Doing What's Necessary

Repeated phone calls

Will not make us respond any faster

February 28, 2013~ Today's real life lesson in mental health:

I called the psychiatrist's office three days ago, navigated through the automated phone tree, and left a message asking if someone could call me back about the Zyprexa dose since it seems to be too much. The nice automated voice told me not to expect an answer for 48 hours, and that repeated phone calls “would not make them answer any faster".

When no answer came I called back today, after having decided to just make an appointment. The receptionist would not talk to me about anything because there's no release of information on file from my 19 year old son, even though she's seen me in the office with him twice and I was the one that made the original appointment with her over the phone six weeks ago. She refused to let me make an appointment, refused to pass a message on to the psychiatrist about the medications, and told me "I can't even tell you whether or not he's a patient here".

When I asked if my son could give her permission to talk to me over the phone she said, "just this once", but when I gave him the phone she decided instead to try having a conversation with him.

Not a great choice today.

When I gave him the phone, I told him to just make an appointment for later this week - any day, any time (trying to keep it simple for him.) After having a very confused conversation, he hung up and said, "I have an appointment on the 14th".

Guess what?

We already had an appointment scheduled on the 14th.

So, the meds aren't right, I can't get a message to the psychiatrist, the receptionist will only talk to my son who can't articulate what he needs, and the only appointment I can get is the one we already had two weeks from now.

So I decreased the dose myself. Some days you just have to do what you have to do.