Its been a try again type of week.

Monday Tuesday was teaching, meetings about meetings and fiddling about with a 3 minute presentation which seems to have taken 300 hours to prepare.

Sixth formers are about to do mocks but distracted by UCAS offers coming through. They are amazing kids. Lovely M, from Bangladesh, has got brilliant offers. Parents will not let her leave Bedford though. She has never been to London.  She is determined to go. Clash of cultures. We chatted as a class about how they cope. Boys they say have an easier time. Threat of arranged marriages hangs over them all. Cameron insists their mothers must speak English. But the provision has been removed from local authorities. so, er, who will do it. mmmmm

Wednesday, began to lose the plot and began to cancel rest of the week. Made it to NHS England progress meeting. Not sure I contributed at all could not stop shivering. Frigggitty. Got home to be greeted with a line up of colleagues needing alterations to bloody presentation. frrrrr. Slept with fleece on, drugged up and knocked out!

Thursday/Friday emails with ML : 

Me to ML: 

• I got stitches out. Face a mess. But what’s new? Results will be a while yet. 

• Saw the infamous new GP  Dr  X lets call her ‘Gladys’. She told me I had infection. 

• NO? Really?! Me?! Never.  Didn’t feel able to share the detail. Stupid patient doesn’t need that info. 

• So that’s what all the mysterious phone calls were about. 

• I tried AGAIN to explain I had  been on ‘Nitro’ and ‘gent’  all week. Tried AGAIN to explain I needed to see lab report.  

  I tried AGAIN

  Said I was so pewky struggling to keep stuff down. She said she’d write a script for something stronger and ‘special’. Guess what was on her script?’Nitrofurantoin’ arghhhh I just meekly accepted as I had an ace up my sleeve….That is, Jerome had promised a script. Got that from chemist Sam eventually on Fri night. 

• Meanwhile you’ll never guess what ?…

• ….. you may recall I ended up chatting for ages over a year ago, to ‘lovely-nice-renal-man’ about his horrid divorce and trying to think of reassuring things to say.  K was going through hell at the time and so we swapped stories.  He had taken his kids to safari park, spent a fortune, but really all they wanted was baked beans on toast and hot chocolate in the cafe.  We chatted so long in my allotted 2 minute, consultation slot, the nurse came in to check all was well.! Must’ve held up the whole clinic. I remember him telling me the wife was ‘taking him to the cleaners’ as she came from a family of lawyers. 

• Well fast forward a year and in the GP surgery.’Gladys’ read a couple of letters on my history. Queried why no one doing renal. Read a few more. Turns out the ‘lovely- nice -renal- man’ ( ie  before the ‘shitty- dismissive-go-away-renal -man’ )  is her (ex) husband. 

•  … Yep it’s her. ‘Gladys’ is the ex. Gawd. Just my Luck. Did not say a word of course. 

• Now on the ABX but feel like pewking frrrrtr trying to keep them down. Will sleep it off today I hope.  

• ML to Me: 

  Aaaaaggghhh,omg-why do these things always happen to us!!At least keeping your kidney function within the family! 

  Still I'm only an old retired consultant so what do I know??

  So has 'Gladys' now referred you to anyone else renal?

  What antib's are you finally on?

Meanwhile I saw hand physio today who thought broken finger...better...but!  Also I'm first patient to tell her about ALL referrals going through 'Circle' -it only changed in Dec. Gr8 luck on my part. As I can now bend finger I am discharged and if splint not working after a month guess what?-I can be re-referred...through Circle! My, life is so uncomplicated in the NHS these days.

Did presentation and meeting go well without you?

 

• Me to ML: 

  This is brilliant you need to write a blog. 

‘Gladys’ is indeed new gp

She is thinking about referral but FBC and scan first. Frrrriggitty frig. Or AFGAN*. 

Probably ‘ Circle’ or square or triangle….. But see P next week. he will sort it I know

So glad your finger is miraculously cured until you re- re- refer via ‘Circle’ which will then be called ‘Square’.  As your GP referral was to the wrong triagger triangler…

*(Jerome says Argh translates as afgan on his predictive text phone ….so

AFGAN

is the new argh).

• ML to me: 

 I think I need a GP appointment now-just so I can see what 'Gladys' looks like!Extraordinary that she is the 'ex'.

Perhaps we should write a comedy book about medical treatment and care,we could do NHS and Private! C could contribute some interesting moments too, like F pre assessments for bladder op-first he was to stop warfarin and have injection,but a week later the protocol had changed so no need,but the next time advice reverted again!

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