Big Box Healthcare

I need to get a routine blood draw done.   Shiver.   I don’t like these kinds of things.   Last year I got used to one particular lab, with familiar faces and familiar needles, and actually accomplished maintaining a normal blood pressure while visiting their office.   My insurance company dropped them.   So it has taken me this long to muster up the guts to search for locations for the new lab my insurance company assigned to me.   Go to the website, go to the find-a-location tab and I see one is conveniently located 3 miles away – on my way to work!   Okay, so they don’t open at 7 a.m., like the other, which is really inconvenient for a fasting blood draw – I really like breakfast.   They open at 9 a.m., but maybe the location makes up for it.   However, it mysteriously looks like it is located in Lowe’s, as there is not much else located at that intersection.   Hmmm, can’t be, so I dial up their number.   Alas, how could I forget what ELSE is located at that intersection: Walmart.   The lab is located inside Walmart.   I look for the next closest lab location; another Walmart.   Call it elitism, call it prejudice, or just plain common sense, but I can’t picture myself going to Walmart for my blood drawing needs.   I don’t even shop at Walmart!   I avoid supporting the whole Walmart-take-over-the-planet conspiracy!   Now I have to go there for my healthcare needs?   I am feeling boxed in: conform or you will be assimilated.

I am in a total quandary!   Is this a mental thing, or do I really have a legitimate issue for not wanting to go into a box store with dirty aisles and screaming babies in carts to have a needle stuck in my arm to have my life fluids sucked out of me…and then tested for really important things?   The environment is just not conducive to a calm, blood-letting in my opinion.  Is this me vs. my brain here?   Do I just get over it and go in?   What are my consequences if I just ignore it all and pretend I don’t have this doctor’s slip telling me what I am supposed to do?   I am in a quandary!

If you don’t see another post, you will know that my arm got broken by being dragged through the Walmart parking lot because I couldn’t find another alternative.   I am off to look for other locations within a 50 mile radius...wish me well.

Comments

[Stephanie]

I do wish you well! I must admit I had the same thought when I saw the Community Healthcare thingy pop up inside Wal-Mart. What? I can see getting cheap groceries and cheap everything else (hence the service level) there, but healthcare? I was fairly shocked. I don't blame you for not wanting to go there and get it done. Whatever happened to having blood drawn at your doctor's office where you know everyone?