appointment

The week got better . . .

/ Tony / 4 Comments

The are no images in this post for reasons that you will understand as you read.

It’s been a bit of a rough week. In fact, it started the Friday before. I had been along to the Drs for my INR test, which was only just over a week since the last one. It had been a little high previously, so my dosage had been cut and it was time to check that it had worked. Problem was that it had gone even higher. No idea why, but it was well out of my range. The clinician decide to reduce the dose again and gave me an appointment for the following Wednesday.

Then in the early hours of Monday morning, I started to feel unwell and began a bout of S&D (sickness and diarrea). I had not felt as bad as did for years. I spent the whole day between and and the toilet. By late evening, I was beginning to feel a little better, but decided that I should not go to work in a kitchen with diarrea. That’s how it spreads. Tuesday came and went and I was beginning to think I had got the better of it.

How, by lunchtime on Wednesday I had a sort of relapse. I had no energy and literally no interest in eating at all. I thought It would be a good idea to go have a lie down and just rest for a while, to see if that helped. I had rung the INR clinic to explain the situation and we decided that it was probably not the best of ideas to have an INR test that day, and I was booked in for Friday.

By the time of the appointment, I was feeling fine again. Everything seemed to have cleared up, although my energy level was still low. I talked though how I had been with the clinician and was expecting the worst. However, I didn’t expect my INR to be so low, that it was out of my range. It was low enough for the clinician, to explain that I was at a slight risk of a stroke and what signs to look out for. She boosted my dosage drastically for two days and asked me to come for a test on Monday, before work. A little worrying.

On the plus side (sort of) I have lost about half a stone in weight and haven’t had an alchoholic drink sine last Sunday. The weight will probably start to creep up again, as it always does, but the cutting down on alcohol will be a great benefit.

A little stressful . . .

/ Tony / Leave a comment

The youngest is with us this weekend. He came home on Friday morning for his fortnightly visit. This is always a little stressful for us. The reason being, that before he can come home, we have to have a negative covid-19 test. His residential care home have provided us with a quantity of testing kits and we do our test first thing, then contact the care home and let them know it is negative. We have to go through the same procedure again on the Monday morning, before he is allowed to return.

It was very worrying when we first started the test. We were concerned that we were not doing the test correctly and even more worrying that the test would show positive. After a couple of tests we became quite familiar with the procedure, but there was always that nagging feeling that one or both of would show positive either before he comes home or before he returns. It is now even more worrying as things start to open up more and people seem to more relaxed about social distancing, that the chance of a positive reading is possibly greater now than it was a couple of months ago.

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We went for our, now usual lunch on Thursday at Bar3, a local Coffee, Bar & Kitchen (as it is called) bar in Wetherby. Neither of us can face a whole meal, so we tend to share a wrap or a panini and have it split over two plates . They don’t seem to mind this as a few couples do the same. The café where I work tend to frown on ‘sharers’. The boss sees it as lost income, but surely it is better to have two people share a meal, than have them go elsewhere? Some people do push it a little too far though. Three people came in on Tuesday that had been in before. They decided they wanted to share a Greek Salad. In my opinion the salad is too much for one, about right for two but not enough for three people. The boss was not happy about three sharing and told them that she would have to make a charge for using the cutlery and extra plates! She was even a less happy person when they said they wouldn’t bother and left.

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Coming back to the testing thing. On Saturday morning, the post arrived and the was a letter with the NHS (National Health Service) logo on the front. I’ve been waiting for a while to be contacted as I have a problem with arthritis in both knees. Back in late 2018, I had an X-ray on them and I was told that the Dr’s would be in touch. At the end of January 2020, I received a letter explaining that appointments have been delayed and I would be informed about my condition as soon as they were able to confirm a date.

The about three months ago I received a letter, from the Government department, DoHSC (Department of Health & Social Care) inviting me to take in an “Important Survey” to would supposedly ‘help the Government avoid outbreaks of COVID-19″. My name had been picked out at random from many thousands to take part. I read the letter and decided that I didn’t want to take part. I have enough to deal with these days without having to take part in ‘voluntary’ studies. I shredded the letter and thought that would be the end of it. at the beginning of May, I got a reminder letter, again asking me to take part in the study. another letter for the shredder. The letter on Saturday was my ‘final’ reminder.

I couldn’t help thinking, where do they get the resources to send out three letters to someone who obviously is not interested (I would have actioned the first letter if I had been). And, why use the postal system, when they have my personal email address that the Dr’s surgery contacts me by. But then at the end of the day, it’s not the NHS that is doing this. It’s the DoHSC in conjunction with a London college and a company that specialises in surveys and polls.

It got better . . .

/ Tony / 2 Comments

On Tuesday, our youngest was due to have a dental procedure. Because of the way he could react, due to his Autism, this procedure had to take place under a general anaesthetic. He has had general’s before, so it’s not so much of a deal for him. However, COVID-19 has changed everything. My wife was taking him to the hospital, so she needed to have a C-19 swab test on Saturday. That was done in the morning. In the afternoon, she received a phone call saying that the test was ‘inconclusive’ and she have to have another on the Sunday. It’s a 25 mile round trip to the hospital, so it does take a little time out of the day. Of course after the test, she had to isolate, so was unable to work on the Sunday. Fortunately, the second test came back as negative.

Forward to Monday, and the youngest is due his swab. As he was still at his residential care home, his lead carer volunteered to take him for the test. This guy is a bit of a hero. It is nearly 50 miles from the care home, but was quite happy to take him, be with him when tested, before bringing him to us. thankfully, his test was also negative, so we were all geared up for Tuesday.

It was an early appointment, he had to be at the hospital for 9 o’clock. We got him there and my wife got him booked in. I went home to do some shopping, as it was thought he would be there all day. We found out later that the dentist only had the theatre for the morning.

At around 12 o’clock, I got a call from my wife, asking me to come and pick them up. It seems that the person who was due to go for surgery before my son, who also had some kind of special needs, was refusing to cooperate with the dental team. He should have been in theatre for around half past 9, but they just couldn’t get him to go. As the theatre was set-up for his needs, it couldn’t quickly be changed for my son, as the theatre slot was running out of time.

He has now got another appointment, but all the C-19 testing will have to be done again. Thankfully the youngest took it all in his stride. A few years ago, he would have had a complete melt-down at the plans being changed, but we were so proud of the way he reacted or didn’t react in fact.

It seems to have had no effect on him at all, and he was his usual self the following day. At the moment, his flat, at the care home is being redecorated, so he would have had to be with us for the week anyway. However, the job is going to take longer than expected, so two of his care team are taking him away to Centre-Parcs for a few days until the work is finished. He doesn’t know yet, and we are hoping that he will just accept it without any upset. We wait and see.

It arrived …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

My invitation to book a Covid-19 vaccination arrived on Saturday. The way the letter was worded gave the impression that I would get a letter from the doctors surgery soon advising me on the dates they were offering. By yesterday (Thursday) nothing was forthcoming. I decided to have a look on the local Medical Centre’s website to see If I could find anymore information. There it was, on the front page of the site. I had to book my ‘Jab-spot’ online , the Government website as they were not offering the vaccine locally yet.

So, off I trot to Gov.UK website and quickly found the ‘booking’ page. It was quite easy to navigate and I soon had booked both first and second jab at a vaccination centre just under 10 miles away. Sorted! Now we have to await for my wife’s invitation which should be in the next phase.

This morning, less than 18 hours since I had booked my appointment, I received a txt message from the local Medical Centre. The txt said, in it’s simplest form:

“You have recently been invited to have your coronavirus vaccine at a mass vaccination centre. If you would rather come to the ******** site please contact our reception team who can arrange for an invitation to be sent.”

I gave them a call. Unfortunately they were unable to offer me the dates I had booked, and It would be probably be the 1st week in March. I declined. The vaccination centre is 11 miles away, as opposed to the Medical Centres 5 miles. Not really much in it and as my car is getting 2 months to the tank of petrol, a bit of a run would not do it any harm. I just thought it was typical that if I had just waited for another day, I could have gone really local.

Patience is a virtue…

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I had my INR blood test appointment of Friday. It is one of those finger prick tests that only takes about 45 seconds. I fact the pre-test questions take longer than the actual test, it is usually about a ten minute job. It was an early appointment, 9am. Don’t ask me why I chose that time, because as usual with me, I can’t remember. I pulled into the car park 15 minutes before my appointment as I hate being late. We have one of those self-sign-in screens which told me that I was the next in the queue.

I sat down in the waiting area and started to look at my phone, as I didn’t really want to catch anyone’s attention. However, there was a lady sat two seats away from me, that I had seen entering the centre when I parked. She was holding her yellow record book so I assumed she was waiting the same as me. She would have been (and I’m being kind here, I think) maybe three or four years older than me. I was amused to see her tapping her foot and humming along to the music being played in the background … “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones is not the kind of music I would expect a person of her apparent age to listen to. It wasn’t until I got home, that I fully realised that it was highly likely that she would have listened to that music.

But I digress from the main point of this tale. I glanced up at the clock and saw that it was now 9 o’clock.
“She’s late!” said the lady, “She should be here before now!“
I smiled and said something like “She has a long way to come…” or words to that effect. The clinician does have to travel over eighty miles from Newcastle to get to our Medical Centre, so delays are quite reasonable and understandable.
“I can’t stay here all day, waiting for her,” she said. “I’m going to make another appointment!” And with that she stormed off. Meanwhile a gentleman had sat beside me and witnessed this bit of a tantrum. He asked me if she was the first in the queue and I said no, I was the first. He said he was the second, so that made the lady the third. That meant, her appointment was for 9:20 at the earliest, so why she was going off in a huff, fifteen minutes before her allotted time I will never know.

Ten minutes later, the receptionist came to inform the INR people that the clinician had been held up and would not be at the Medical Centre until early afternoon, and that she would ring to make new appointments.

I went to pick up my prescriptions and it was while I was discussing this with the dispenser that the title of this post came up. I was always under the impression that it was the younger members of society that had no patience … seems I could be wrong.

Back on track … hopefully

/ Tony / Leave a comment

My INR results came back today, and it had gone down to 2.7, which is around about the target date. The anti-coagulation clinic still wants me to be checked in a week, but strangely they have requested that I be tested on Wednesday instead of the more usual Tuesday. It’s not a problem changing the date, as Tuesday has always had issues with work. Only thing that concerns me is that is now the middle of the week, which could have implications when we have time away. However, we shall cross that bridge when we come to it.

Tomorrow sees me paying a visit to the Cardio-Respiratory unit for an ECG. I’ve not had one of these since before I had my operation, and I’m more bothered by how I can get parked than what the results will be. This is a pre-cursor for the appointment with the doctor (or Consultant as I like to think of him) next week. I’ve not seen Dr Me****y since before the procedure back in March 2014. I would have thought I would have seen him before this, but I think there has been some mix up with my post-care appointments over the past two years. It will be good to see him again

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From his ‘homebook’, R**s seems to have had a reasonable day. There had been a couple of issues at the beginning of the day, due to a delay in getting in to the unit, but they say it improved during the day. It was a little unusual, but he was apparently wearing his ‘weighted blanket’ in the taxi home. He came out of the taxi in a happy mood and seemed okay. Around about 7ish, K**h took him his usual meal and he seemed to snap, which we were not really expecting. The usual nipping occurred and it required a dose of his PRN medication. He calmed down after about 15 minutes, but one of the after effects is to reduce his hunger. So not much dinner tonight.

He is full of cold, and I think that has had an effect, but he seems a bit more settled now.

Life changing day plus 8

/ Tony / 2 Comments

When the doctor said that my angiogram appointment would not take long to come through, I was kind of thinking four to six weeks. We all know how the NHS works. Unless it’s an emergency, you wait. Well the doctor was more than right. My appointment is on Wednesday, the 12th of February, which considering that we only talked about it two weeks ago, is a pretty fast move. I’ve told my line manager, my service manager and my former colleague D***, and of course they are all very supportive, but I’m betting they’re more than a little concerned about the timescales. I still have to get some pyjamas!!

It also suddenly hit me that I had not spoken to the two people I supervise. I have been meaning to tell them. I’ve been meaning to get them both together in a room and explain what is happening. I just have not got around to it yet. There always seems to be some reason excuse why I have not said anything. So I’m going to do it the coward’s way. I shall send them an email. An apologetic email. I shall feel really bad about it (I do already) but I hope they understand the pressure I’m under. You see it’s not the op that I’m worried about. I thought I was worried about the recovery time, but it’s not that either really. No what worries me, is what happens while I’m away. I could be off work for three to five months, and a lot happens in a week these days given what the government is doing to public services. I had to explain to our finance person today. One of the things I have to do is run some nine or ten reports on the 1st of April. There was a problem last year, because D*** forgot to refresh the report (it has to save with data) and the finance person has no faith in D*** being able to do the job. I do have faith in him and I am thinking of emailing his manager to ‘fly the flag’ for him. As in the song ‘… there could be trouble ahead ….’

Now, back to what this thread is about. I don’t really think this has sunk in yet. I will have the angiogram next week and then wait. But for how long? A month? Three months? Or will it be the following week? I cannot really get anything straight in my head yet. I suppose with time it will come and the worries that others seem to have will start to form. Hopefully, this thread will help me.

Another weekend done …..

/ Tony / Leave a comment

   Back to work tomorrow, and I have a job list as long as my arm for the week. There is the extra job of reprogramming some the handhelds. I as kind of expecting it really. Although they will tell me different, I feel that some of them were being updated on battery power. As the update takes just over an hour, and the unit’s time out after 5 minutes, running on battery power will cause a fail. Still, if they get them to me first thing, I can have them back out in the field by afternoon.

   Youngest has been in a strange kind of mood today. Last week he needed no medication at all, for two days. This weekend, completely the opposite. Mind you, he only had two out of the three doses each day, but you could see the difference. I hope this is not an indication of what we can expect on Christmas Day !!!!!

   A few things to organise tomorrow. I need to book a dental appointment, for sometime either this week or the next. As it is a 12:00ish appointment, it should not be difficult to fit it in this week. I also need a haircut. It is getting a bit straggly at the moment. At some point in the week, I need to make an appointment to have an induction in the gym, at the leisure centre. I need to get some form of exercise program, to help lose a few inches off my waist. I need to get back to at least a 34in waist (which is what I try and kid myself I am now), maybe 32in would not go a miss. I have this idea, that a rowing machine would help, together with a treadmill. We shall see, but I need to do something. Cutting down on the junk food will help too.