Today, I am a disgruntled patient. I've been one before, once after waiting four hours to see my oncologist; another time after waiting almost that long to see the same doctor; another time after being dismissed by, yes, the same doctor, when I complained of serious chemotherapy side effects. The day after her dismissal, I was in the hospital. Disgruntled, I was.

Today, I waited for two hours and 15 minutes in an exam room in another oncologist's office. TWO HOURS and 15 MINUTES, with nothing more than a social worker checking in on my mental health. Truth be told, it was a bit unstable at the moment she caught me, 90 minutes into my wait. It only got worse. And then I walked out. I marched right up to a nurse, told her through tears that my time was valuable, that I would wait no longer. And I walked out. I went for lunch, took my laptop and did some writing, and tried to recapture my composure. I feel better now. But I'm still disgruntled.

Something is wrong, harshly wrong, with a system that requires patients to wait so long for medical attention. It's disrespectful and completely inappropriate, the way my cancer center operates. I walked away today without any information about my lab work, without the answers to the questions I'd been collecting for the past three months, without receiving the results of the MRI I had several days ago, without a physical exam of my breasts -- in two days, it will be three years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it would have been nice to know where I stand when this milestone arrives.

I find it hard to imagine any other business functioning according to these same practices. Ask someone to show up for a meeting and then require that person to wait hours to be seen. Who would stand for that? I wouldn't. And that's why I didn't accept such treatment today. It took me more than two hours to make my stand, but I'm happy I did it. I realize I'll need to return to the very place that caused my blood to boil today, and I'm not exactly sure how I'll confront the whole scenario next time around. But for now, I'm happy I walked away. I'm happy I made the most of my day, a day that was slipping away in a room no one considered worthy of a visit.