28 June 2006

Dear Dennis,
I went to see my doc last Tuesday and yes, true to form he told me how he always has curry for breakfast and that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. After that he asked how I was. “Its my foot doc” I told him. “Do you do much exercise?” he enquired (I’ve been here before, many times) “What with this foot?” I countered. There, that silenced him. He then noticed I was struggling to do up my boot after he’d seen my foot from safely behind his desk. He checked out my neck and I told him I had been getting pins and needles in my right arm for a couple of months now. He twisted my head a couple of times and added “stiff neck” to the x-ray form then ushered me out of the door. I gathered my family and we made a trek to the hospital the very next day – Saul had to go for a scan thing but that’s another story – and me for my x-rays. Now, forgive me but I thought x-rays went through things like clothes. Why then did they (three young nurses and not a matron in sight) insist I get completely undressed, stand against some machine out of Dr Who, with one arm up in the air and the other straight down and holding a really heavy bottle? And why did they need all those “student nurses” (some of them were blokes so I didn’t believe a word of what they were telling me) to come in and “observe”? After several retakes and lots of kafuffle, I left the hospital with my family in tow, not feeling any better for my experience and everywhere I went in the hospital nurses stopped and stared, they even stopped whispering and looked at me when I walked into the cafeteria for a perky cup of No-Name Assam. I did ask if I could see the x-rays but the nurse told me they were to be analysed and then sent on to my doctor and that I should make an appointment to see him – oh if only she knew the trouble trying to make an appointment to see a doctor round our way. Well that is where I am this week – still hobbling, looking only to the left, slightly more radio active than last week, NOT eating curry for breakfast and awaiting an appointment to see my doctor.
All the best.
D.