Whooo a week of NHS appointments. Well..in theory!

Monday. First up was GP to « discuss the clinic letter sent by Consultant Microbiology London »

In fairness the very nice GP who I had never seen before…come to think of it I am not sure I have actually seen a GP for years….she did say « I have no idea why we have to discuss this » so she immediately issued the repeat medication request. Whilst I was there I thought I’d mention the awful sinusitis. That has been ongoing since jaw surgery. Ah she muttered you need this spray stuff and we don’t do antibiotics for that. She did ask me when I was next seeing urology, she had noticed the 100 msu reports. I just laughed. I explained I had had MRI in August 2025, no follow up…yet. She also asked about blood pressure and said that Mr Nephrology needed to get involved. Well yes, I agreed. But how do we fix that. God knows.

Next day was normal dentist check up. Actually nothing he could do but say…good luck with the rest of treatment in max fax. He is super nice, Spanish. He was mum’s dentist too. The only dentist she would go to on account of him being Spanish and she being squeamish.

Next up was a London appointment to fix the broken sacral nerve stimulator (SNS). No EMR ( fast trains) they were all cancelled due to signal (?!) signal what? The only trains were the slowest trains stopping everywhere and eventually made it with minutes to spare. The appointment was with Clinical Nurse Specialist ( CNS) JJ who I have known since this all started. She had the replacement parts and in no time all sort of fixed. We chatted about some research stuff, robotics and…Dipstick. Her imitation, accent and acting out of his inability to mute , put a hand up or indeed follow any sort of etiquette on Teams calls was worth the long trek into London. I think the whole department must have heard our laughter.

I had also been sent a spy mission from Newcastle to see whether there was evidence of anyone knowing anything at all about our clinical trial. I can confirm there was no evidence in evidence!

Once I was home ( still no EMR trains..due to signal) I tried to recharge the SNS. Only trouble was it had not been paired up quite right. Amazingly I sort of worked it out and despite the incredibly long wait for full charge I think its working.

The next appointment was Luton. A follow up to October’s operation. The surgeon Mr Max Fax had requested an NHS appointment with him to check progress and inject plasma to try to get the numb face to de-numb.I was keen to get this appointment not only but also so that he would remove the pin which has inadvertently been left in the roof of my mouth. Mr Spanish Dentist had told me it needs a special tiny screwdriver to get it out. I am sure I have one for my glasses somewhere but not quite sure he meant that. Thursday late afternoon I had a phone call. Maxfax clinic tomorrow is cancelled. OH FFS I did not say.

I think if they cancel follow ups they can get through waiting lists for first appointments then just fob everyone off. Or having paid this surgeon thousands of pounds he has buggered off on an expensive holiday.

Finally Friday afternoon was a scheduled phone appointment with respiratory. Bart’s hospital London . As I have said before what ever else in NHS is not working Respiratory is fantastic. Regular appointments, X-rays, poly-pharmacy, detailed notes, holistic…you name it they have it all. Turns out GP failed to notice the conflict between the nasal spray she prescribed and the stuff I already have…overdosing on steroids was the conflicted result. Dr Respiratory has changed it all. Written to GP pointing out I need antibiotics for three weeks not stupid steroid sprays and she is arranging further scans X-ray ENT blah. I really hope the GP surgery will not call me in to discuss this clinic letter. PLEASE can they not do that.

In between appointments super sunny days, yellow cardies (that’s a long story for another day!) boxercise, swimming, bridge and all the normal stuff. I have also heard back from the Danes, they have asked if I will do another sessions, maybe my bit at the EAU conference was not such step too far out of their comfort zone.

Have a great weekend.