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Just renewed our Medicare Advantage Humana Gold Plus, mostly because of one Physician’s Assistant. He alone seems to put the actual caring in ‘health care.’
We renewed despite this particularly important test most every man will need at some point not being available in my network in my county. We don’t have a bookstore either.
Advent Health & Medical Group is where I must go.
At AdventHealth, Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ is our mission. It calls us to be His hands and feet in helping people feel whole. Our story is one of hope — one that strives to heal and restore the body, mind and spirit.
More than 92,000 skilled and compassionate caregivers in physician practices, hospitals, outpatient clinics, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies and hospice centers provide individualized, wholistic care.
Our Christian mission, shared vision, common values and focus on whole-person health is our commitment to making communities healthier with a unified system: 51 hospital campuses and hundreds of care sites in diverse markets throughout nine states.
“Arrive by: 5:45PM.”
You can’t spell adventure without Advent, everybody says that.
Arrive by:
5:45 PM
MR PROSTATE W AND WO IV CONTRAST with AHWCHMR1(3T)
AH Wesley Hospital
2600 Bruce B Downs Blvd
Wesley Chapel, FL 33544-9207
Prep:
* Please do not eat 6 hours before your appointment; you can drink water.
* You can take medications with water.
* Avoid caffeinated and carbonated drinks the day of your exam.
* Refrain from ejaculation 72 hours prior to appointment.
* Give yourself a saline enema the evening before appointment.
* Give yourself a saline enema 2-3 hours prior to appointment.
* Purchase saline enemas from your local pharmacy and follow instructions. A prescription is not required.
Arrival:
* Please arrive at indicated arrival time prior to your appointment for registration.
* Please bring your order with you.
* Please bring your Insurance card and Photo ID.
* If you are pregnant or there is a possibility of being pregnant, contact your ordering provider.
* You will be asked to change into an MR gown or scrubs for your safety.
* Please leave valuables/jewerlry [sic] at home. You will be asked to remove any personal items and change prior to entering the MRI room.
* Please bring identification card/information for all your medical devices and implants. Example: A pacemaker card, neurostimulator programmer information, cerebral aneurysm clip documentation, etc.
* If you have had prior imaging for this diagnosis outside of AdventHealth, please bring the images with you.
* Your copay, deductible, and/or coinsurance are due at time of service.
* Please bring a list of your medications, vitamins, and supplements.
* For safety reasons, do not g unaccompanied children to your appointment.
Mapquest says it’s a fifty-minute drive. Left at 4:07 pm arrived at 5:34.
“Arrive by: 5:45PM.”
Provided with the wrong address, too.
The registration desk is closed, the concierge tells us. You’ll have to go down that long hall and then turn left and go to the end of another long hall and they will help you. She looks at me and asks, “Would you like a wheelchair?” My wife answers for me, “No, he wouldn’t.” That’s a sight she is not yet ready to see.
In my head I am whistling the theme from “Bridge Over The River Kwai.”
Do you have an appointment? Umm, do many old men drop in for Prostate MRIs with and without intravenous contrast (no oral contrast) with mapping profuse software? After hours? You get that a lot, do you?
That’ll be $175 co-pay. Go wait by the player piano.
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want this test. I already paid out my ass. Poor choice of words, but why the hell should I have to wait an hour.
“Arrive by: 5:45 pm.”
Finally, somebody comes to get my ass – there I go again – at 7 pm. 1900 hrs.
Imagine how much better this country will be when Dr. Oz demands patients are seen at the appointed time guaranteed. Or it is prison time for the M.D. We could do it just like those Red State anti-abortion laws.
Dentists, too.
Concierge sees us waiting and waiting and finally comes over, so we tell her. She’ll get right on it.
‘Five minutes.’
Thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving. And, what the hell, Merry Christmas.
This is when we see “6:15” newly scratched in red pencil on the back of our paperwork.
“Arrive by: 5:45 pm.”
The player piano had apparently never heard of Artificial Intelligence. Sounded like Ferrante & Teicher, age two. Mrs. Sweetie wants to play ‘Guess That Tune’ while I am thinking I should pull the plug. Stat.
Got so tired of waiting, ten minutes later, we decide one of us should go over to inquire ‘what the hell?’ of the concierge.
A real smooth talker, my wife is petite and deceptively non-threatening in appearance. Also she’ll be back before I can get started.
‘Won’t be much longer.’
Maybe Dr. Oz could sentence abusive physicians to like a month for every minute of waiting time. Sounds about right. That would be fair, think we can all agree.
We saw George – sturdy, maybe sixty-three or fifty-eight – come in and now we see George come out. What the hell, what makes George so special? So, despite my natural shyness, I hollered, ‘Yo, George, what makes you so special?’
Heart problems. Heart attack this, cardiac incident there. He is currently kept alive by a variety of drugs which are destroying his kidneys. We are both Stage 3, but I am low and steady. George’s Stage 3 is jumpy.
Artificial plants in a hospital of this alleged quality should have live plants, not this dusty plastic crap.. Someday I’ll tell you about my years as a certified horticultural technician selling interior foliage and care.
Signs above a dispenser of fresh packages available gratis: WEAR A MASK IF YOU WANT.
* Please do not eat 6 hours before your appointment. And I didn’t.
“7 Freaking P.M.”
With my left knee aka Neal not constantly screaming at me, the prostate MRI starts off better than his MRI. He is still ‘broken’ but his serious pain has abated. The knee is a real problem for me all the time. This prostate situation is out of my hands and ken.
Change into scrubs, wish I had a photo. Look like the shaky old doctor who should have retired long ago. Who am I cutting into today? Can’t use that restroom, been locked all day. “Shouldn’t we see if somebody is inside?” my wife asks. She watches a lot of medical shows.
Nobody ever listens, it seems. Distinctly told David, the technician, no toe-tapping music. The MRI machine itself sounds like a car crusher at the salvage yard and you are inside the vehicle being demolished. David covers my ears with anti-noise muffs – like thoughtful moms put on their toddlers at big games – over ear plugs. He doesn’t have a blanket but here’s a white sheet.
Like a shroud.
Nobody ever listens.
Hard of hearing as my wife suspects, I can’t miss an automated voice announce, THE NEXT TEST WILL BE FIVE MINUTES LONG. Followed by Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen.”
Far easier to keep my ass still than my left leg. Neal is a running fool. Used to be anyway. Damn that LD-1000. Sigh.
Pitch dark by the time we got back to our car and turn toward home. And into a jay-walking brittle-looking aged lady in deathly dark clothing who was shocked to learn I can’t see to drive at night. Don’t understand why she was so upset – I missed.
Missed the turn north on to I-75, too.
Went back home the same way we came and it seemed much faster. Life lesson right there.
Thinking I’ll call my prostate “Pete.”
November 19. Would have been Roger Tragesser’s eighty-sixth birthday. This is no way to celebrate my silent old friend’s birthday, I thought. Intravenous injection in a cold sterile room with Little Richard rockin’ “Tutti-Frutti.”
Could be worse, could have been the Pat Boone version.
Then I realized nothing else could have been so appropriate. I got to walk in his Nikes for one night. Sorry sorry sorry.
“Smile and don’t be a negative burden,” he told me. Always tried to do what he asked. Next morning, I got up and shaved my beard. Think of a big old dog getting out of a muddy pond.
Life is good. Awaiting results.
Honoring Native American Heritage Month
As we celebrate Native American Heritage Month, we recognize and honor the remarkable contributions Native Americans have made in medicine and public health. Their forward-thinking developments paved the way for many of our modern-day health practices and continue to influence the future of health care.
At AdventHealth, we’re here to support the whole health of our Native populations for generations to come. We embrace whole-person wellness and health equity, and we’re always looking for ways to apply inclusivity to health care for all people.
Take care, you and peg.