After today, I feel like I’m having to do a bunch of jobs someone else is being paid for.

First. My primary physician no longer wants to prescribe Anastrozole (a drug for breast cancer survivors that reduces the risk of recurrence).  He wants my hematologist / oncologist to take over.  Usually, this would make perfect sense – EXCEPT – my primary has been handling the prescription since we moved back here and I’ll be done with it (yippee!) this coming September.  That means, at most, a renewal will only need to be put in once or twice.  I’d really just like to let it ride.  You know?  Lets not confuse the mail order pharmacy this close to the finish line.  So now I have to contact my primary’s office and plead my case and see what happens.  Fuck.

Second.  My primary scheduled me for a (heart) stress test today.  In preparation I had to forego my much beloved morning cup of coffee for 2 days.  And not drink or eat anything for 4 hours before the appointment (which was at 9:15 a.m.).  Any one who knows me well, knows that lack of caffeine and food is going to make for one crabby-assed fat old lady.

I got my crabby ass out of bed, washed it off, covered it appropriately and got to the appointment on time.  Turns out they expected to do a treadmill test on my fat old lady ass with the fairly new knee. 

Yeah, no.

The nurse took one look at me and questioned whether it was worth even trying to do this.  I gamely offered to try, as I had done a few years back.  That last try blew up immediately, and I ended up with a chemical stress test instead.  Only, this is a different facility (same organization mind you, just a different facility), and they aren’t set up to switch from a treadmill test to a chemical test at a moment’s notice.  Then she looked at my records and saw what kind of chemical stress test I had, and she was like, “oh hell no.”  She said they do those in hospitals; she thought I meant something called a nuclear stress test (?), which they do at that facility; just not without prior notice and authorization.

The general opinion was my primary should have discussed this with me and he should have been aware of my history when it comes to stress tests.

I agree.

So, no stress test this morning, but I did get a heart event monitor, which is going to keep me away from the pool for two weeks.  And which is this plastic strip and wires glued to your chest – only nobody noted that I am allergic to many adhesives.  And I noticed a little bit ago that the skin around this thing is already turning red.  In two weeks, I won’t have to peel the thing off, it should simply fall off along with a large portion of my skin.

Get home, HAVE MY FUCKING COFFEE, and I get a call from my primary’s office.  The doctor has ordered the new stress test, and I need to call and schedule it.  I didn’t have to schedule the last one.  You know, the fucked up one.  Why is this now my job? 

Third.  Saw my hematologist.  I like him pretty well, but he is not on top of the tests he previously ordered and I always have to ask him about the results.  I also had to remind him that he was concerned about my continuing low-level anemia and that he wanted a colonoscopy if it continued.  It has and is continuing.  The hematologist says he’ll contact my primary and explain why it needs to be ordered.  But looking at the after visit notes, he wrote that I was going to contact my primary and explain why I need an (early) colonoscopy and get it scheduled. 

Again.  How did this become my job? 

I’m fucking retired.  I’m not supposed to have a job anymore; certainly not jobs that have no paycheck attached.