![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Saturday stuff...
Jun. 18th, 2006 12:53 amBack from hospital, Camden, and visiting ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bluecassandra. Leg is still attached, albeit it a little sore.
The hospital was a bit of a faff... I got there and found out that I'd got really lucky - 10 minute wait to see the triage nurse, which was unexpectedly swift. Sadly the triage nurse decided that there was nothing wrong with my leg... "It's just red because it's healing". Uh, no. I was getting ready for a shouting match, because I wasn't inclined to leave without antibiotics, but he asked me to go and sit back in the waiting room while he referred me to 'another department'. I went and sat down expecting to be sat there for some considerable time, but in fact my arse had just about hit the seat when the door next to the triage room opened and a slightly flustered looking triage nurse reappeared with a doctor hovering at his shoulder. He called my name and I wandered over to be told that one of the A+E doctors would see me straight away... I got the distinct impression he'd just been roundly told off for trying to turn away someone with an infected surgical incision :)
The doctor took one look at the leg, sat me down, asked me to tell him the story which I did, then he glanced at it again and went and got a prescription pad. He also got a swab kit, and I had the fun of picking and poking at my leg until it produced some pus for him to send off for tests. He checked I wasn't allergic to anything, then wrote me out a prescription for not one but two types of antibiotic. He also drew around the inflamed patch on my leg with a biro and said "If the red patch is across that line in the morning, you come back here and we may have to admit you for a while and give you intravenous antibiotics". So I'm hoping it's going to get better overnight, because that was no fun the last time I had it done.
He gave my prescription to a nurse and asked her to sort it out, then he zoomed off to see another patient. It was there that the usual NHS efficiency kicked back in... I sat and watched said nurse put my prescription form down on a counter and then gossip to another nurse for over an hour. Eventually I hit on the plan of drumming my fingers loudly on a plastic chair until she gave up trying to talk to her friend and came over to do her job. Time spent in waiting room, 10 minutes. Time spent arguing with obtuse triage nurse, about 5 minutes. Time spent with doctor, less than 10 minutes. Time spent watching nurse gossip, over an hour. Time spent actually being issued with the prescribed medicines, less than 10 minutes. I could have been in and out of there in about half an hour if the nurse had done her job when she was asked to do it, but I suppose I should count myself lucky that I got out while it was still daylight, this being the NHS we're talking about. I had to pay for the medicine too, apparently the NHS has new rules about issuing stuff to outpatients in A+E now, you have to pay the prescription fee(s). Doesn't really bother me, as I'll just add it to my insurance claim.
So anyway, I have two sets of BIG antibiotic capsules to take, 3 times a day for one lot, and 4 times a day for the other.
Medicines in hand, I then limped up the road to the next tube station and waited for a tube to Camden. A mildly bizarre thing happened - at least, I've never seen it before - the tube came in and it was completely empty. Mid-afternoon on a Saturday, 4 stops up from the end of the line, not a single person on the entire train. It felt a bit twilight zone.
Oh yeah, I limped up the road unaided because when I was getting off the bus on my way to the hospital, there was a guy getting off at the same time as me who had totally fucked his knee up falling off a ladder, so I gave him the crutch I was carrying around in case of need - his need was clearly greater than mine. Did mean I had to suffer the rest of the day without my leaning post though, which was a bit ouchy in places.
In Camden I bought myself a shiny stick to play twirling games with... I went for a five foot staff in the end, on the advice of the guy who runs Oddballs. He said longer staffs are better for the kind of tricks I'm more interested in, slower and more controlled due to a little extra weight. I also bought a fairly silly looking white hat which has quite impressive head-cooling properties.
After Camden I wandered up to Archway to seebluecassandra's new house, which is a place of many levels. I think there are at least three or four stairs between every single room in the place, it's kind of fun and kind of annoying. Her boyfriend was good enough to feed me while I was there, which was nice of him.
And now I'm home again, and off to bed. Fingers crossed for no hospital visit/stay tomorrow...
bluecassandra. Leg is still attached, albeit it a little sore.The hospital was a bit of a faff... I got there and found out that I'd got really lucky - 10 minute wait to see the triage nurse, which was unexpectedly swift. Sadly the triage nurse decided that there was nothing wrong with my leg... "It's just red because it's healing". Uh, no. I was getting ready for a shouting match, because I wasn't inclined to leave without antibiotics, but he asked me to go and sit back in the waiting room while he referred me to 'another department'. I went and sat down expecting to be sat there for some considerable time, but in fact my arse had just about hit the seat when the door next to the triage room opened and a slightly flustered looking triage nurse reappeared with a doctor hovering at his shoulder. He called my name and I wandered over to be told that one of the A+E doctors would see me straight away... I got the distinct impression he'd just been roundly told off for trying to turn away someone with an infected surgical incision :)
The doctor took one look at the leg, sat me down, asked me to tell him the story which I did, then he glanced at it again and went and got a prescription pad. He also got a swab kit, and I had the fun of picking and poking at my leg until it produced some pus for him to send off for tests. He checked I wasn't allergic to anything, then wrote me out a prescription for not one but two types of antibiotic. He also drew around the inflamed patch on my leg with a biro and said "If the red patch is across that line in the morning, you come back here and we may have to admit you for a while and give you intravenous antibiotics". So I'm hoping it's going to get better overnight, because that was no fun the last time I had it done.
He gave my prescription to a nurse and asked her to sort it out, then he zoomed off to see another patient. It was there that the usual NHS efficiency kicked back in... I sat and watched said nurse put my prescription form down on a counter and then gossip to another nurse for over an hour. Eventually I hit on the plan of drumming my fingers loudly on a plastic chair until she gave up trying to talk to her friend and came over to do her job. Time spent in waiting room, 10 minutes. Time spent arguing with obtuse triage nurse, about 5 minutes. Time spent with doctor, less than 10 minutes. Time spent watching nurse gossip, over an hour. Time spent actually being issued with the prescribed medicines, less than 10 minutes. I could have been in and out of there in about half an hour if the nurse had done her job when she was asked to do it, but I suppose I should count myself lucky that I got out while it was still daylight, this being the NHS we're talking about. I had to pay for the medicine too, apparently the NHS has new rules about issuing stuff to outpatients in A+E now, you have to pay the prescription fee(s). Doesn't really bother me, as I'll just add it to my insurance claim.
So anyway, I have two sets of BIG antibiotic capsules to take, 3 times a day for one lot, and 4 times a day for the other.
Medicines in hand, I then limped up the road to the next tube station and waited for a tube to Camden. A mildly bizarre thing happened - at least, I've never seen it before - the tube came in and it was completely empty. Mid-afternoon on a Saturday, 4 stops up from the end of the line, not a single person on the entire train. It felt a bit twilight zone.
Oh yeah, I limped up the road unaided because when I was getting off the bus on my way to the hospital, there was a guy getting off at the same time as me who had totally fucked his knee up falling off a ladder, so I gave him the crutch I was carrying around in case of need - his need was clearly greater than mine. Did mean I had to suffer the rest of the day without my leaning post though, which was a bit ouchy in places.
In Camden I bought myself a shiny stick to play twirling games with... I went for a five foot staff in the end, on the advice of the guy who runs Oddballs. He said longer staffs are better for the kind of tricks I'm more interested in, slower and more controlled due to a little extra weight. I also bought a fairly silly looking white hat which has quite impressive head-cooling properties.
After Camden I wandered up to Archway to see
bluecassandra's new house, which is a place of many levels. I think there are at least three or four stairs between every single room in the place, it's kind of fun and kind of annoying. Her boyfriend was good enough to feed me while I was there, which was nice of him.And now I'm home again, and off to bed. Fingers crossed for no hospital visit/stay tomorrow...
