Can't decide re appointment

toady

Hi all, just thinking aloud as much as anything while I decide whether to keep or cancel a rheum. appointment.. I was a bit flarey a while back, rang the team & they fitted me in for an earlier appt than my existing next nurse appt at the beginning of May. Typically I felt better practically by the next day after putting off ringing them for ages in the first place :roll: and probably wouldn't have phoned if I'd held off a day or two.

If I now feel I could hang on til my orig appt, and my bloods were fine last time nothing going on there, do you find from experience the hospital would prefer to have their appointment back or see you anyway? On one hand, if I ring them, I can see them saying come anyway.. on the other, if I turn up with nothing to report I'll feel it's a bit of a waste of their time & they may as well have seen a new patient off their waiting list or something. I don't exactly want to go if I don't have to (who would..). though if I cancel you can bet I'll flare after, can't you?

By the time I have my next bloods & get the results, it would leave me cancelling at quite short notice. Can't decide.. :?

stickywicket

I understand your dilemma but I think your agonising might be pointless. Firstly, they may well have already reallocated your previous appt. Secondly, at my hospital I found it impossible to ring my cancellation tel no. just before we went on holiday, when they sent me an orthopaedic appt. for while I was away. I had to cancel online and simply state I needed a replacement appt.

I'd suggest you just go and tell the truth. A rheumatologist, of all people, should understand.

bubbadog

I agree with Sticky, a rhumatologist should understand that flares can come and go as they please. I have swapped and moved different appointments for several different things, bloods, G.P & Rhummey appointments and I could say several times I could have gone to the original appointment! So don't worry yourself about it, I'm sure your not the first and I'm sure your not the last person who will do it!!

barbara12

Hello Toady
I would keep the appointment from my experience of ringing up to change things, it becomes a bit of a tangle...and things could change between now and the appointment...hope they don't..good luck and please let us know how you get on...

toady

Thanks for advice.. I do still have the original appt date, though with the nurse not the dr/registrar etc. I've enough time to cancel, but it would be better if I'd had my bloods first, in good time. (So, I should have had them done last week :roll: ). Still pondering.. I may just keep this one.. the whole dithering thing comes not from whether to go as such, as because of the nuts & bolts of getting there etc.. it's a fair way to go, always a hassle to get there, transport, gearing up etc, that it's a very big 'thing' out of any given chunk of time. I don't get out far except for bloods & the occasional (very) other outing, so it will affect what else I could do this month, say. It will pretty much cancel out my spoons for a while , hence the indecision.

Yes I do agonise sticky no question about that, but mostlly when it's this sort of thing where I've changed the course of events by shifting appts.. otherwise I'm more que sera.. but I go into superstitious mode for this sort of situation. "Will it be the worse day of the 2, will I see the consultant I don't like, do I want this time for other things, will I have a better appt next time, will I have a better idea how things are and so wish I had hung on", etc etc on and on and on.. far too much I know, should just toss a coin probably.

I'll see what happens this week and maybe the decision will make itself.

barbara12

Toady I understand now, if its hard to get to the appointment, I know I have a few at an hospital quite a distance away, but have hubby to take me..good luck with whatever you decide...I can't make decision for my life...

toady

Thanks barbara, I am making rather heavy weather of deciding but I'll get there.

stickywicket

If it's any help, I've always found rheumatologists go by bloods rather that how I feel. I vividly recall one appt when I really don't know how I dragged myself in. In the preceding 3 months my two small boys had gone down, in relays, with chicken pox, whooping cough, mumps and finally -the eldest - meningitis. It had a devastating effect on my joints but my rheumatologist brightly told me that, according to my bloods, i was doing fine. Well, let's all hear it for the boods :roll: