Wasting time with doctors

My radiation oncologists office left me a message this mornign asking if I could reschedule my appointment earliear in the day on Thursday. This could have been good news as the same day I have an appointment with my medical oncologist in the morning. The best they could do was 1:00, which would ruin any attempt by me to actually spend any time at work. At that point I asked if I could just be given a prescription for steroids to deal with the lung inflamation from the radiation. Of course they had to transfer me to a nurse to answer that question. So I ask the nurse the same question. She checks with the rad. onc. and then informs me that my med. onc. should be prescribing the meds.

I took 10 seconds to process this information, then asked why I needed to see the rad. onc. at all? Since I had just seen him for a radiation follow up, described my symptoms, and had him tell me to deal with my med. onc. for any treatment. At this point, as far as I was concerned, he HAD his chance to poke and prod me as he saw fit. If he wasn't going to prescribe me anything to deal with my current problem, I didn't see the point in having my schedule ruined to see him again. I had myself transferred back to the scheduling office and cancelled the appointment.

I'm generally willing to keep doctor appointments to do any follow ups. I feel the more contact I have with the doctors involved in my care the better. What I'm unwilling to do is loose a day of work when I can't see ANY benefit from an appointment.