Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Let. It. Go.

Earlier this month I was entangled in a prescription nightmare. Four prescriptions needed to be renewed or refilled involving my doctor, who had just moved to a new clinic, his MA (medical assistant), a mail order pharmacy, a specialty mail order pharmacy, and my local pharmacy. It sounds complicated, but it shouldn’t have been, except for the fact that mistakes were made by nearly every person involved. What should have been simple became a convoluted mess.

I didn’t realize there were any problems until several days after I had seen my doctor, when he had updated my prescriptions on the computer. Normally, I am a very patient person, but as the days wore on, so did my patience. I pieced together a maze of mistakes and followed up with all parties involved, while slowly untying each thread and following the likelihood of each scenario. If I tried to explain the details to anyone, they couldn’t even follow what happened. Suffice it to say, the frustration was getting to me. Medications were running low and I was going to be heading out of town. Over a two week period, I grew angrier by the day, particularly when the MA wasn’t following up to let me know what she was doing, if anything.

I kept trying to keep my cool, breathe, troubleshoot, breathe some more, and tell myself⎯Let. It. Go. I imagined blowing the anger into a balloon and releasing it. That damn balloon was so heavy with anger; it kept coming back to me. A few more breaths, and many balloons later, I finally heard from the MA. By then, I had already taken care of everything.

Day in and day out, we all face life’s little surprises. Loosing one’s patience and having it push into anger is never a good thing. But I know I need to give myself a break. I am a work in progress. I learn by bringing awareness to my feelings, and as I do, I work through whatever it is I need to work through. I’ll just have to make sure I have plenty of balloons on hand.
Balloon launch photo courtesy of Alison H