Disaster Averted

This last week I had my annual physical with my general practitioner. Now as this appointment approached I realized I was getting low on my hormone supply.

Perfect! Usually when these two appointments get close like this I have my GP add a few extra test to the list and send the extra results to my HRT Doctor.

Knowing this I called the office of my HRT Doctor.

Only to find out he was no longer practicing at that office.

In fact they didn't have any way for me to contact him and scouring the internet and other resources I could not find him.

O_O

Oh, did I mention the HRT supply was getting low?

Yep, not good. remembering how when I stopped hormones for surgery I became the wicked stepmother incarnate.

Knowing this I starting scouring the internet and any other trans related forums I could find and came up with a name. Better still he was an Endocrinologist (which my other wasn't), which I had always would have preferred but had trouble finding one two and half years ago. On top of it all he is a well known Doctor at the biggest university around here. Not to mention one of the top medical schools in the country. Double super bonus he accepts my medical insurance.

And he sees trans patients.

Woot!

The issue was, when could I get into see him.

By the time I tracked all this info down the best I could do was call him the morning of my appointment with my GP. Hopefully I could get this resolved and have my GP help me in the mean time if there was an issue.

I called and got a wonderful office associate named Pam. She asked me why I wanted to see the doctor. So I explained I was on hormones and my last doctor was no longer practicing. My current prescription was running out and I needed to find a new doctor.

She told me that wasn't a problem but that he was on vacation in October so when he could get me in was going to be tricky. Yet before that she asked if I was a new patient to the Hospital and University's medical care program. Explaining that I was she still decided to double check.

"Let me just make sure you aren't in here somewhere. What is you last name?"

Which I supplied.

"Ok what is your first name?"

{Knowing that my insurance was on my old name still, and that for now I am legally known as him I gave her that one. }

"Wait...Your {His name}?"

"Yes."

"oh...{pause}...OH! I see, well you aren't in the system, but for our records do you have another name you prefer, so that we can put it into our records?"

"Yes, Kelli. Is it going to be an issue that my name isn't changed yet?"

"Oh no, of course not! We just want to know so we address you correctly when you are here. Are you going to be changing it?"

"Yes, that should be happening sometime in the next six months."

"Great! Well for now we will bill you with the old name but when you change it and your insurance changes just let us know so we can update everything."

"Thank you so much."

"Oh it is no problem at all sweetie. Now lets find a day we can get you in."

Which she did. She was so very sweet and apologized for a system goof on her part. Which didn't bug me at all. She was very nice and extremely helpful so taking a little longer to sort things out wasn't an issue. She found a couple of dates in November for me and I choose the first one that would work the best.

Appointment set she put me on hold and got the records office on the phone to properly get all my insurance info into the system. Before she let me go she did inform me that I would be getting a patient record card in the mail and a notice of my first appointment. And to bring the patient card with me as it will expedite entering my info into the system.

That all set I had one other issue to take care of.

Namely, my current hormone supply was not going to last until the second week of November.

Off to my annual physical I went.

Once my Doctor got into the room, we went over everything that was going on. He did the standard physical once over for someone my age and asked me about my hormones, as he isn't handling them. He just isn't experienced with it and doesn't feel comfortable doing so. Which is fine with me. I just want him to be me standard doctor and take care of the mundane stuff.

This allowed me to then go into the story I mentioned already. He was shocked as he knew the other doctor and had not heard anything. He was then extremely curious as to what had happened. I did stop him before he went to far and added that I was going to run out of hormones soon and was wondering if he could refill my current script so I would at least have enough to get me through the waiting period and than have the new doctor take it from there.

He asked how long I had been on these doses and I told him almost twenty months. This relaxed him a bit as he wasn't going to be changing what I was taking.

We then finished my appointment, had the nurse come in and draw blood for the usual test and the extra ones. Prescriptions in hand I was on my way.

Glad a least to have myself covered until the end of the year and a new doctor on the way. Because when I found all this out I was in total panic mode since things had been going so well up to this point. That and I recalled the misery I was in during the time I had to stop for surgery.

I am so not looking forward to that ever again.

At least I manage to avoid that again.