OK, the next thing that i would try would be to add a command (Database/Database Expert/Add Command) and I would put something in like
SELECT MIN(diff) AS minDiff From (SELECT ABS(DATEDIFF(d, now, apptDateField) FROM apptTable ) s
Then in the record criteria look for dates, use the output of the command to filter your appoints by looking for appt that differ from today by minDiff. If you are only looking for future records, you can put a where clause on the select or remove the abs...
The select will return the closest difference, in the past or for the future compared to now. If you need a finer granularity (d stands for day, you could change this to hh-hour or n-minute
Hope this gives you some ideas of how to attack this.