5 Hacks for Surviving Appointment Fatigue

Last week, I wrote an article about appointment fatigue, the multitude of reasons I’m just so over all this medical stuff I’m doing lately (check it out here if you missed it), and now I want to share some big and little things I’ve figured out to make it not so terrible.

1. I bring in my yoga block. Waiting room chairs are terrible on my back, but if I grab the yoga block that’s always in my car and bring it in for a footrest, I’m much more comfortable! Your “yoga block” might be some other accommodation or modification you can bring in to make things more bearable, even if you think it looks a little strange (because who cares?).
2. Yep, that “Who cares?” mindset comes along, too. I have to just shift my mindset to not worry about what one human being in the whole world thinks of me. For example, someone knows my cholesterol is high and I have made some bad choices. Who cares? And honestly, they probably don’t care, either. By the end of the day, they’ve seen so many patients, they’ve already forgotten about me, and the last thing they want to do is think about work after hours. I just imagine them eating bacon.
3. *They* work for *me.* Sure, a physician can give a good scolding and might pack a powerful hairy eyeball, but ultimately, I’m paying for this service. I pay my copay, I pay for my health insurance (you might “pay” by working), I pay that whole deductible … I’m the customer! I can never feel bossed around if I remember that *I* am the boss.
4. I’m taking all this homework and making it my own. I’d already made choices to change my diet before my first gastroenterology appointment. And then my gastro provider asked me to start keeping a food journal, which is, like I mentioned in my previous article, a constant reminder of my health issues and an invasion of my privacy. Plus, it’s a lot of work! So I decided to download MyFitnessPal, a calorie counting app, and I’m tracking everything as if I’m on a diet, as if that’s why I’m doing all this. Instead of obsessively thinking about my chronic illnesses, I’m obsessively thinking of that stash of smaller clothes in the attic. Now it’s all mine, not theirs.
5. I’m subscribed to traffic alert texts for Yellowstone National Park. This is a little thing, but it’s been great. I get all these moments when I expect to see yet another text message from a medical provider, but instead I’m mentally transported to a favorite place. What a beautiful little break from the appointment fatigue. The delight came on accidentally. I subscribed to traffic alerts when I was on a trip to Yellowstone last year, and I never stopped the text messages. The other day when I was having a little meltdown about all these things I have to do, when my primary care provider’s office was blowing up my phone, stalking me, because I won’t schedule an appointment for August of next year, and all the text messages were coming in asking me to check in to my appointment, log in to the portal, see test results, schedule, call, type 1 to confirm, and I was ranting at my partner about it all when yet another notification popped on my phone, and that’s when I finished the whole tearful spew with, “and Tower Fall to Canyon Junction over Dunraven Pass is now open!!!!”