Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Forgetfulness

Well I think Jimmy & I have hit the peak of forgetfulness.  Yesterday is a good example of it, but we are not alone as you will see.

On Thursday Jimmy was called by one of his doctor's nurses and given instructions and appointments which I wrote down word for word and repeated it back to the nurse just so that there would be no mistakes and misunderstandings.  First Jimmy was to report to Dr. Joshi's office at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning for breathing tests, which he did.  Next he was to report to Berea Hospital for blood tests on Monday which he did but some how there were no orders faxed to the hospital as the nurse said they would do.  The lady at the hospital called Dr. Kelleher and Dr. Joshi's office for verification and an order but was told that Jimmy did not need any blood tests by both offices.  Jimmy was also on his way that morning to another appointment, with his family doctor, Dr. Kelleher, but because he was early he had decided to stop for the blood tests first.

When Jimmy came home and told me that he was told that he didn't need any blood tests I called Dr. Joshi's office myself and eventually after several calls I spoke to the nurse who told me that YES, he was supposed to have blood tests done but because of the mix-up he could do them on Tuesday at least an hour before his CT Scan.   I also noticed that there was another appointment written down on the top of a paper for Dec. 21st, but it was for breathing tests and he had just done some on Saturday morning so I called them back and asked them about that appointment and it seemed that he was double-booked by mistake, and she thanked me for bringing this to her attention.

Later in the day I asked Jimmy how his appointment with Dr. Kelleher had gone, and to my surprise Jimmy said, "What appointment?" 
I said, "The appointment with Dr. Kelleher that you had this morning?" 
Jimmy then looked at me funny and said that he forgot all about his appointment after the mix-up with the blood tests and just came on home. 

We all forget things and now that we are older we even forget to look at the list we carry with us so we won't forget.

6 comments:

tomlaureld@yahoo.com said...

Well lets hear from Dave and Diane as I did forget to turn on my humidifier after I filled it with water.

tomlaureld@yahoo.com said...

I did that because Ron and Jerry are not old enough to forget anything.

Sandy Hatcher-Wallace said...

You think not?

Anonymous said...

Dennis, the only way I remember anything is to write myself notes on the calendar. It hangs- prominently- on the refrigerator, where I check it each morning and each evening! Since Roy and I share one car, we have to coordinate our appointments. It gets complicated when one of us forgets to post an appointment, and we find out that we both scheduled one for the same time.
It' only "senior moments" until you forget your name and address! :) Diane

Anonymous said...

My new phone has an easy calender on it that I write all my appointments on and a little note pops up twice to remind me the day before and morning of because now I don't trust my memory anymore.

Sandy Hatcher-Wallace said...

Somershade I'm afraid that wouldn't help either because we both knew of his appointments in the morning and then left to run an errand before going on over to the appointments and then somewhere in time while doing the errand the appointments slip our minds.

We need a reminder set 15 minutes prior to the appointment.