After a Week, We Have an Answer

Today my roommate was given official word that, for the time being, the telemedicine bus was no longer running. This means he will have to travel to Tulsa in order to see the specialist who handles his medical issues. It wasn't the news he wanted to hear, but at least it is an answer and we can move forward from it. We've come up with the best plan we can in the meantime. It's going to be expensive and tiring, but that can't be helped. We'll make it through.

The whole situation has been handled in a very unprofessional manner. They didn't call him until the end of the day on the night before his appointment. They never called him again. He's had to call them back to find out anything. His case worker failed to inform him that she would be on vacation, which she could have done with a simple email. "Hey, I'm on vacation for the next week. If you need to talk to someone, here is blahblah's email." The program has posted nothing about this on their website or on their blog. It's as if they fail to see that all the quick and all reaching methods of getting this information out there would make things easier on everyone. Why have to deal with thousands of call from freaked out people when you could mass email everyone or put a notice on your blog? Why even have a blog if you're not going to use it for practical reasons?

This isn't going to be easy on us at all. We have a plan on how to handle this, but it is going to cut into an already stretched budget. When we used to make this trip five years ago, it would take us days to recover. We're older now and neither of us are in the best of health.  Both of us are in situations where our bodies can do unpredictable and difficult things. That's the problem with appointments like this. You have to go, no matter what else is happening to you, because you may not get in to see them again for another several months.

Despite all of that, I know we're still in a better situation than a lot of other people who are losing the telemedicine bus.  Many of the people who benefited from this program were elderly, often without anyone to drive them places. Others were beyond the point where driving to Tulsa or OKC was an option for them. They just don't have the strength left. Many people won't have the funds to go out of town. Others don't have any means to do so. The economy has wrecked a lot of people over the last several years. Many of them, especially those who were too ill to work, have had to give up owning their own car.

Maybe this is just a temporary setback. Maybe they can find a way to get the bus running again and things can get back to the way they were. Maybe we'll only have to make this trip once or twice before telemedicine is functioning again. I certainly hope so. This program did a lot of good and losing it will end all of that. It's going to put a lot of people in a bind. Trying to keep healthy shouldn't be this stressful.