Unshocked, but zapped

My right hand got increasingly worse, leading to another 111 call, and a trip to LX.

 

LX were fantastic – Appointment was booked for 19.00, I arrived at 18.45 and was seen at 18.46, no exaggeration needed.

 

By 19.00 I was back in the car with my best friend’s mum, with a prescription for more diazepam in my hand and insctuctions to get an electromyography booked.

 

So that’s an MRI for the hip needed, and an electromyography for the hand. I’ve also been told to get my rheumatology appointment moved forward. The doctor was incredibly sweet and kept calling me “young lady”, but he did try to unscrew my head and pull one of my shoulders out of socket. He was very nice about it though, so you’ll note that I didn’t really mind.

 

It’s now up to the GP to not drop the ball. Going to phone them tomorrow morning (Today was a bank holiday) and get an appointment to get both the MRI and the EMG sorted.

 

Amusingly, it’s almost two years to the day since my first EMG for hand pain in the medial nerve, which at the time was put down to spending too much time at my desk. I didn’t have a desk at the time, but back then I could be cowed by a fairly lowly OT. Nowadays, I eat registrars for breakfast and pick my teeth with the bones of consultants. It might go better this time.

Another day, another trip to the walk-in centre.

So, yesterday morning my entire right-hand side went into the kind of spasm that turns your hands blue and has doctors looking worried.

 

God bless Dr H- She’s the one that first really helped me with my migraines, and now has shown levels of compassion and resourcefulness close to that of Dr dM with respect to my hypermobility.

 

So I arrive in her office, after two hours in the waiting room (So much for “We’ll fast-track you”. Other patients thought I was an addict going through withdrawal, I was shaking so badly. Thankfully, one of them took it upon herself to bring me water, keep an eye on the appointment board for me, and generally look after me a bit), and basically curl up in the foetal position on the floor and howl. Dr H starts prescribing me something which should start to work in the next couple of days, realises that I can barely understand a word she’s saying, pulls vial of tramadol and a hypodermic out of her desk and sticks it in my arse. Then brings me a pillow to put my head on, and one to grip and worry at, since she’s already noticed that when in pain I bite my hands and wrists, and that’s not doing me any good. She then leaves me in the care of a receptionist for a few minutes, whilst seeing to another patient, then returns and explains the new prescription again. All the while, she’s being extremely reassuring – Trying to massage the spasm out of my hand, telling me that I’m doing really well, assuring me that she knows that “pain and fear” is a bit of an understatement for my condition, and importantly telling me what she’s doing in a way that acknowledges both that I’m not an idiot (And actually quite up to date on my biomedical science) but that I am distinctly not at my best due to a combination of unimaginable pain, stress, and tramadol.

 

I leave, thanking her profusely, and go to the pharmacy, where the head chemist – The one who always sees me and whom I’ve got a good working relationship with – prepares my prescription, guides me off to a side-room where I can curl up on the floor in peace, brings me a glass of water, and checks that someone is indeed going to look after me. I eventually get to the point of wandering about the pharmacy a bit, and run into the fellow patient from the walk-in, and we chat for a bit. I worry about the fact that I’m distinctly not charming when high, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

 

After about ten minutes, my best friend’s Mam comes to pick me up, and takes me over to his house to be fed and looked after until my partner can collect me after work. So I spend the afternoon in the guest room, being looked after by one of the cats, and generally melting into the bed a bit.

 

And that was my Tuesday, fitting the theme of “Members of the public are lovely, so are doctors, but the admin stymies them a bit.”

Nobody Shocked

This morning was a surprise visit to walk-in clinic at RL.
After two days of screaming hip pain, one abortive phone call to NHS direct, and as much morphine as a body can take, I dragged myself on my crutches to the walk-in clinic at 8 AM.

Now, this is the clinic that I’m in the middle of complaining about. The receptionist, SG, was short tempered, made me try to fill out a form (whilst standing on two crutches and thus unable to use my hands really), and later snapped at me when I thought I’d missed my appointment.

I was, as usual, forced to lie on the floor by a lack of adequate seating and some kind, compassionate soul told me that if I couldn’t sit I had to stand since I was a trip hazard.

Thankfully, I got to my appointment by 9 AM, was seen by Dr B who was actually concerned for me and doubled my morphine dose, told me to take diazepam, and sleep it off.

I’m now back home, fully immobilised, and using speech to text to work on my German. Still in pain.