Forgot to take my friend to her hospital appointment- how do I fix this!?

[MamaBee22]

First time posting so please bare with me..

I forgot to take my best friend of 20 years to her colosopy appt. We'd arranged for me to take her and stay with her/bring her back, but the date changed to half term. No childcare and hubby at work so I still offered to drop her off and pick her up. She mentioned a few days prior and I said yeah no problem still good to go.

Fast forward to the day of appt. My DC has a chest infection so had to get her a drs appointment and being completely truthful it just slipped my mind. I didn't realise until it was too late and she text me saying have you forgot?

Obviously I went into panic mode and no deflection, I own my mistake and there's no excuse I shouldn't have forgot. I'm only human and it just slipped my mind. I apologised and said I understand why she'd be cross but let me know how it went.

I'm am a dependable friend 99% of the time. I am the most constant person in her life (she's single) and have never let her down before.

She ignored me for a couple of days and then sent a text saying how pissed off she was, people always let her down and its a difficult thing to forget and she doesn't want to talk about it.

Apart from giving her space, is there anything I can do to fix this? I feel sad to loose my friend over a stupid mistake.

Sadly she can be known to use silence as a form of punishment and has definitely tried to make me feel as guilty as possible. Obviously I can take that on the chin, it is my fault, but I have a horrible feeling she will continue to bring this up long term.

Thank you

Try and not be too hard on yourself. Your dc was ill and it was a genuine mistake. Your ill dc trumps her I’m afraid.

Tbh I think she was being a bit rude expecting you to drop her off and collect her when you have your dc with you. She should have arranged a taxi or taken public transport.

I say that as a single mother who took public transport to and from my colposcopy recently (including biopsies). I took the underground to the hospital in active labour.

Even if the friend WAS the OP’s child or mother, the OP is still human and capable of forgetting something when life gets in the way! The OP didn’t do anything deliberately to hurt the friend and clearly feels terrible, the friend should cut her some slack and accept that the OP isn’t perfect, the same as the friend isn’t perfect either.

Or maybe she has chosen to be single. It is not a flaw to be single. It doesn’t mean something is wrong with you ffs.

Im surprised by some of the responses. You’ve apologised- not much else you can do. I would have no truck at all with her giving you the silent treatment.

Just ignore it and carry on with your life. She sounds very needy and dramatic.

It's 'bear' with me, not 'bare'.

Even if the friend WAS the OP’s child or mother, the OP is still human and capable of forgetting something when life gets in the way! The OP didn’t do anything deliberately to hurt the friend and clearly feels terrible, the friend should cut her some slack and accept that the OP isn’t perfect, the same as the friend isn’t perfect either.

I agree that no one is perfect and people forget. But people tend not to forget what really matters to them. It's not likely that you'd forget to take your mother or child to a scan that may lead to a terminal diagnosis - because you'd be terrified for them. It's all you'd think about.

That is the point here - that's why just saying the friend should 'cut her some slack' isn't fair - because there are two big effects here -one is the practical effect of having to find alternate transport in a stress situation to get to an appointment that REALLY matters and the second is that it will appear to the friend (probably not entirely without justification) that a significant medical scan for her and the potential consquences is of such little mental weight to the OP that she forgot it.

The point I was making is that this is an out of the ordinary situation with out of the ordinary practical and emotional consequences. It shouldn't be swept aside as an ordinary 'oops I forgot' mistake because it really really isn't.

This! ^ I even had to pop a reminder on my calendar last week to remind myself not to forget to take my friend's birthday card and presents when I went to meet her the day before her birthday!

I put everything in my phone calendar. And I would never NOT put appointments in, or anything I was doing for someone else. You did let her down @MamaBee22 and even though something came up in your own life, I think it's the fact that you didn't tell her that has made her so upset and angry. Imagine if she had not managed to get there?!

All you can do now is sit back, and wait for her to cool off, and forgive you. (Hopefully she will.) Not sure what I would do in her situation, but I have ghosted and cut off friends for similar things...

Just text her and say 'I'm so sorry that I let you down. When you're ready to forgive me, let me know, and we can meet up and hopefully get back on track.'

Although, from the way you say 'she has form for punishing people by going silent on them, and will probably bring this up every time I see her, for the rest of our lives' do you really WANT to be friends again? Honestly, I know this is a line that is always spouted on here, but you really don't sound like you like her very much.

I have to have colonoscopies and I am very grateful for kind people who give me lifts but I have to know 100% that they will not let me down. It’s a very stressful experience because not only do you have to deal with the prep beforehand but you get some results after too and they are not always positive. I don’t blame her for feeling let down but I wouldn’t break a friendship over one mistake if it was the only time.

She needs to grow up a bit tbh. People do forget stuff, no one is perfect. Id be pissed off if it was DP who forgot but a friend? Might be mildly peeved but Id have sent my friend a quick message in the morning to check. No big deal. Does she enjoy a bit of self indulgent drama usually?

Ok, but OP’s friend wasn’t sedated. So this was a run of the mill version of the procedure and she was presumably able to get home (taxi, public transport or whatever) without issue. I only mention the ‘drama’ because several posters have attempted to guilt trip OP further by describing how serious the procedure was and suggesting the friend would have been unable to leave the hospital without a driver.

OP - I wouldn’t make any further attempts to apologise or make amends as it’s just feeding her sense of grievance. Leave it and see if she gets back in touch. If she doesn’t…well at least you’re off the hooks for any future favours.

This

Some of you seem to have very low expectations of your friends. Is that because your friends are actually quite crap?

I can't imagine a close friend ever forgetting something like this, and I can't imagine forgetting it for someone else either. And I have adhd so often forget things!

Let's hope your husband doesn't leave you and your kids move 5 hours away in the future then hey and you need some friends in your life. You are literally the epitome of the smug married.

Agree. Does one need an explanation as to why they are single, hmmm.

All you can do is sincerely apologise. Your friendship history should dictate what happens next.

Tbh I could imagine myself forgetting something like this, despite putting it in my calendar. I am
more forgetful and have a lot of brain fog in my mid 40s. If I was relying on someone to get me to an appointment I’d check in the night before just to make absolutely sure they had remembered! So although I can well believe that your friend is upset by this, in her shoes I wouldn’t have discussed it several days before and then left it.

I would leave some flowers & chocolates outside her door & message again apologising. I think you said you didn’t mention your child being ill etc, but I think I would write that in the text apologising as well.
Don’t know why some people have said you don’t seem like you care about her etc..you clearly do, or you wouldn’t be writing this post.

Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re a human and you forgot.

How is it different if it's a husband, a friend or even a taxi driver who forgot to pick you up for a hospital appointment? Its the fact that someone agreed to help you and then just simply didnt turn up. What if you were being collected from hospital by a friend to take you home after an operation and they didn't turn up because they forgot and you were stuck at hospital? Would you just shrug your shoulders and say, ah well, people forget stuff. Or would you be understandbly upset? It's no different.

Oh wow. I was already thinking what you did was bad but you clearly don't get it if you're trying to put some of the blame on to her. Saying 'not deflecting' but then deflecting doesn't really work. That was a really shitty thing to do. No excuses.

Stop with the texting and the 'I don't know what else I can do'. Do what people do who screw up and who are sorry - buy a card, write a message of apology (not excuse) and post it. Not a low effort text. Or send apology flowers. 'Reaching out' - yeah, but time to move beyond text

God forbid a friend should ‘heavily’ rely on a friend to take her to and from a hospital appt she already agreed to do.

I would imagine the quality of your friendship isn’t really worth valuing anyway.

How can you forget if it's in your phone calendar? It literally sounds an alarm to alert you.

You were distracted by something else, it happens. There's nothing you can do about it now, so if she wants to hold a grudge it's up to her, but it's a bit silly even though she's understandably annoyed. Did she make contact with you on the day or the day before to arrange times etc? Because I always do that whatever.
A friend asked me to check in on her young teenager once when he was ill at home and make him lunch - I completely forgot and didn't remember until hours later. I've forgotten to go to my own hospital appointment, and my own opticians appointments, though it was in the days before they started sending text reminders. So I can easily see how you would forget.

To be fair, I regularly miss reminders on my phone. It isn't an effective way for me to keep track of things.

But I still wouldn't forget an important favour for a friend who I knew was relying on me.

That's not exactly true.

Ive had to have sedation down in the operating theatre with a colposcopy.

Depends on many things. So don't be so small minded and think your small experience is everyone's.

You have ruled out ever finding time to take your friends to and from a potentially life changing appointment? Wow. It is perfectly possible if you are normal human being with a heart.