My Doctor's Nurse is an Idiot

Mental note: must remember when calling Dr. S's office that his nurse is a blithering idiot.

Yesterday morning, I noticed that my fingers were swollen, enough that I couldn't get my rings on. I figured it was probably nothing, but since I hadn't heard of this symptom occuring in early pregnancy, I decided to call and check with the doctor's office. I called and left a message with my name, dob, Dr's name, short message cell phone number and a work number if I don't answer my cell phone. I repeat my name and dob at the end of the message since they have told me before that this is how they look up my records.

She calls my cell two hours later, leaves me a message asking for my dob and a better number to reach me at. She doesn't bother calling ny work number where she could have reached me. Sigh. Frustrating, but whatever. I call her back 15 minutes later, leave her my name, number, and dob (the third time).

Three and a half hours later, she calls me back on my cell phone. I pick it up, even though I am not supposed to answer it at work. She proceeds to ask for my dob two more times and why I called. When I tell her, she says to me "And I see you are on the NuvaRing?" Umm, no. I'm six weeks pregnant, like I said on my message. I have my first appointment in two weeks. Many more questions repeated several times about headaches, blurred vision, etc. I tell her I have no other symptoms beyong the swollen fingers and a mild headache, which I'm not sure is related as it came on in the past couple hours.

She says: "I think we should move your appointment up a little bit. How about 4 pm today?"

Me: "Umm, ok, let me see what I can do" In my head: "HOLY CRAP! You want to see me in 45 minutes?! Does that mean something is wrong?" Insert first time mom panic here.

As I am trying to scramble to get someone to cover for me, she says "Well let me check with Dr. S and see what he says." 15 minutes of panic later, she calls back: "He says its all normal, drink more water, watch your sodium (I was already doing both of these) and we'll see you in two weeks"

Gee, do you think you could have checked with him when I left the message at 9am this morning and saved us both time and me some panic?

::head desk::