Deadliest Catch

I received a call yesterday morning from Baptist Medical Center to register me for a upper endoscopy that is scheduled for today. I have been waiting for a few months for this procedure to be scheduled. This is a surgical procedure that is performed under anesthesia and requires the patient to be NPO or nothing by mouth for so many hours before the procedure. The patient must also have someone drive them to their appointment because of the anesthesia. With all this information, the patient usually has at minimum a week of advance notice.

I received a second call this morning that was my physician's office. The nurse was so happy to finally get in touch with me. She had been calling my sister-in-law's house, where I used to live, leaving messages there for two weeks. But, nobody called me to let me know of these messages.

Here is the moral to my story. If you want to have a reasonable notification of future events, make sure that your physician has your current contact information. The last time I went to my physician, I did change my information, but the office had not updated their files on me. So, also make sure that your physician's office does the update if you are planning on having a procedure of any sort! :-) Also, keep in touch with family members for two reasons. (There are more than two reasons, but for this story, it is two.) One, family is important. You only live once. Two, to ensure that they will get messages to you if one is left there.  :-)