And 38 doctor's appointments later...
We ended up in Gainesville at Shands.
I quit going to Shands with Chance about six years ago after a quite unpleasant visit with a pompous neurosurgeon. And I really should say that MOST neurosurgeons are pompous so I shouldn't have been surprised. We met most of the biggies in the South. Believe me. POMPOUS.
I quit going because all they wanted to do was poke and prod and offer no logical solution to our issues. In fact, one medical professional said that he would never do any type of procedure on Chance. Ever. Again. Yet he wanted us to return in six months for more poking and prodding.
That's when I said enough is enough.
But then Chance started having some issues this past January and our wonderful primary doc said that he wanted us to make a visit to Shands. Just because we hadn't been in a long time. And yes, he understood why we never went back, but he thought it was time.
Ok. Fine.
Shands called on a Thursday and wanted us to come on Friday. No way. So we scheduled our appointment for the following Friday. I called the ever sweet Jessica to let her know that we'd be in town and could we have lunch. She said SUREEEE! Yay!
We arrived about an hour before our 9:00am appointment. Which, if you do the math, means that we left Tally at 5:00AM!! I repeat 5:00 AAAAA.MMMMM. I spent a few minutes collecting all the items we needed like camera, nintendo ds, and ipods, then spent a few minutes putting on some makeup (don't want to scare the nice folks), and I was ready to hit the main entrance.
It was much smaller than I remember.
We signed in at neurosurgery and only had to wait about five minutes before they called us back. The did the normal stuff like checking height and weight and showed us to a very small room. Where we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Thirty-five minutes later, Dr. Pincus made his entrance along with a woman, who I think might also have been a doctor. But I wouldn't know. She didn't introduce herself.
Dr. Pincus, with his very dark spray tan and shiny suit (think George Hamilton or Charlie Crist), said to Chance that he couldn't believe how much he had grown since the last time they saw each other. I said six years and that I didn't think it was him that we saw. He said that, no, he couldn't have seen Chance because he wasn't even there six years ago. Huh. Ok. Interesting.
Obviously he didn't look at the chart.
The doc then asked a few questions. What had been going on? Why were we there? Any new symptoms?
Then he did a quick neuro check.
And eight minutes after Dr. Too Tan swaggered through the door, we were on our way. Yes, really.
Up at 4:00am. Drive 2.5 hours to Gainesville. Thirty five minute wait. And BAM! It's over. Yes, really.
I was in such a state of shock at what a COMPLETE and UDDER waste of my time this was that I couldn't speak for the next hour. We drove in circles. With me not speaking. Or listening.
Of course, Chance was thrilled that someone had pronounced him WELL in EIGHT minutes that he was riding high on that cloud #9.
Needless to say, we WON'T be going to Shands again any time soon. Or EVER. There were a couple of bright spots though...
And their names are JESSICA and KRYSTAL!!
Sweet Jessica met us after her class at KRYSTAL so I could drown myself in the wonderousness that is a Krystal Cheeseburger. There are no photos from Krystal except for one I took on my phone when we walked in the door. There are no photos because I was too distracted by how HAPPY I was to be at Krystal. It's been a year. And I've missed them. Yes, really.
After we ate, Jess took us to this really cool Pizza place called Satchels. We didn't eat again (I promise). We went there because they have this really cool store with lots of cool stuff. And lots of cool, old junk and collections EVERYWHERE. See photos.
Thank you Jess, Krystal and Satchels for making me a happy day. Pincus who?
