August 4, 2005
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Today Susan and two of her boys arrive. Connie and Ethan are driving them down. Tomorrow Joe arrives. Jeff is bringing him and the other two older boys down. It is gonna be a fun weekend.
So, ok… yesterday I worked at Dr. Cole’s office. It was a very interesting day… it was supposed to be only 3 hours, but it was more like 7 because of the strange things that happened. One of the strangest was that we had a flood on the third floor. The men’s room toilet, which is off the hallway, was overflowing in a very big way…. the hallway was flooded, our office back room was flooded and the water was running through the floor onto the 2nd floor and into the “colonoscopy recovery room”! We were running around grabbing every paper towel we could find to try to create a dam and contain the flood water. And we were moving the boxes that house older patient charts and overflowing drug samples.
Then the door to the drug sample closet was locked and even the key would not unlock it. The maitenance man couldn’t get it open either… and the modem is in there and it needed to be re-set to send electronic billing.. a very important part of office duties… probably the most important thing we do!!!
A patient called and wanted to get a prescription for an anti-inflammatory drug which the doctor had given her samples. BUT it wasn’t written in the chart which one… so did some detective work and figured it was Mobic and called her pharmacy, placed the order, just to get a call back that her insurance requires p rior authorization before they can fill that drug. Well, that can and usually does take a lot of time, which I did not have at the moment… so I called the patient, who has an appointment on Monday, and told her I would give her some samples to get her by until her next appointment if she could come pick them up. This all happened just prior to the flood and then the unlockable drug closet door… so she shows up and I can’t give them to her, but I remember I had some at home so arranged to take them to her. (this is not our usual protocol — beyond the usual service we render, definitely… but she was really hurting and I felt bad she had gotten off work early to come by for nothing.) Anyway, I ran home just to realize I never had used the Mobic samples I had at home, so I had returned them to the drug closet which is now seemingly hopelessly locked. I had to place the call to the patient to tell her I was really sorry, but I didn’t have any Mobic afterall. I left the message on her answering machine. Then I went to the other office nurses condo to give her some things and was telling her this story, when much to my surprise she said… I have some Mobic samples you can have!!! And she gave me just enough to get the patient by until Tuesday, the day after her appointment!!! So long story… but success comes in the end. I showed up at her door after all and she was very, very blessed!
