Tag Archives: X-Ray

So Much to Do, So Little Time

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Wooden Water Vole at Carsington

Woke up. Tested air temperature with tip of nose. Pulled three layers of duvet up around my face and went back to sleep. It is my final day of loafing, or recuperation, as I call it, and I see no advantage to getting up earlier than I have to.

Eventually I emerged, ate the beans on cheese on toast that Julia had prepared, ate the toast and marmalade she had made me for breakfast (the oranges are part of my five a day) and watched TV for a while.

It was Four in a Bed. After watching many episodes I can’t help wishing I had run a Bed & Breakfast instead of messing around as an antique dealer, gardener, pizza maker, shop assistant . . .

To be fair, it looks quite simple to run a B&B. Slightly more difficult to do it well, but isn’t that always the case?

Wooden Dragon at Carsington

I also wonder if we have finally run out of things to watch on TV if the best we have to offer is a programme on competitive hospitality. However, the best episodes are the ones which feature the human condition, such as the one today where one of the owners gave everyone a hard time, kept repeating that “the customer is always right” and repeatedly told us about his confidence and his high standards. Yes, you guessed it. His standards were not as high as he thought, anyone who criticised him was wrong and he eventually threw a hissy fit. I don’t like to see people being made unhappy. On the other hand, when they are the cause of their own unhappiness, it’s good TV. Shakespeare would have written it better, but the tragedy was there for all to see.

In truth, I spent too much time watching TV, and by the time I had rung the doctor to make a blood test appointment and book a COPD review, it was getting late. For those of you wondering when I got COPD, I’m not actually sure of that myself. It was mentioned as a cause of my problems, but until I had a text to book the review, I had no idea myself. I can’t wait until I get something serious and they let me know by sending me a link to the local hospice.

Then I had to arrange for the garage near the shop to supply a new tyre tomorrow. They are very good and will collect the car from the shop, do the job and return the car. Brilliant service for a man with a bad knee and a lazy disposition.

Finally, I rang for a taxi. It was a bit later than I had intended, but I still had time. Rang at 3.15, allow 10 minutes for a taxi, ten minutes for travel, ten minutes to walk from the entrance to X-Ray department – arrive five minutes before the appointment. It was probably better than my original plan of ringing at 3am, as they don’t want you cluttering the place up. Well, it would have been if the taxi firm had managed to send a taxi.

I’ve been using them for 30 years, since they were the local company. They have bigger offices now, a number of sign-written cars and a much more complicated phone system. If only the level of service was as good as it used to be.

Wooden Wizard and Dragon at Carsington

After 15 minutes I had an automated call to tell me they were doing their best. I rang to check what was happening and was told that they would be with me as soon as possible but the roads were crowded because it was “rush hour”. Well, it may get slightly busier, but unless you are on the ring road it’s not precisely a rush hour. And even if it was, it should hardly be a surprise.

Eventually, Just as I was preparing to ring the hospital, my car arrived.

I hate being late. I particularly hate being late when I allow  plenty of time for the trip.  The driver explained it was because of the amount of traffic. This would have been more convincing if there had been any traffic about.

Anyway, after a sit down in the waiting area, where I was able to view some interesting specimens of humanity, I had an X-Ray. That was interesting, as the radiologist bombarded me with questions about the amount of metal I may be wearing.

I took off my jacket (with zip), unhooked my glasses from the neck of my jumper, confirmed I had nothing in my pockets and that I didn’t wear jewellery, and heard her ask the next question . . .

Owl Sculpture – Harlow Carr

Did I have any underwear containing metal or underwiring?

Clearly they have some colourful characters going for X-Rays.

Pictures all contain the word “car” in the title. I was looking for cars to represent rush hour traffic. I clearly need a new system.

Owl Sculpture – Harlow Carr

A Good Day

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The X-Ray went well. I caught the tram with time to spare and took the correct one (having written it on the back of my hand). It wasn’t too crowded (lunchtime/early afternoon looks like the time to travel) and I arrived with two minutes to spare. Nine minutes later I was walking out. All done. It would have been less if I’d remembered to take my wallet out of my right leg cargo pocket when we started.

It’s important, I think, to mention when the NHS does well. The receptionist I spoke with this morning to make a blood test appointment was very cheerful and efficient too. I was “Number One” in the telephone queue and I can’t recall the last time that happened.

Very little else happened. We had veg stew with dumplings tonight. Tomorrow it is sausage sandwiches with soup –  that will be bean and vegetable soup, which is, by coincidence, the ingredients I have left after the two stews.

Daffodils at Mencap garden

I now have a notebook full of ideas too, as it’s the first time I’ve done anything part from work and blood tests for many months.

There were very few masks in evidence. Just three on the tram and a couple in hospital. I can see problems resulting from this.

It seems we have a re-emergence of Whooping Cough as a disease of note. Lockdown and masks just about put a stop to it, so we have brought up a group of kids with no natural immunity. Add this to low vaccination rates and we are looking at a potentially serious situation. Of course, scientists always say this, as do newspapers, who are calling it “the 100 day cough” and “the Victorian disease”.  What they don’t tell you is that what they are reporting as “an explosion” of cases is merely a return to the levels we had before lockdown.

Then we have measles.  It has killed millions. It can leave you with permanent problems.  We have virtually eradicated it, but vaccination rates are a little lower than ideal. On the other hand, I had it as a kid, as did my sister, and we are fine. It’s all a question of balance and it’s easy to get hysterical about these things. I’m sure that there’s a module in Journalism courses “Hysteria and How to Provoke it”. That’s the only explanation for some of the headlines they come up with.

Forsythia

Pictures are random spring flowers from previous years – roll on spring.

Day 187

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X-Ray Day.

It went surprisingly well. The taxi was prompt, the journey was quick, the driver was pleasant. I arrived early, was X-Rayed and left the department at 10.52, which was good when you consider my appointment time was 10.50. The journey home a re-run of the previous journey. I have some acidic observations but will save them for another post.

I had an inkling that something was going quite so well for Julia when I arrived home. She had left to walk down to the surgery before I left, and was still not home. I didn’t panic, as there is always a possibility she had taken a detour on the way, such as shopping or chatting to a friend. One of the advantages of being miserable and anti-social is that you don’t get delayed by people wanting to get involved in pointless social rituals. If it doesn’t involve biscuits, keep to yourself, is my view.

When she returned, a tale of woe unfolded. She arrived early, booked in and waited. And waited. After 40 minutes she was about to ask what was happening when the nurse appeared. It seems that someone had turned up and insisted that they had an appointment when there wasn’t one on the system. They were very insistent so the nurse took them through just to shut them up. It took 40 minutes to sort them out and made everyone else late.

One the face of it, it’s bad and it has just encouraged the patient to throw their weight about next time they don’t get their own way. On the other hand I recently had a case where they claimed there was no appointment on the system when I know I made it and they had it, because it had come up in conversation about something else.

Ah well, cosmic balance and all that.

A Different Sort of Day

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Had bacon sandwiches for breakfast.

Did some decluttering and deadheading.

Had an argument about the best way to declutter. I, as usual, was wrong. It seems it’s far better to move lots of stuff multiple times and pile it up dangerously rather than just doing it once in a structured and stable manner. However, my way takes thought and it would involve me making decisions instead of just doing what I’m told.

We had lunch at McDonald’s, where they were having a “Bring Your Own Idiot to Work Day” judging by the service.

After that, we managed to hunt down a charity shop with a parking space outside. They now have eight bags of books we have more carpet to hoover.

Many of the books are cookery books. You can buy some excellent cookery books from charity shops for £2 or £3. However, I rarely use them much (usually only a couple of recipes) and they then gather dust.

Today, with some wax polish and an old vest, I removed the dust and added some gloss before returning them to the charity shop system.

My X-Ray appointment today did not go as well as the last one. Instead of same day service and ten minutes from start to finish, I had to wait three days for the appointment and sit in a stuffy corridor for an hour.

You would assume they had a great array of techniques and equipment to X-Ray fingers. They are tricky things to photograph from the side as you have to avoid taking all the others at the same time. With a metal plate (which I’m sure they used to use in the old days) and some gaffer tape I could have easily rigged something up, but with me holding the unwanted fingers out of the way and one wedge of blue foam it takes a while.

It’s nice to know that you get better service when they are looking for lung cancer than when they are looking for arthritis. Having said that, you still have to wait 7-10 days for the results whether you have a terminal condition or difficulty holding a pen.

I don’t, by the way, have lung cancer. I have a cough. That’s why I went to the doctor – pills for a cough, not an X-Ray followed by pills for a cough seven days later.

This is a good thing as I’ve just spent £300 on two new dental crowns. It would have been annoying not to get the use out of them.

There’s no point having the nicest teeth in the cemetery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Difficult Day

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I’m typing and watching TV. John Torode, the Australian cook from Masterchef (where he is partnered by greengrocer and pudding-eater Greg Wallace) is drinking mate in Argentina whilst learning about Argentinian beef.

Even Argentina, with all its open space is moving to rearing beef in feed lots.

It’s sad, but true. I was tempted to use the word “irritating” about Torode, and “even more irritating” about Wallace. But manners got the better of me, so I didn’t.

I’m intrigued by mate, but having read about the preparation I may give it a miss. I’ll add my favourite bit of mate trivia before leaving. It’s the bit about the South Africans around Groot Marisco, in case you were wondering. I have covered it before, I think, though I can’t find the post to confirm that. It’s a bit like the Burnley and Benedictine story. Or why they speak Welsh in Patagonia. Or Afrikaans.

I do love trivia. I quite like Argentina too, after watching today’s programme, but that’s mainly based on the fact that they eat a lot of meat. Even their truckstops serve barbecued beef.

On the other hand, I don’t like laundry and I don’t really care for six hours of decluttering, but it was my programme today, as dictated by Julia. (And yes, I have selected my words with care.) I did manage some deadheading, so it wasn’t an entire waste of a day.

Tomorrow we are starting our holiday, though we aren’t actually going away.  I have a blood test tomorrow and have to book an X-Ray appointment for my left hand, which will probably see off another day. I was hoping for anti-inflammatories and a steroid injection rather than another bloody visit to the hospital.

More medical discussion tomorrow, for those of you who are interested. It’s nice to be able to discuss medical matters without the necessity of removing my trousers.