I've mentioned this before, but today was a new low...

for being made to wait for things at the VA.  The quality of the care when you're being cared for is superb, don't get me wrong.  But waiting, waiting, waiting gets old, old, old.  In fact I could feel myself aging as I sat there.

I was trying to kill several birds with one stone.  I nearly had to run up there this past Tuesday when the geniuses who maintain the medications for the residents appeared to have let me run completely out of one drug on Monday.  But they found a few days supply in another bottle they'd "overlooked", so I added that to the to-do list for today's appointment.  I also tried to get them to move a blood test from Monday to today.  That was an abject failure, although I did get it moved from Monday to next month when I have another appointment.

In order to get my drug refill I had to stand in line and talk to a pharmacy technician.  I had refills left on the prescription but I still had to sit and wait after that, to talk to the pharmacist.  I waited twenty minutes for a 90 second consultation.  Yes I knew how to take the drug.  No I wasn't abusing the system by coming in for an in-person refill rather than calling and doing it on the phone to be mailed out.  Then when all the rest of the day's activities were done, I went to the pharmacy and had to stand in line for 30 minutes while watching all the people in front of me being told their prescriptions weren't ready yet. 

There used to be a nice system in place.  A TV monitor was set up in the pharmacy waiting area, and your name would pop up when all of your medications were ready.  Only then would you go and get in line at the window.  That TV monitor has been out of service for months now.  So people sit, wait and then when they get bored, they line up to be told "not yet".

As to the actual appointment, it was scheduled for 1:30.  I got there at 12:50 to check in early and have my vitals taken so I'd be ready well before my 1:30 appointment.  The doctor finally called my name at 2:40 p.m.  Then he spent an hour going over my various issues including going to get his attending physician to order more tests.  I'm supposed to go back in 2 months but the earliest appointment I could get for next time was January 31st.  My math tells me that's more than 3 months.  "Sorry, that's the first available".  I happened to overhear two other waitees talking and one said "I finally got tired of waiting and told the nurse I had to be expedited because I have another appointment."  Asshole.  Wait like the rest of us.  You're just making the system worse.

So on my free, rest day this week, I spent almost five hours at the VA and I'm exhausted now.