Post 396: Rainy Days and Tuesdays Always Get Me Down.
The miserable clouds with their miserable mizzle set me up for a miserable day — and firstly, the miserable time at the doctors.
The waiting room was busy and, as I waited with the kids coughing and mums nattering, I rubbed my back and closed my eyes with some spontaneous tiredness — the tiredness you get when you don’t really want to talk to anyone and just want to hide in your coat.
The morning was already going downhill, with my body somehow getting aches and pains in my joints, my groin, back and shoulder, but worst of all my elbows, which never hurt.
The 08:00 alarm couldn’t come soon enough, but I suppose I could have swigged some morphine to kill the pain; “get ahead of the pain,” my Darling says.
So the first painkillers did a fairly good job. 40mg pills of slow-release morphine and the 300mg of gabapentin were the main helpers because, after this long on eight paracetamol a day, I don’t think they do anything anymore. Perhaps I should ask about that.
Do paracetamol “fade” after a while on them?
So the waiting room was a dream come true with the coughing and wheezing, and the slippery floor made worse by the pram wheels making wet tracks around the blue chairs.
Midday went by, which was my appointment time, and my Darling had parked the car and come to sit beside me. But we didn’t talk much. There was plenty of conversation to listen to anyway, even if my eyes were closed and I was still trying to hide, like a scared hedgehog. I had my prickles out and I was safe, wrapped up in my protective ball.
My name was called and I immediately got the feeling she was trying to catch up on time lost to previous patients with her fast walk to her room door.
It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t run with her, but I got there in the end.
I immediately unfurled the list of eight items on my mind and she looked at it and said, “You’re only here for this form filling,” and showed me my form.
Three and a half weeks ago (I have to have the half, a bit like a primary school kid saying their age) — 3.5 weeks ago — I handed over, at the counter, a ‘Seriously ill health claim form’ for people at the very end of their lives who want to draw down pension money without any tax being charged.
This form had apparently disappeared, as my weekly calls about it confirmed. The dog ate it I expect. Ha ha.
However, at 11:30 this morning I had a call from a young-sounding guy who had been tasked with finding it, the form, and, as he couldn’t find it anywhere, he gave up and rang me. He asked if I could print a copy and bring it in again, or if I could email him the form so he could print it and get it signed by a doctor.
I chose the latter and searched my emails for it and sent it to him just as my Darling called up to ask me what I was doing because we had better get going if we were to get to the doctors appointment in time.
I was called by this new Dr. Who immediately looked like she was late for a date and trotted off to her empty clinic room, or she did, I walked in my fastest shuffle.
The doctor, as I said, was trying to catch up on time and looked down in horror as I unfurled my damp but long list of questions and said sternly, “I’m only going to sign this form for you.”
Which she immediately did.
Ten seconds. That’s all it took.
Ten seconds.
And what the hell would we be talking about if, twenty-five minutes before this appointment, I hadn’t found the PDF files and sent them on to your admin? Hey? Yeah? What then?
I guess we would have been talking about my heart, my cancer, my low mood, my fit note for work etc. Which one or two would you choose?
I was getting the picture here, but I knew I still had nine minutes and fifty seconds left of my appointment.
I also had my seat and wasn’t happy to go back out into that mizzle quite yet.
So I remained calm in my seat and asked her about my fit note, sick note, phased return or whatever it was, which I wanted for tomorrow.
She pressed a few buttons and said she couldn’t help me because although you can backdate one, you can’t forward-date one.
“Sorry, I can’t help,” she said.
I said that I only wanted to know if Anima could handle a phased return to work with specified hours printed on it.
I was getting a bit anxious about this official sick form that my company required to let me go back to work for a few hours a week.
All of a sudden I was sobbing quietly while she prattled on and, though I was trying to find a tissue in one of many pockets, to stop the flood of tears and wipe my snotty nose which was running by this point, not a sympathetic or comforting noise came out of her mouth, nor was a tissue offered for my comfort.
I was trying to get up and out of the door, ushered by this ogre of a doctor I’d never seen before and hope never to see again.
I got up and my Darling opened the door with still three minutes of my ten-minute appointment remaining.
Well done Doctor, you’ve achieved a break. You’ve pulled back three minutes. Well done you.
Meanwhile I was in bits in the corridor trying to clean my face up after the blubbing.
I got myself together and walked back towards the waiting room and the entrance/exit and, just before I reached the waiting room, a nurse who knows me well from years of blood tests bombed by smiling and asking if I was okay.
She saw the state of my face and her smile dropped as she passed me with her patient.
After which, Mr U left the building.
It was gloomy outside and my mood hadn’t improved one bit as we headed up through the car park to the café.
Although we were meant to have food, all I wanted was a hot drink, so my Darling followed suit and skipped lunch/dinner all because of me, no matter how much I tried to get her to eat.
While I was there sipping hot coffee, she bundled off to the superstore next door and got something nice for dinner, so I had a quiet drink on my own mostly.
But that suited me.
I was okay, if a little shocked by a doctor on a mission.
She was doing her job. She was also trying to catch up, but without being funny, where was the bedside manner? Where was the compassion?
If this is the “new” way at this practice because of the bottom line etc., I’m not for it, nor will I make a hasty return if I can help it.
I had to continue after the coffee to work for a walk around my proposed new workspace.
I was met by my manager, who knows me well, and as I walked around this, my new workplace, I spotted a couple of things which he wrote down in his book and we went our separate ways perfectly happy that we were doing all we could to make this return to work, work.
We returned home to yet more pills and emails and, after signing my side of the newly printed and signed form, my Darling and I sat down and watched TV.
I’m worried about my new pains all over the place but they are just aches really and maybe they’ll move on soon.
I do hope so.
With the emailed form finally emailed, I’m hoping I’ll have some money to spend on my Darling soon.
What will I buy first?
Good night
Take care
