The Call To Mayo

7:00 am - the phone lines open for the central appointment desk at Mayo. I dialed at approximately 7:00:15. I finally reached a human at 7:27 am. I tried to explain to the person on the other end of the phone that we needed an appointment right away. She asked me to send the biopsy report, but of course, there hasn't been a biopsy yet. I told her that we had been to ER and had a diagnosis and that the doctor in the ER had told my mom to "get her life in order" and had told me in the hallway that this could go very quickly, that my mom's cancer was very advanced. The Mayo lady transfered me to the GI oncology department, where I talked to Vicky. She asked me to have ER fax their report to her directly and that she would have it reviewed.

I called Fairview Ridges and got a "release" from them for mom to sign. I then drove to mom's. She was in pretty bad shape, the pain was out of control and she was vomitting, which was making the pain worse. Dave was getting ready to take her to the ER.

I personally walked the release to health information management services office and they had already pulled the records and had them ready to fax.

I called back to Mayo about 30 minutes later, and verified that they had received the records and then asked if we could schedule an appointment. I was told that it would take several day for the doctors to review the report and that we could expect a call by Friday. I again tried to explain the urgency to the person on the other end of the phone... but it obviously was not in her control...

And so, it seems that I can't get the Mayo machine to move any faster.