Today, I attended my rheumatology appointment that I was sent six weeks ago - not bad, not bad. I was a bit nervous, because I have only been to Kings College Hospital once before, and that was in the back of an ambulance. But I found it - it was dead easy. I had to go to the Golden Jubilee Wing. Very easy to find, it's that spanking new 21st century building. Have you noticed how markedly hospitals have improved in the last few years?
I arrived twenty minutes early and had to queue for a latte, but then I went to the clinic, and was called by the nurse exactly on the dot of my appointment. I waited maybe five or ten minutes and then went to see the doctor, who gave me a pretty thorough examination - testing my limbs and joints for strength and the ability to fight his resistance, testing my reflexes, and my sensitivity. I even had to stick my tongue out - finally, a test in one of my key competencies!
I then had to go and get my blood taken. She couldn't get it out of the inside of my elbow - ickle veins, me - so had to do it in the back of my hand. She was so apologetic it would hurt that I got really anxious, and then it didn't hurt at all. Remember the old fashioned nurses who used to say "This isn't going to hurt!" and it didn't...
(Mind you, I had a smear test once that hurt like bejeesus and the nurse called me a baby. What she should have said was - that is a classic symptom of polycystic ovaries, I'd advice you see your GP. Or, as I said later that evening to the lads in the bar "I only like things stuck up there after considerable foreplay, and sitting for an hour and a half in a cold waiting room reading the New Statesman is not my idea of foreplay")
Anyway, I hobbled away from KCH with aches and pains in every limb and every joint. The doctor said it seems like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but he doesn't like that diagnosis - it's a 'diagnosis of elimination'... Hence the blood tests. If I don't hear before I return in three months, I shall assume everything's fine. Hmm, I think, inherent weakness in system - dependency on third party ie Royal Mail. I think our regular postie is away at the moment, because we are currently playing Neighbourhood Swap the Post!
I have been trying to go back to work but it's leaving me totally knackered. I really don't know what to do.
