Tag Archives: doctors

Day 158

Only a few parcels today, but the calls and a steady stream of customers kept us busy. The owner rang this morning – he got his holiday plans confused and tells me he won’t be returning until Thursday. This is a nuisance because it means I am needed in the shop on Thursday, the day I had planned for a trip out with Number Two Son. He has to cram a lot in to his UK trip – sightseeing, friends and parents – and things are tight regarding time. We will open the shop as usual on Thursday and close early so that we can get the bulk of a day’s work done and still have time for a trip around the Peak District.

Fortunately the weather forecast for Thursday is warm, sunny and generally dry. It is quite wet at the moment and has been colder than usual. In fact we both thought about putting the fire on last night, as it was a touch autumnal.

Rang for an appointment for a blood test today – I have made a mess of the organisation, due to the Bank Holiday, but got a time for my INR (Warfarin test). It seems I can’t book the other test at the same time. I have done before, and when I asked if the system had changed, was ignored by the receptionist, who seemed to be doing something else at the same time. She says I will have to ask the nurse if she can fit it in as a favour. It only involves an extra tube of blood once the have the needle in , and presumably an extra form to fill in, but they have refused before when I have asked.

At other times they have taken samples I didn’t realise were due, so they can fit them in when they want to. It’s another sign that the NHS is returning to normal after the trials of Covid. I can’t see that it’s efficient for them to drag people down for two separate appointments, and it definitely isn’t efficient, or convenient for me to go down twice when once would do.

However, I won’t go on.

Reading that back, I have become aware that the blog as a diary of my trials and tribulations, revolves round a small number of grievances with the world. I might try to convert to being one of those thought-provoking bloggers that always has a subject to discuss, preferably one that doesn’t involve doctors.

Zig Zag

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If yesterday was a zig on the zig zag road to recovery (think of one of those cartoon-style graphs as you read,) today is a bit of a zag. It’s not bad, but I’m definitely not as perky today. OK, I’m not generally known for being “perky” at the best of times, but I use the term comparatively.

Considering that three weeks ago I wasn’t entirely sure who I was, and that two weeks ago I was a festering wreck, I’m not doing badly. Most of my faculties are back, my walking is back to where it was and although I have to sit with my leg up, I’m nearly back to the state of imperfect health where you normally find me.

Nothing brings this home as much as a nurse saying they will have to “do something” about something you regard as being perfectly normal. They love tinkering, do nurses and, unlike doctors they never take no for an answer. I discussed the statin question with a doctor and they told me that even where cholesterol is good they like to put certain people on them as it might help. I looked at the figures on the NHS website – yes, they reduce your percentage chance of having a stroke or heart attack. By a couple of percent. What they don’t tell you is the chance of them interacting with other medication. or it being something else for the pharmacy to get wrong. We have agreed that I won’t take them. I will look at my diet again and see if I can lower the level that is causing concern.

Yesterday in the surgery I was listening to people being told that they couldn’t have liver function tests because we don’t have enough blood tubes. Only about a year ago they stopped prescribing my arthritis medication because I was behind with my testing. Double standards, or what?

Queuing – A Fine Old Tradition

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And here, as promised in the last post, is the less happy post.

I had a telephone conversation with a rheumatology consultant this morning, as they don’t want people going to hospital. I’m happy with that as I didn’t want to go either, even before the rise of Covid 19.

The outcome was that as I now have three more fingers swelling up I qualify for treatment. If I had only two affected joints, despite the difficulty and pain, I would not qualify for more than a quick-fix injection. I now have to wait for a nurse to ring me and arrange the prescription.

The fingers are now going down again, so with any luck I will get the prescription before another flare up.

After a week or more of conflicting government advice about risk and isolation the consultant said I am considered medium risk and should go out for exercise but avoid going into shops. That should be interesting when we return to work…

Then Julia got as telephone call from the doctor. Her blood test appointment was cancelled again. Then, when she objected, the doctor read her notes and reinstated it. I suspect they were just trying to cancel as much as possible.

The new arrangement is that we have to go down to the surgery at 1.45 pm, where they will take blood. This has to be done before 2.00pm to get it to the lab.

Woman on a Mission

They will not be taking her blood pressure – she has been told to go and buy her own machine and telephone the surgery with the results.

No, I’m not making it up.

Her risk category is high, but she is, according to the doctor, still allowed to go shopping. This is handy, as we need to buy a blood pressure machine. We tried online but there was a virtual queue at Boots of over 20,000 just to get online. There was no queue at Amazon but they wanted £4.49 for postage and packing and another £4.49 for express delivery which was 3 days. Three days is not “express”, and £8.98 is taking the mickey.

So there we are – a week into lockdown and Julia is high risk. However, unlike medium-risk me, she is allowed to go into shops, and most likely, to go back to work next week.

Again, I am not making this up.

Here are some pictures from our trip out for medical advice and a blood pressure machine.

Most of the people queuing outside the surgery were waiting for the pharmacy to open, as it has restricted hours. The pharmacy we went to in Sherwood was only letting in two customers at a time. Julia managed to get both the blood pressure machine and a packet of paracetamol. This is ironic. The pain-killing gel has not been working on my fingers and I’ve been leaving out last packet of paracetamol in case we become ill. Now that my fingers are no longer painful we have managed to get more pills.

Pharmacy Queue – with hindsight we should have joined this one

All the shops seem to have queuing systems now. We are going out to join one shortly, because, when we got home, we found that the blood pressure machine only has two batteries packed with it and needs four. They are AAA. If they were AA we would have plenty because I use them in my camera.

No wonder Julia’s blood pressure is high.

Don’t believe the packet – batteries were definitely not included!

Murder, Muttering and Medical Malpractice

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There was, to be honest, only one point in the day when I was in danger of becoming over-excited. This was during the phone call from the surgery which told me that the doctor had returned my prescription request as I’d only had a prescription issued on the 7th of this month and it was therefore January before I could have a renewal.

This was a surprise for a number of reasons and I didn’t really do myself justice in arguing my case.

It wasn’t actually the doctor who rang me, and in fact no doctor will be able to speak to me until next Thursday. I pointed out that this would be inconvenient as I only had medication to last until Tuesday, but that was all they could do. I know this because that was the answer they kept repeating to me.

I am therefore officially displeased with being treated like an idiot. Constantly repeating something does not make it either an adequate answer or good customer service.

I am also unhappy because this is the fourth error in three months.

And finally, because of an error on their part I can’t have tablets which I have been prescribed, and which are supposedly necessary for my health.

We have three possibilities here.

One, Julia is part of a complex plot to murder me by messing about with my prescriptions when she takes them to the surgery for me.

Two, my memory problems are more grave than I feared.

Three, the surgery has made an error.

Let’s examine that in more detail.

Means, motive, opportunity. Julia keeps feeding me bacon, sausage, pork pies and chips. No, not as one meal. This isn’t working so she is trying to deprive me of my medication. It’s still an unlikely scenario, though it might make a plot for an American crime drama.

The main problem is motive. After 30 years of marriage I suspect she is either used to me or suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

All in all, I think we can rule out the complex murder plot theory.

The mental decline theory probably has more legs, though even I might struggle to forget that I’d ordered tablets. I really can’t say one way or the other. Anything, no matter how improbable, is possible.

Finally, the doctor making a mistake. Traditionally, doctors don’t make mistakes. This is partly because they don’t admit it, and partly because, as the old saying goes, they bury their mistakes.

This, unfortunately, leaves only one logical explanation – that I have experienced the biggest senior moment of my life.

Watch this space…

Moaning – a Skill for Modern Men

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This afternoon I had a call from the hospital. It was slightly confused as I thought he said he was from Haematology and I thought it was about the blood test last week. It seems he said Rheumatology and he was ringing to tell me that my GP would be in touch. Why? Because my naughty GP hadn’t filled the form in correctly and they had refused me a consultation until the form was filled in properly.

I should have asked why they had staff to ring and tell me that but no staff to ring and get the information directly.

What I actually said was – “All you need to know is that my hand is virtually useless and I’d like it fixing.”

He said: “Oh.”

I think he was expecting me to simper with gratitude.

I let them off lightly last time they screwed me over. It isn’t going to happen a second time. I’m making notes and I’m going to use them this time.

Most of the rest of my day was devoted to struggling with School Attendance Medals. There are basically two types of these – interesting ones and ones given out in London. There’s a whole website devoted to London medals here. Read it and tell me you retain the will to live.

Queen Victoria

London School Attendance Medal

I was given the London ones to do.

Don’t get me wrong – they are an interesting piece of social history, but as a subject for multiple listing on eBay. I have entered the date, metal, clasp detail, name, grade of medal and catalogue numbers for approximately 40 medals, with prices, conditions and at least three photographs for each one. I have struggled, made mistakes and accidentally lost the data on a whole batch. I say “lost”, but I actually managed to delete it by carelessness. Twice.

That’s enough for now. I really don’t want to dwell on it.

The standard catalogue on School Attendance Medals is School Attendance Medals of England, Scotland and Wales by Cedric Dry (Whitmore 1992).

I will leave you with that thought.

That’s right, MORE London School Attendance Medals

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse…

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I unlocked, turned off the alarm and went through to the back room to switch on the lights and computers…

Nothing.

A lot of the sockets were dead and a look at the fuseboard showed one of the two power circuits had tripped. We couldn’t reset it but we did manage to arrange a couple of extension leads to run the phones, a computer and the credit card machine.

It’s likely that the heavy rain has been getting in again. The electrician is coming on Monday and we will find out then.

Apart from that, my watch broke. Just as I found the power was out one of the spring-loaded bars in my watch strap broke and the watch fell off.

It never rains but it pours…

That may not be an appropriate expression if it turns out to be an electrical fault caused by water. I have had experience of that before and ended up with a surprise and a sooty burn mark on my hand.

In the evening I went to collect my tablets, using the prescription I picked up yesterday. I noticed, when reading the prescription, that I have the normal slew of threatening messages about reviews and appointments and, this time, a demand that I book an appointment for epilepsy screening.

This is why I don’t normally bother reading notes and letters from the doctor – I’m now worried what they know that I don’t.

If I ruled the World (2)

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I’m back, and I’m ready to write a list of major improvements I would make to the world.

One, I would launch a major research project into the causes of low intelligence, with the object of developing a vaccine against stupidity. This is a watered down version of my true feelings after sitting next to an idiot with a mobile phone and a demon-spawn toddler in the surgery waiting room.

Two, pass a law requiring that computers would allow you to write (2) instead of “Two” without all sorts of unintended paragraphing consequences.

Three, make it law that all doctors required to perform prostate tests were selected for their small hands rather than for their qualifications. Possibly they could be selected from families of concert pianists, who tend to have long thin fingers. I’ve never asked to see their credentials, but have strong views about their fingers. I’m also convinced that the people who take jobs like this aren’t the ones that came top of their class. Not a criticism, just an observation.

Four, I would encourage all current MPs to follow George Osborne‘s example and get a job outside politics. It would be nice to get them all jobs in the hospitality industry and see if they could organise a party in a brewery.

Five, replace health warnings with pictures. Don’t tell me something has a lot of fat in it, that means nothing. Even if it is in red. But show me a picture of a fat man clutching his chest and I might take notice.

I’ll leave it at 5 for tonight because I’m trying to design a kitchen knife that incorporates a sticking plaster dispenser. It’s a gap in the market I spotted whilst preparing vegetables tonight…

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Life after the Care Farm