a couple months after my surgery i pestered the rehab dr to get me back into pt and into pool t.... so he sent in the referrals and i waited... i got a call from the outpatient therapy referral center a few weeks later, they were really backed up, was it ok for them to refer me to a different hospitals therapy program, i figured id waited long enough so said sure... the other hospital called me the following week and had me come in for an evaluation - it went pretty well, she said she thought i still needed an afo, even though my dr had thought maybe not... they copied my insurance card and said they'd call me to schedule after it was approved, and that shed send a copy to the orthotics company so that they could do the same - that reminded me why i liked the other hospital better, they go ahead and treat you first, them deal with insurance... anyway i was back to waiting... and waiting.... and waiting.... i still hadn't heard, from either the pool, the pt or the orthotics company when i had my next dr's appointment... he was appalled that i was still waiting and put in new referrals - the referral center called, they were sending me to the other hospital, again.... i called them and they said they needed me to bring in my ins card again, and had to go get my afo before they'd even do the evaluation, or send in the approval form... wouldn't even listen to the fact that i might not need it anymore, so i was not happy... i called and went to be fitted for the afo, and then waited again.... i got called about the pool, finally;but id just missed a 6 week cycle, so waited some more... finally, 7 months after the original referral i started pool therapy, a post-stroke class at the easter seals pool - and picked up my afo, and got scheduled for the pt evaluation - luckily, they'd put in for the approval before the eval, even though they said they wouldn't so i started pt right away - of course they'd only gotten approval for half the sessions the dr had requested, so i had to take a few weeks off in the middle while waiting for approval again - turns out the dr had put in a referral for ot, too, even though the ot at the other hospital had said i didn't need it anymore; but as long as insurance approved it... ot was a good thing, though, i got more exercises and got to work on more fine motor skills - by the time i was done with pt, i could do about 20 ft with the walker, a big improvement, although i developed tendonitis in my good wrist from grasping the walker too hard... lol, the pool helped a lot, after one 6 week cycle my balance had improved enough that i graduated to the arthritis class, basically the same only additional and more intense exercises - all in all i felt a lot further along than i started.... after all that, it was worth the wait

next time: my history with the fire department