A while back there was a thread complaining about vague messages left by doctor’s offices late on Friday afternoons ( “Please call us about your test results”) which lead to a weekend of useless worrying only to hear on Monday that “we just wanted to let you know everything was fine.”
When I was pregnant with our one and only in 2003, I got a message on the machine from the OBGYN’s office that went like this,
“This is nurse so and so from ________. We need to you call us back as soon as you get this message.”
It was after my first detailed check up and ultra-sound.
Guess when they left the message. 4pm on a Friday!!!
I got home after 5, and then couldn’t call back since they were closed until Monday.
I was freaking out.
We had been trying for over 2 years for this baby, and it was only about week 12 or so of the pregnancy.
The story gets much longer, and I involved my boss who is a Family practice Doc at the same clinic.
But in the end what they needed to tell me so desperately, was that my own immunizations weren’t up to date. UGH. I wanted to kill.
Add to that that my immunizations are fine, but one of them tests weird, like I haven’t had it. Some freak of nature thing. I have actually had it twice!
They did that to me once more months later, but left a message with hubby, also cryptic, and said they couldn’t tell him anything. I had signed forms 2 times so that he could be told ANYTHING! It was also on a Friday afternoon, and the same thing happened. It was also for something fairly minor.
In the end they did nearly kill me after my son was born, and I nearly sued, and those two phone calls would have been evidence of ineptness.
I hadn’t even read half way down and my post was about this exact thing! 
Weird.
My husband isn’t very clumsy, but when he does hurt himself, he hurts himself spectacularly. More than once, he’s had to call the hospital where his dad works to let him know about an injury/accident/whatever, to the point where now, if we ever call the hospital and ask for them to page Dr. D- to call his son… well, he panics a little!
My mother got awakened early in the morning by a friend of mine calling to tell her I was all right. It was the morning of the Northridge earthquake; after the quake, we couldn’t get a dial tone out, but a friend who lived farther away was able to call in before they shut down outside-the-area-code calls, so I had her call my mother. Needless to say, my mother was sound asleep and hadn’t heard anything about it, but strangely, the call actually did prevent a lot of unnecessary panic on her part.
The most interesting opening line to a call that I ever received was my daughter, then in 7th grade, calling me when she got home from school and her opening line was, “Mom, the bird cage is open and there’s feathers all over the living room floor.” Somehow, our 4-month-old kitten had leapt across a 5-foot gap to the hanging bird cage, opened the door, and then proceeded to have the parakeet for dinner. Needless to say, the kitten didn’t eat any cat food for about 3 days, but she looked very contented nevertheless. :eek:
This actually happened to me. I’d had a procedure done at about 10:00 on a Friday morning. Radiologist tells me the Dr. will probably call me next week with the results. OK… So my mom and I go out shopping for the rest of the day since I had taken the day off from work.
Get home a little after 5pm. Message from the radiologist AND the Dr.'s office that I needed to contact Dr. as soon as possible. By the time I call, he’s gone for the day and the Dr. on call for the weekend has no information.
That was the longest weekend of my life. I read him the riot act on Monday morning. It wasn’t exactly nothing, but holy hell, I worried 5 years off my life. :mad:
Back on topic though, I once had to call my mother at 1:00 am to tell her that my brother had rolled his vehicle on the way home from her house, but that he was OK and unhurt. I didn’t know what to say first… that he’d been in an accident or that he was alright. I knew she was going to flip out either way.