me to get some). 

Next door.  The pharmacy is fucking PACKED and my limit for waiting is way back in my rearview mirror.  I suck it up and get in line and wait and wait.  Get up to the front and am told they have the order but it hasn’t been filled yet.  They’ll call me when it’s ready.

So MORE waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.

I see my name on the board and get back in line.  Waiting.  Waiting – they call my name, so I have to get out of line and go up to the designated window and get my fucking pills and leave.  Going through this building, across the courtyard, through the other building, across the driveway to the parking building. 

I am tired.  I am cranky.  I am not happy (and no, a cookie will not help).

I have spent my entire morning at Kaiser – 8:30 to 11:45. 

Fucking Kaiser.