I am in a furor right now over Kaiser’s mismanagement of my dad. He currently sees in double. Two weeks ago, he was the one-eyed monster. I wrote two complaint letters to Kaiser, one of 7 pages, the other screamed my frustration in 3 pages. I think I was a doctor and lawyer in past lives.

The doctor who was his attending physician the last time I took him to the Emergency Room for an allergy to oral antibiotics, the brilliant resident FORGOT to note my dad’s allergy to an antibiotic and another doctor gave him an antibiotic for his eye infection. My dad became so allergic to the medication that his eye swelled so much that you could barely see his eye lashes. He looked like the one-eyed monster. Fuming is a mild word for my emotions when this happened.

After I submitted my two missives to Kaiser about this mistake and several others committed by their staff, my dad told me that I shouldn’t fight with Kaiser but maybe with a state agency overseeing the hospital. However, the normal complaint procedure is supposed to start at the hospital level. I think my dad still suffers from Soviet fear. I think he’s afraid that if I make a big scene at Kaiser then his future care will be compromised. I, on the other spectrum of the spectrum, believe in standing up for one’s rights, especially when medical professionals are repeatedly endangering one’s life.

If I was a doctor or lawyer in a previous life, it was definitely not in a Communist country.