You may recall that some weeks ago I saw the urology special clinical nurse (CNS). I have known her for about 10 years. She was the nurse who taught me how to use my first Sacral Nerve Stimulator. (SNS). The device which is implanted in my right bum cheek. It is supposed to help the bladder work. We have for the most part got on really well. I suspect like many others covid has taken its toll on her. She is not so friendly any more. 

Second SNS was implanted in 2021. CNS was not there for that but her colleague, I think I called Bingo at the time, was. The new one is alot smaller. It also allows for MRI to be undertaken. My MRI report has been ‘leaked’ to me. But Dipstick has not yet managed to speak to me about it except to say there will be an MDT.

Dipstick has been the surgeon for both these SNS implants. 

Dipstick in fact is the expert for these implants. 

Dipstick in fact has not seen me face to face since this last implant.

The technology has advanced so much that the implant is very much smaller than the old one. The charging up of the battery is done weekly at home. 

Where am I going with this? 

Long story short. CNS when I saw her had said:

1. the implant is in a bigger space ( from the old one) so it is floating about and sticking out alot. A technical term!

2. Dipstick needs to see me face to face. 

3. The SNS supplier has a wonderful rep, she was on the phone during my appointment. I know that rep so well too! She promised to look into the issues of pain and electric shocks which mean I have turned it off. 

4. CNS said she would ring me with an update. 

Well this week a zillion texts told me to expect a call from CNS at 10.30 on Tuesday. To be available for an hour either side of that and to under no circumstances waste the NHS money by not attending / answering. 

Tuesday, having made sure I had signal, charge, sound, clear line I waited around from 9.30 and eventually, ….. 12.30,  my phone rang ‘no caller id’. It was not CNS it was Bingo. Poor man. Told me how ill he has been. How he has been off work for a year. Still working from home. He has no idea about what has been going on re my SNS. I did not have the heart to tell him it was all crap.  I offered him sympathy and wished him a speedy recovery. End of! I see urology appointment is still March 2023.

I understand from Jerome that a patient he knows managed to get a GP appointment. Golddust! Only to arrive at the surgery to find an empty waiting room. Well the GP was not seeing patients. In fact not even in the building. As the receptionist snarled…the waiting room would be full if the doctors were here. Durrr. 

As a teacher we often used to say we would get so much more done, if the students were not there, constantly interrupting our report writing, our lesson planning, our tech updating and registering. I guess it’s the same for doctors. They must get a lot more done without patients constantly harassing them for medicine, tests, test results, referrals, mdts, decisions and clinical diagnoses. Indeed the respiratory consultant I saw a couple of weeks ago was so intent on typing and staring at his screen I don’t think he realised I was still holding my breath as instructed, red nay redder than red in the face as I tried to hold out.

To finish on a story to make you laugh…it is a true story and should not be funny. 

I spent hours as a teacher typing up crystal clear ‘cover’ lessons in particular, for one group of ‘feral’ students in my care. On this particular Thursday I had to be in Cambridge and left the class and all my careful cover plan with another maths teacher. Next morning my HoD called me over. We have had a big drama she explained, in the class I had left cover for. One of the boys, let’s call him Ben, had stood on his chair, dropped his trousers and pants and lit his pubic hair. The whole thing video’d by his friend. The rest of the class cheering him on. FFS, I swore…then with an incredulous shout …said: but where was the teacher?

Aha…the video ( now circulating on social media)…revealed all, literally . And the hapless teacher was captured on film carefully staring at his screen…doing the register. Blissfully unaware of the unfolding drama. 

You see? students just got in the way of the real work…the register had to be done with in 10 minutes of the class starting. Rules is rules.