A Letter to the Various Employees of My Former Oncology Office
Dear Dr. McBitch,
Yes, I did tentatively nickname you Dr. Feisty in the beginning, but I see now that your feistiness was really just bitchiness masked by your extreme desire for a new patient. I am gravely disturbed by your apathy regarding my health. Did you notice that I missed two appointments? Did you notice I went to the ER three times? Did you notice that I had prescriptions for antibiotics called in? Did you notice that I stopped taking maintenance therapy?
I hope that you didn't notice, because if you did and just didn't call me, you ought to be investigated. At first I tried to defend you, telling myself, "I can't expect her to be like Dr. Wonderful." But you know, I think I can expect you to be like him. I think it's reasonable to expect that your doctor cares whether you live or die. Call me crazy - oh wait, that's right, you did call me crazy once.
If you haven't guessed by the tone of this letter, you are not my doctor anymore. But don't beat yourself up too much, it's not all your fault. The people you hired have also driven me away. Thanks for nothing, and I look forward to your bankruptcy.
Sincerely,
Eat Roast Beef
Dear Nurse, Whose Name I Can Only Assume Is "Unavailable at This Time,"
Only since I was 8 years old and writing letters to Santa have I attempted to correspond with such an illusive and mystical person. I wonder sometimes if you do in fact exist, or at least if you ever have the time or the decency to call a very sick person back. I know that I do not currently have active cancer, but I'd say I have enough problems to warrant at least a halfass acknowledgment on your part.
I think this whole nursing shortage has given you a dangerously inflated view of your own importance. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first person to praise nurses and their superiority even over the doctors they work for. I'm talking about YOU. You are a no-good, useless waste of a phone extension. You are a haughty witch who should not even be able to call herself a nurse, since I have never actually witnessed you lift a finger to help any patient, ever. I cannot believe you still have a job, and if I were you, I would thank my lucky stars that you haven't been fired yet instead of bitching about how much stress you have to deal with.
Please do not respond to this letter. Not that you would.
Sincerely,
Eat Roast Beef
Dear Receptionist, For Whom No Snarky Nickname Even Scratches the Surface of the Evil Contained in Your Black Heart,
First of all, get that sandwich out of your mouth.
Okay then. Look around you. That building you are in is called a "Doctor's Office." The people who come in there are very sick and probably already a little upset about how things are going. Your job, contrary to what you may have been told, is not to make them want to just get it over with and kill themselves, no matter how dramatically that would cut costs.
It's bad enough that you think you know more about my condition than I do. It's bad enough that you either don't know how to work the phones or hang up on anyone with a problem you don't know how to deal with. It's bad enough that when I told you the ER doctor thought I had an abscess, you tried to give me an appointment four weeks away. But in addition, you insist upon being a spoiled, self-absorbed, lazy, rude cow.
A lot of the other patients probably just think you are stupid, but I can see through your dumb act. You know exactly what you are doing. You choose to make people feel bad about themselves, to frustrate them, to kick them when they are down, all so you can feel better about your empty life and hollow soul. It's sad that you have to go all the way down to cancer patients to find someone worse off than you.
In closing, the only reason I haven't killed you is because a jury would never believe there is a person as pure evil as you. You are the only person I would wish cancer upon. The only thing you have ever said that I agree with is your terse closing on the phone... Buh-bye now.
Sincerely,
Eat Roast Beef