Post 399: Second Doctor’s Appointment This Week — Surely Lightning Doesn’t Strike Twice
Today is just another Friday which starts with a kiss and ends with a beer, but has an altogether better feel than terrible Thuesday
I get ready to head out for the doctor’s surgery again this week with my Darling in tow. She drops me off so close to the surgery door I feel special.
I’m just through the doors and then past the control box on the wall silently accepting names of people, the afflicted, into the waiting room, and now I’m waiting too.
for the third day I’m feeling like death warmed up.
I’ve hobbled up past the counter following a shortish lady’s call for me, and I already feel like this will be okay today. It will be okay.
I go as fast as I can with my limited walking ability, but the room is not the other side of the world like the other day, so I’m not out of breath as my Darling and I rock up with our designated doctor awaiting our first ever dialogue.
We all three sit down and get settled and, although I’m a little nervous, I’m ready and up for this. Bring it on.
For the second time this week I’m sitting in front of a doc with my rewritten list of ailments carefully unfolded and placed between us on her desk.
There’s a mixed-up, messily handwritten note quite different from the computer-printed note I had on Tuesday. It feels inadequate, but it’s all I’ve got, so let’s go.
She asks those immortal words.
“So how can I help you? Ah, you’ve brought a list. May I have a look at it?”
But a microsecond before she finishes ‘look at it’ I nervously say,
“Yes, of course.”
She looks down the list. I’ve already listed them in order of preference, one to eight, so that the first few are dealt with today at least. The rest - I don’t mind waiting for, so I try not to talk over her humming as she scribbles on the page and checks some more of my scribbles making up my list.
I like this. I’m put at ease by her humming and her talking to herself until she’s ready and explains that:
“I’ve split these up into clerical and medical, and these two here, pointing at the increasingly messy list, we can do today, but I want to keep the list, if I may, so we can get together again and continue to work our way through them.”
I assumed she thought this appoint was too short to get a thing done, but I knew this was a double period - so I was champing at the bit to clarify - and said that I was told this was a double-length appointment.
She noticed my frustration and said, “No, this is only one—”
As she ended her sentence I jumped in and shouted,
“Oh my God!”, “Will this nightmare ever end”
I held my head and shook it side to side.
She jumped out of her skin! Poor lass.
I could not believe it. I pushed back in my seat looking for support from my Darling when the doc says,
“Ah, here it is… this is very definitely a double-length appointment.. sorry.”
We all sighed together with relief.
In a flash the admin and clerical stuff was dispatched and easily sorted, then I was asked to sit on the bench-bed for the most important things on the list. My shoulder first.
She had my arms waving this way and that and then she asked if she could check out my left shoulder, I guided her to the area of most acute pain I’ve got in my whole body and, as she pressed lightly to assess the case, she said,
“Here, here, here?”
And I said,
“No, No, No…”
Until I screamed. Ooooooouch!
She had found the area of acute pain and, after she (and my Darling) settled after the shock from my loud yelp, she calmed down by sitting by the computer away from me, as there was a lot of typing to do and then she came back over and continued with a physical inspection of my legs and groin.
Again she returned to the computer to fill in what she’d found out about my pelvic and leg issues.
Then we all got comfy again.
Her assessment was that the shoulder needed X-raying immediately and the pelvic-leg issue was more likely cancerous, so we needed to refer to my oncologist for that one.
It all made sense to me.
She would organise an X-ray and I would have a word with my oncologist via my cancer care nurse.
We shook hands and I headed back down the corridor with my Darling in a much better state than the last time.
This doctor was a keeper.
I had only broken down once and was treated with kindness and empathy, so it’s a nine out of ten for me and 9.5 for her.
What a turnaround.
As we got home I realised that this wholesale change to the surgery was going to affect all the patients this much too. What a nuisance all this takeover will be.
I thought the end was nigh on Tuesday after a pretty bad start, but today’s double appointment was back to how I’d like to be treated.
Back home, my Darling went up and had herself a shower and left me with my admin down in the tv lounge.
Firstly, the oncologist.
I asked for their assistance with the pain in my groin and mentioned the shoulder, which was already being dealt with by the doctor.
With that done I could relax — or so I thought.
My Darling smelt lovely as she grabbed me before heading off to the normal Friday café catch-up with the girls, she loves so much, and off she trotted leaving me in peace.
Within half an hour the phone rang.
I knew that was either the GP or the bookings people down at the hospital, but I was wrong.
It was my cancer care nurse doing what she always does, and that is being mother hen, looking after me as usual.
“Hi Mr U, how are you? I’ve read your email and you need to get on to the hospice for pain relief advice.
“I’ll chat to the oncologist after the long bank holiday weekend and we’ll get back to you afterwards” she said.
This was music to my ears, and hopefully there will be a pair of scans to look through my skin and find out what’s wrong.
That was pretty much it and all about it, so we ended the call in high hopes that nothing sinister is happening.
We said our goodbyes and now I had to call the hospice.
It’s all go some days.
But although I feel busy there’s huge satisfaction and feelings of accomplishment.
I must soldier on because who else will do what I’m doing so it’s the hospice and nurse-line.
“Nurse line, how can I help?”
“Hi,” I said in my most cheerful manner. “I need advice on pain relief.”
“Do you have a plan for Oramorph?” she asked.
I told her I can take six 5ml syringes each day, to which she replied that I should do exactly that.
“Take your maximum dose and get on top of that pain.”
Okay, I said. I getcha. Thanks. Bye.
So in the spirit of practical nursing at home, I’ll get cracking on the Oramorph then and there.
Thanks, Team U.
With the nursing side of this fine weekend over, I can now concentrate on fun things.
And when I say fun, I mean fun to me.
A little bit more work on the book — well, what I mean is I’m trying to battle my way into some kind of plan of action.
But what’s this?
It’s a message from my second literary contact and I’m excited to hear what he has to say.
It says:
“Hi Mr U,
Do you have everything typed up or is it all handwritten at the moment? I could ask a friend who is a ghostwriter, but it sounds like you need an editor, which she also does…”
This is just what I needed to hear: professional help.
I knew it was a good idea talking to him.
The only possible problem is that I’ve not got anything typed up nor handwritten.
But I do have nearly 400 blog posts acting as a script of a kind.
So I have a long weekend to start this script and delve into the world of writing.
I’m about to apologise to you all for today’s blog being so blinking dull. I’m sorry.
Part of it is me writing to remember what I should be doing — not so much because I can’t remember, though there is an increasing chance of that happening, but more to get some order in my mind.
To prioritise the things from this week and sort them so nothing slips through the net.
I really want to write but the morphine makes it harder to concentrate in my sleepy world with ever-increasing doses.
But I can only try.
Also I want to balance up my social life too, which is pretty well non-existent lately.
Happily though the long weekend has the first big steam transport show of the season on at the farm locally, where a few friends are enjoying the hot and sunny weekend to come.
So I’ve arranged to be kidnapped tonight and taken to the evening session of rock and roll at the huge oak-beamed barn which is the focal point of the whole weekend’s events -the barn not the rock and roll.
It’ll be a different vibe every night over the three evenings so the exhibitors can choose between chilling out or have some musical fun.
I’ll tell you later how I got on.
With the early-week doctor’s appointment sorting out my form to send back to the big insurance company, I’ve been worrying unnecessarily about the next steps to close this account.
All I needed to do was ring them to check everything was okay.
So my neurotic self rang up the switchboard and as luck would have it got through to the most empathetic worker ever.
After I explained the reason behind the form, she maintained a super-friendly and helpful demeanour until the call was over.
By which time she had explained the timeline for this action and where it currently sat on that timeline.
I learned that all is okay and it will be processed ASAP.
Ring ring.
Another call from the hospice, but this time a prescribing nurse saying that the morphine dosing might be raised soon if things progress as they are.
It could be that the dose might be upped to 7.5 or 10ml.
But that’ll be confirmed later with the hospice doctor, who will advise my GP for altering the prescription.
Fantastic.
Behind all this good stuff happening I still have the tearfulness and occasional low mood.
It’s been noted but not acted on at the GP today, but even then I’d really rather deal with the hospice.
Not only would the hospice pick up the call for help more quickly, the counsellors also give you twice the amount of sessions.
We shall see.
Perhaps I don’t need them yet.
The evening came along and so did my kidnappers.
My friends are so kind and resourceful; it’s so good to have them.
But tonight they are taking me to see other friends — friends they know and friends they don’t.
We all jumped in their car a took off.
Next we arrived at the field gate behind the huge black barn where the entertainment always is.
The gate staff are family — not to me, but to each other — and when they saw me struggling to get out of the car they rallied around and pointed me in the quickest right direction.
Which meant that now, we can go in and out to use this particular entrance and exit for my convenience.
How nice of them.
Well done, Team Barn.
Going in, we soon found some beer and seats and a table to sit around.
We chatted until the cows came home, as the old phrase goes.
Being out of my home and in a place I love for music and beer was so good for my spirits.
But it also sharply highlights the changes in me and the changes in my world.
To have to rely on pals more and more is hard to swallow.
I shouldn’t fixate on what I can’t do, but it’s incredibly hard not to.
I want to do so many things — but know I can’t.
It makes me sad that I’ve missed opportunities to do those things, but how was I to know how I’d end up?
Ah well.
Time is gone.
I did write a poem today. I wouldn’t normally include it, but I’ll add it to this post.
I hope you like it.
I have to say I made a pretty good job of it, even if I do say so myself. Wink wink.
Good night
Bless you
Take care
⸻
I WISH
I wish my life’s a great big wave
That breaks upon a shore
To be dragged back into the sea
And on for evermore
Repeating this while breaking up
On every beach I know
To live on to eternity
An everlasting flow
