Wrong Number

The name of the company I work for gives people the impression that we offer advice on health issues. We don’t. At least, that’s not what our company does, but if you get me on the phone…

I had a guy call once to ask if it’s safe to eat canned food that had been frozen. My reply to him? “Why, that’s a good question…let’s see what we can find!” I Googled Green Giant and referred him to their hotline. The answer is no. Green Giant does not recommend eating canned food that has frozen (he didn’t store it in the freezer, rather in his garage and it got really REALLY cold that week).

Lots of people call to ask for physician referrals. One woman started the call by saying, “Please don’t laugh—this is not a prank call…” I knew right away it was going to be good. She was looking for a physician who performs colon cleansing. I referred her to the “holistic medicine” section of the yellow pages.

A sweet old lady called one day because she was worried about her neighbor. Her neighbor was an elderly woman trying to care for her adult son who suffered a serious brain injury. The caller was concerned that her neighbor was too poor and too old to be responsible for caring for another person and she wondered if there was someone who could help her neighbor. I gave this lady the phone number for the Colorado Medicaid office.

I had one woman walk into my office looking for help. Her grandchild was in Nevada and she was trying to get her daughter and the baby moved to Colorado and was having a really hard time with Medicaid. Apparently, the baby had serious health complications and was covered under Nevada Medicaid. She was told that if mother and child moved to Colorado, they’d loose coverage. The poor woman went from stark raving mad to bitter weeping back to raving mad. I felt terrible and there was nothing I could do…so I held her hand and sympathized best that I could.

The lady that called yesterday (prompting this post) was calling from Planned Parenthood. She JUST found out that her friend’s daughter was pregnant. The friend (suspecting that her daughter was having sex) kicked the 17-year-old out of the house. Caller took the girl into her home, but doesn’t want financial responsibility. She wanted the phone number for Medicaid and WIC. I don’t know WHO this woman thought she was calling, but I looked up the numbers for her.

I hope they all find what they need.