Tag Archives: nurses

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?

Not Very Happy

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I had a phone call from the doctor today. It was a cheery enough phone call, because I am a lucky man and like my doctors. However, the news was rather depressing. I have been reclaimed by the anti-coagulant team and been put on Warfarin again. My next blood test is Monday.

It seems I am too heavy to be put on the new drug, which may not be powerful enough to do the job. My fault for being so fat, nobody tied me down and forced m to eat, so there is nobody else to blame. It would have been nice if the doctor had spotted this before giving me false hope, but I had a pleasant two or three days before it all fell apart.

The problem is that the anti-coagulant team runs the department like a bunch of petty tyrants. They can’t abide the thought of anyone evading their clutches and they can’t envisage a life without Warfarin. Despite the claims in the video they play you as part of the indoctrination, it does interfere with your life and they make no effort to be flexible.  They once demanded that I break off in the middle of a holiday to drive 40 miles to hospital and have  a blood test. When I told them there was no way that was going to happen they decided to be more flexible. It was a five day holiday and I’m not spending the best part of a day messing about with a blood test.

Another time they set a student nurse onto me. She rang me then told me, quite aggressively, that I had to start taking my Warfarin properly as my test results were unacceptably inconsistent. I had, it seemed, failed to hit the target on nearly fifty percent of the tests. (Teaching them how to bully patients is obviously a responsibility they take seriously).  I did a quick calculation in my head.

“I think you’ll find, ” I said,” that I have hit the target every time for the last six months. The problem is with the early tests when i was being tested two or three times a week and you couldn’t get my dosage right.”

“Oh!”

She then went silent, tapped a few keys and agreed that I was right. The simple truth is that Warfarin is a very imprecise treatment and the anti-coagulant team aren’t much use when it starts to get out of control.

So there you are. Imagine me as a victim, teetering on the edge of a pit as arms reach out to garb my legs and pull me down…

I went for Big Brother today, as he’s the nearest thing to a pit of demons that I have in my media.

Then, to make my day even worse, I broke eBay.