It's enough to drive a man MAD
Not terribly surprisingly, upon my return, my answering machine was filled with messages. The very last one was possibly the most important, and certainly the most disturbing.



"Hi, Mr. Peskowitz, my name is Dr. Koppleman, I'm calling from the emergency room in New York-Presbyterian. I'm trying to get some information on, you know, who's here, and suggested I call you. Please give a call back at-*beep!*"

And there is where the tape runs out, filled with all the other messages I received over the time I was away, including, somehow, work messages for my father (a reversal from all the phone calls that come in for me at my parents house) and a certain model who seems to love to ramble on and on. (And a bunch of saved messages from a very pretty girl with a very pretty voice who I find myself missing from time to time - but that's a different story.)

So, worriedly, I looked up the Dr.'s name on google, along with the hospital. When that didn't work, I got the number and called up the hospital itself.

My first call ended pretty quickly, as I was disconnected after the first transfer. The second call was hellish. I went on the usual health care merry-go-round of transfer/hold/transfer/hold/transfer/hold. I lost track of who I talked to when, but I was bounced between information and the ER and doctor's offices and other random departments, including another doctor who was the same name but the wrong gender. At one point I thought I had finally gotten the information I was seeking, but that evaporated fast when I didn't recognize the name and then realized they thought I was the Doctor and they needed my advice on patient care. (I'm not an expert on renal thrombosis, but at least I was amused for a moment.)

After an hour and a half, I was connected to someone who told me that there were two Dr. Koppelmans - the female one at this hospital, and a male Psychiatrist who didn't work there - he worked at the OTHER New York Presbyterian Hospital across town.

So, back to square one with an entirely new bureaucracy.

The phone number they gave me wasn't correct - it wasn't even for the hospital - so I looked up and got the number for this ER and gave them a call. Getting through to this hospital consisted of explaining my problem, being put on hold, total silence for 15 minutes, and then someone new picking up who I either had to explain the problem to all over again, followed by another 15 minutes of silence, or yet another guy who though I was Doctor So-and-So and wanted to give me my messages. (And, when I said I wasn't him/her, another 15 minutes of silence.)

Finally, after about an hour, someone actually took the time to pay attention to my question, and told me that I was calling the wrong emergency room - I needed the Psychiatry Emergency Room, and was transfered again.

This time, I got an actual Doctor on the phone. He listened, checked the records, and told me that Dr. Koppelman was currently out. A few more minutes of waiting, and, much to my shock, the same person came back to the phone, so I didn't have to explain it all over again, and told me he was paging Dr. Koppelman for me.

A few more minutes passed, and, again, the SAME PERSON (it's hard to tell you how relieving it was to be speaking to the same person continuously, not to mention them not leaving me waiting endlessly) came back and told me that Dr. Koppelman had left on vacation after his weekend shift, and there'd be no way to contact him for a while. He apologized for the hours I had spent on the phone, and told me that my name wasn't showing up in any records and there was no way of knowing who the call was about. He told me there was nothing I could do at this point, and hoped that who ever it was that called me was ok... although there's certainly a chance that they aren't.


Now most of the day is shot, I'm exhausted and pissed, in no mood to spend any time on the phone returning all my other calls, and I'm no closer to finding who or what this message was about. For all I know, someone I care about (or at least am acquainted with) is sitting straightjacketed in a padded room somewhere in Manhattan, rocking back and forth, crying and convulsing, with my name on their tongue, wondering why their one phone call went unanswered, wondering when I'm going to come and save them.