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INFORMATION SPELLS RELIEF
Today is Thursday. I had an HIV test on Monday and I am positive the doctor said he would call me in a “day or two” to say the results of the test or to tell me that I need to take the test again. I don’t think I am HIV positive, but I have been very anxious and not able to sleep well waiting for the answer. The absence of any call from the doctor is really making me crazy—I am thinking that there must be something wrong. The doctors office is very busy and I don’t want to bother him in case I was mistaken about the time he would call me—please offer helpful advice.
Nervous
Dear Nervous,
Flip open your phone and start dialing. You are your doctor’s customer and everyone in that office is being paid by someone to provide you service. Your right to information about your test—even if it’s only clarification on when you can expect results—is way more important than their busyness and whether or not you understood what your doc said the first time. The tests themselves and the waiting for what they reveal are stressful enough without wondering when the phone’s going to ring. Good healthcare means helping patients with their peace of mind, and your provider and colleagues should be supportive of and used to patients calling in with testing and other health questions and concerns.
There’s no doubt about it: making requests of healthcare providers, lawyers, professors and other “authorities” can be scary. If it will help, practice what you will say if you call, maybe something like: “Hi, I want to double-check when Dr. So-and-so said I would hear about my recent test; I’m trying to reduce my worry and calls to your office.”
Communication is one of our most powerful remedies for stress, so I am prescribing you one call (or more if you need them) to reduce your understandable worry.
Hope you get some sleep tonight,
Les
11/07
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