July 29, 2025

If I’m Not Right There

I know many of you understand this with regard to your children. If you’re not right there, they don’t follow through with the chore. If you’re not right there they are on their screens instead of focusing on homework. If you’re not right there, they’re often fighting with one another and then blaming everyone else in the room when someone gets hurt.

But I didn’t consider how, when sandwiched, this would work with my aging parents. I did what I thought was “it all” before leaving for a two week summer trip with my husband and four children and not only had I forgotten to reschedule one appointment I had scheduled for Mom (while also forgetting to return the library books on time), I managed to let something else slip through the cracks. I assumed Mom would handle logging onto a telehealth appointment with a GI provider (specially trained with nutritional expertise) on her own. She has logged in on her own before, but only with the small hospital system’s portal. This would be her first time with the larger hospital system’s online appointment log in.

Somehow she never got the email with the link the first time. Of course the call to schedule the appointment came while I was driving my car and already feeling sick and having fled the pharmacy where I had just scooted out of line the other day because I spotted someone I wasn’t expecting to be there I was not in a place to make small talk with that person at that time. But that’s another story. Anyway, all of that had happened and I was driving my son to the library and got the call to set up this appointment. I explained that Mom is aging and she prefers that I schedule her appointment so the number they have on file is mine. I then explained that I would be traveling in a different time zone during the appointment and that they needed to send the link to the appointment to Mom’s email address, which I gave them.

The Thursday appointment while I was traveling came and went and Mom says she never saw the link in her email. I called to reschedule and apparently they had already spoken to her and rescheduled for the following Thursday right around the same time. I acknowledged the scheduled appointment and again stated that at that time I would still be traveling in another time zone and they said that this time they were going to text her the link because when they email it it sometimes goes into people’s SPAM folders. Ok, so why didn’t you offer us the text option to begin with? I did not ask this aloud.

So I was assured that all was well, that they had prepared Mom to log in on her phone when they texted her the link, and I reminded her myself. But guess what we received in the mail today? A letter stating that she now missed two appointments and if she misses a third she will be dismissed as a patient. Great. I should have wondered when I asked the woman I spoke to if there was going to be another phone call reminding us of the appointment and she said, no, that she was going to put the information in the system, and then I got a call from them a couple of days later asking for Mom and stating they were confirming the telehealth appointment. I responded that the appointment was confirmed and that she would log on if they text the link to her. I confirmed her number.

If I’m not right there this is what happens. It just doesn’t get done. And now I have another appointment to call about to reschedule. Add it to the list.