Help with forms to keep track of medical appts

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I have a hard enough time making phone calls, but keeping track of medical appointments - mine and my three teens, makes it seem so complex.

Today I called the eye doctor and the dentist, several of the appointments were overdue.

I get the concept that if I'm due for dental on X date, I probably need to call what, four months ahead of that, but how to juggle all the dates and times feels like chaos.

Anyone have any good way of keeping track of it all? Good template you care to share?

I just make all my appointments when leaving my previous appointment and then put them into google calendar.

If I were to worry about what day of the week would be good when it comes to next appointment, I'd just set google calendar to email me a reminder a month in advance or so as well as the text message reminder the day of that I have set.

Use a spiral notepad to keep track of your appointments or use a reminder on your cellphone.

ohhh, I didn't think of using the reminder, I'll look at that.

thank goodness the dental is able to book out a year in advance. Doc, not so much.

I do use Google. two of my boys are in college, and I've set up google calendars for each of them. I have access to make appt. on their calendars...I color code them. then I have another calendar for Meal Planning, so we can all just work on it.

but for some reason, 8 calendars seems a bit much.

do you have a file where you keep a list of appt. for each person?

I keep it all in my head, on a ferris wheel. Whenever I think about scheduled events, I am standing on the platform of a ferris wheel that is slowly rotating towards me. This way, I can see the scheduled events in order at different positions on the wheel.

that would be good, too...write a list out, as well as on google calendar. trouble is with google, it's hard to flip back and see when was the last time X kid saw X doc, see what I'm saying?

over the next two months, we (three kids and I) have a combined 16 medical appts!! ! this is nuts!

some of these the boys can get themselves to. My middle son will be home from college and has to squeeze in three appointments - he has diabetes so it's imperative he see them.

then I'm wanting to accompany my eldest son (age 20), to his four appt. while they test him for Aspergers. I'm certain of it, and he's agreed he'd like to know. I think it's the sheer magnitude, not usually this many...

keep the ideas coming, they're good!

it sounds like a mind-map of sorts then!

you must be young, or alot younger than me, my memory is going to mush.

You need a wall calender, a portable calendar (can be old style paper one, or one on your cell phone), and a calendar on your PC.

I would like to suggest however, that those of your children who are of legal age, and have their own transportation, be responsible for keeping track of their own appointments with their own calendar system, and their own reminders. You can mark the already existing appointments onto their new calendars to get them started. This Christmas or New Year's Day make it official by handing over this responsibility to them. You can even give them a greeting card to make it a fun event. This should reduce your own mental load of things to do, and thus reduce some of your stress. It is your adult children's responsibility to keep track of their own appointments, so if they miss any, it is their problem, not yours.

Remember, we on the spectrum are all:

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

You are so right about this! And not the first to suggest it .... thank you for the reminder.

Question:
Any explicit suggestions as to the stages of turning over responsibilities? I except that I am over involved. My NT son has all the skills, has gone to the doc while away at college - he will also call the diabetic nurse to check in about his units of insulin etc .... It's the Aspie son (eldest) I can't seem to figure out how to let go in incrumental steps.

I've been using my iPod Touch to remind me when to take vitamins, it's worked quite well. I can tend to forget things in the short term even if I had seen that something is coming up; for instance, I might check the calendar in the morning and say "Oh, dentist later today", and then forget about it by the time I have to actually leave, so having a ding go off that says "Dentist" 20 minutes before I have to go is useful. My psychologist uses her iPhone to keep track of and schedule her appointments. Technology largely exists to make our lives easier, so make use of it if you have it!