So this morning we were up and out the door by 5:35 to get to Mary Bridge Childrens Hospital by 6am for an 8am MRI.
First ball dropped was that they hadn’t gotten the records from the pediatrician for last week’s history and physical (H and P). The fact that they are all using the same charting program (Epic) should mean that this is available to all those in the MultiCare system. But somehow, they did not have the report.
Ball #2: in addition to the H and P from the past 30 days, for a kid going under general anesthesia, it is required that the referring doc come and do ANOTHER H and P within 24 hours prior to the procedure. But because this is an unusual scenario where the referring doc ISNT actually someone who has to be there for the procedure (because it usually isn’t done under General Anesthesia) they don’t seem to get the memo that they are supposed to do this. So Dr. Korol is on vacation and they have to find another neurologist to come check him out.
Ball #3: this is the one that meant none of the other balls mattered anyway. His orthodontic expander. We had mentioned this way back in the beginning of December when we scheduled this MRI. It’s metal. Should we be concerned? The MRI schedulers didn’t know and assured us they would find out. They didn’t find out and/or they didn’t tell us that it would need to be removed prior to the MRI because it is made of stainless steel and could heat up and cause tissue damage.
GAH!!!!!!
MRI cancelled.
Rescheduled for tomorrow. They tell us everything is set and Tiernan is having his expander removed today at 3 to allow this to take place. The interesting thing is, his orthodontist has decided it’s okay to be done with it and we will just leave it off and he will have his braces put on in a few weeks. So that was an unexpected outcome from today’s frustrations.
So Jason, fortunately, is able to get tomorrow off and will take Tiernan in for what we hope will be the actual MRI. However, after all the issues today, they are going to try to do it without sedation after all. We will still prep him for the possibility of general anesthesia (no food after a certain time) just in case he can’t keep the wiggles at bay.
We did get to express our frustrations with someone higher up in the chain who apologized profusely but also didn’t have a lot of explanations for why these gaps in communication keep happening. She said it happens only occasionally....no surprise it happens with Tiernan. If there is a curve ball to be thrown (and dropped) we tend to experience it.
