Mixed Blessings

Two good things:

1. The children have stopped puking.  They did that astonishing thing children do.  They woke up looking like death’s door knocker, vomited for several hours, and then by 1.00 p.m. they were cantering round the kitchen with wet noses and glossy coats demanding sugar lumps and being disgustingly fine.  Frustrating but also brilliant.

2. The bloke from the water board came out and said: ‘That can’t be where your leak is mate or you would be knee deep in water and canoeing round the kitchen table by now.’  Jason said: ‘Ummmm. I thought it was a bit odd, but it was about 12.30 a.m. and I was somewhat jet lagged so I just took the professional plumber’s advice.’   They looked for the real source of the leak. It turns out that it is just the kitchen sink.  The reason why we thought it was leaking every time we turned on something else was because either a) someone was turning on the kitchen tap at the same time or b) the water from a previous tap turn on was still trickling around down under the kitchen cabinets.  Brilliant.  The bloke advised not using the sink for a week, letting it dry out and then buying some sealant stuff from B&Q.  I think getting a new sink will be easier.  But we are doing it the men’s way. Luckily I am still perfectly fine to use the dishwasher.  Huzzah!

The washing machine has been on full pelt and the house no longer smells of sick. I am a bit delighted.  Jason is a bit delighted because it meant that instead of helping me stem the tides of water and vomit he could go scamping.  He is currently disporting himself round a damp field in Derbyshire dressed as an elf.  He is happy. I am happy he doesn’t want me to go with him.  I am eating hot buttered toast and Hula Hoops so I am happier still.

Simple things.

As with all events in the Boo household the day did not go entirely to plan however.  I had a doctor’s appointment at 12.50 p.m.  The doctor I saw in Canada suggested that as lymph glands are ornery buggers, that I go and get a follow up appointment when I got home to the U.K. and have some blood tests to make sure it is just a lymph infection and not something else more sinister.  He wrote me a note explaining what he had done and what he had treated me for so that I could pass it on to my G.P.  It was thoughtful and practical, so I did as I was told.

This, as regular readers will know, is a bit of a turn up. I detest doctors and try not to go at all.

So today I got there and checked in on time.  Then I sat for an hour and a quarter while the doctor I was supposed to see ran later and later and later.  By the time I got to see her I was not in the best frame of mind, but I was polite. I promise you.

When I saw which doctor I had, my heart sank.  I have seen her before for something else and she was rude, thoughtless and completely unhelpful in every way.  If I had known I was going to see her I would have cancelled the appointment and made it for another time.  As it was I decided to give it a try given how much time I’d already invested.

She got my name wrong twice, which was a bit irritating. Then when she asked me what the problem was and I told her, she talked over me, started prodding me half way through the story and failed to listen to what I was actually saying.  She diagnosed neuralgia, which is one of those coverall words like virus generally.  At fancy doctor term for pain we don’t really know anything about.  She gave me a prescription for some pain medication. 

I asked her about the other doctor’s diagnosis of lymph infection which she flatly ignored and refused to even contemplate as an option, thus not allowing me to ask about any blood tests that might be necessary.  I tried three times to talk to her about it but she just said: ‘ I don’t feel any infection there so it can’t be that.’  I pointed out that it might be that and the reason she might not feel the infection was because I am day six of a ten day course of antibiotics.  Apparently this is rubbish.

I explained that the pain was a lot more manageable and that I was trying not to take pain killers at the moment because I had had some blood in my urine in the last few days and thought it might be related to how many pills I’ve had to take.  She ignored this too.  She didn’t offer to check my urine at all.

I had already offered her the other doctor’s letter several times which she ignored.  I finally asked her if she wanted to look at it at all.  She said: ‘What would I want to do that for? It’s from a foreign country.’  Amazing.  I explained that the other doctor had thought it might be useful for her to know what he had thought and how he had treated me.  She said: ‘Yes, yes. I’ll put it in your records.’

I expect that is the last I will see of it.

She has given me some pain medication they prescribe for epilepsy.  She did not entirely explain why this fitted my profile.  She gave me 84 tablets and told me to take one a day.  I asked her if she expected me to take the entire course without coming back to see her.  She said airily: ‘Oh come back in a few weeks if it isn’t any better.’  I asked her what would happen if I had more pain and had taken my one pill.  She said: ‘Oh you can take paracetamol and ibuprofen as well, and if the pain is bad then just up the dosage I’ve given you to four pills a day.’

At this point I realized that the woman was a bloody idiot and that trying to elicit any useful information was pointless. I took the prescription and went. 

I have just researched the drug which is called Tegretol. It is an antidepressant in the same family as diazepam etc.  It is used as an anti convulsant as well as a mood regulator.  It is also used for serious cases of trigeminal neuralgia.  Having looked this up I can kind of see why she suggested it.  The condition consists of agonising face pain without a root cause which seems to stem from the trigeminal nerve in the jaw, and which is really difficult to control. It is sometimes called The Suicide Disease apparently, which is nice.

I can also see why it does not fit.  The antibiotics do seem to be working, albeit slowly.  But then given the fact that I had been being treated for a pinched nerve for a week before I went to the doctor I am unsurprised they are working slowly as the infection would have had a long time to take hold.  The fact that it is an infection and not a relatively unknown neurological disorder is suggeseted by the fact that it is actually improving as long as I keep up the antibiotics.  I did not go for pain management, I went to see if I could find out if there were any underlying causes for such an infection to suddenly flare up.  It is so depressing just to be offered pills and told to go away.

What really irks me is that reading the accompanying leaflet for the drugs it says quite clearly that there are question marks about taking this with antibiotics, and that it should not be combined with any paracetamol based drugs.  When I asked her about taking paracetamol and ibuprofen she said it would be fine.  And she did not allay my concerns about taking them with the antibiotics either.  The fact that she was wrong about the paracetamol makes me doubt everything.  I am not taking them.

I shall call the surgery on Tuesday, book another appointment with a competent doctor and go and see them.  I will also complain about this doctor.  I wonder what would have happened if I had taken her word for it and taken the tablets without reading the pamphlet and combined them with antibiotics and paracetamol.  It doesn’t bear thinking about really.

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