Mom's health may hint at future

I am feeling much better now that I have a plan in place. A few weeks ago I took my mom to the doctor for a spot on her face. When we got there, they said they had been trying to call and cancel the appointment. As I had driven about an hour and a half to her place and another 45 minutes back to the doctor’s office, I was understandably upset.
At my insistence, they referred us to someone else. I only turned around twice before finding the place. To say it was handicapped accessible was a stretch. Once inside the building we were faced with a wooden ramp, similar to what one usually sees on the outside of buildings.
There was a huge bump at the bottom of the ramp and I almost dumped my mother out of her wheelchair getting her onto the ramp. Once at the top, we were shown to a room. I couldn’t get her wheelchair in the door.
After repeatedly failing, I asked the nurse if she had any special tricks to get the chair thorough the narrow opening. She couldn’t get it either. She moved a regular chair as close to the door as she could and Mom hobbled the few steps to the chair.
The physician’s assistant took a biopsy and removed most of the lesion. He was very kind, considerate and more importantly, Mom liked him. A trip down the ramp was easier than the trip up had been. He even helped me get her back into the car.
A long two weeks followed, while we waited on the results from the biopsy. When we finally got the results, it was squamous cell cancer. That was kind of good news as it wasn’t a more deadly melanoma but it does need follow up care.
The next step was to set up an appointment with someone else, as the place we went to didn’t accept all of her insurances. Thinking we would need a referral, I called her family doctor. Then the problems began.
There was a problem with the fax machine and the necessary reports are drifting around in cyberspace somewhere between the two doctor’s offices. Numerous calls later, the reports were finally where they needed to be.
There were more problems, as I was then told that I would need to find a doctor who took the insurances and to look for a place in Dayton, Ohio. It has been years since I lived in Dayton and they have changed all the roads around since then so I really didn’t want to do that. Besides, I don’t have the foggiest notion of how to begin to search for a competent professional in another state.
I called the original place and they said the insurance was no problem and set us up with an appointment. Then I called and made an appointment with the knee doctor for the same day, thinking I can kill two birds with one stone.
 It took the better part of a week to make a simple appointment. In light of what happened last time, I intend to check a few days before the scheduled date to make sure it hasn’t been canceled and that they have everything they need to proceed with whatever treatment she needs.
The thing that scares me the most is not that she has skin cancer. They can take care of that. What scares me is the fear that this is my future. I am terrified that I will have to depend on others to make doctor’s appointments. I am fearful of having to depend on others for transportation. I fear the loss of my independence. I fear the loss of myself.[[In-content Ad]]