A day of mixed emotions

Yesterday was a mixed up day, emotionally.

I was in turmoil about the situation with my hip replacement status, until I got to my physiotherapist's office.  She was jumping out of her skin with excitement, waiting to hear how the appointment had gone.  When she heard my report, she was at first disappointed that the surgeon hadn't relied upon his examination of me, and my history.  But she was encouraged that he wanted a second opinion.

Then I told her about my wanting to pursue that opinion with a surgeon who would use the anterior approach, and I had my research material with me for her to see.  She was intrigued.

Once she studied the material, she agreed that I was absolutely right to want to stay away from the lateral approach, given my history with inflammation in that area of my body.  And her husband having just undergone the procedure, she has intimate knowledge of which she speaks.

I left her office feeling much more confident in the decision I had made, and I finally relaxed about the matter.

Then it was on to the car dealer to leave my car to have the snow tires removed.  I also had a recall notice with me and when I had telephoned about it earlier in the week, I was told they didn't have the parts for that repair, which would take about three hours.  I would have to reschedule to have that work done.

I arrived there at 2:30pm.  He plugged in the information about the recall and was checking to see if they had parts, in case they could do the work that day.  I made it very clear to the gentleman that under no circumstances were they to start any work on the vehicle that could not be finished the same day because I HAD to have my car back that day.  (The service centre closes at 6:00pm.)

"Oh, don't worry," he said, "you'll have your car back today.  It'll be ready in about 90 minutes."

I took from that statement that the parts for the recall repair weren't there, just as I had been told earlier in the week.

My little chickadee picked me up and we went to her place to wait for the dealer to call me.

At 5:10pm, when no call had yet come in, MLC and I left to go get my beautiful boy and while she was in picking him up, I called the dealer.

"Yes, I'd like to know if my car is ready, or near ready, please.  I left it there at 2:30 this afternoon."

"Name please."

"Fowler."

"Um, was there any chance you were leaving the vehicle here overnight m'am?"

"No, there was no chance of that.  In fact, I made it quite clear when I left it, that I could not leave it overnight.  Are you telling me that it isn't ready?"

"I'm trying to figure out what the paperwork here is telling me m'am."

"Please tell me they didn't start doing that recall work and then went home with it half done."

"You brought it in for recall work?"

"I actually brought it in to have the snow tires removed.  Has that been done?"

"Are your tires here m'am?"

"Yes, are you telling me that you haven't done that work yet?"

"I need to figure out what this paperwork means.  I'll call you back.  Is this the number I can reach you at?  I'll call you right back."

So, I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited some more.

At 5:45pm, I arrived on their doorstep asking about my car, indicating that I was still waiting for that call back.

"Your tires are being bolted on now, as we speak, m'am."

So, at 6:00pm I paid for the service and found out that had I not made that call to inquire about my car, it would have sat there overnight, no one any the wiser -- except for me who would have been looking for my car.  As it turns out, the mechanic who got my car saw the recall order (which had been stapled on top of the "change the snow tire" order), knew the parts weren't there, so he put it aside.  And had since gone home.

The guy who did the intake for my car was supposed to check the status of the vehicle before he left for the day (he's the one who was supposed to be calling me when my car was ready 90 minutes after I dropped it off).

Oops, it seems he forgot to do that.

They apparently "would have found it in the morning."

I can assure you, when I left there, they knew that I was not impressed.

My parting question was, "I did get my own tires back did I?"

At least my beautiful boy had lots of big hugs for me -- they're good enough to make all the hurts go away!