Wednesday, November 29, 2006

It's turning into an interesting fortnight

Given that I've been completely unable to pick myself up from this last bout of post-viral fatigue thingy, and that I have been struggling around work (and banned from leaving the house otherwise, by a very concerned Girl) in pain and exhaustion for about two weeks now, today I gave up and went to the doctor's. This involved missing yet another day of work, but I don't think I'd have got through it anyway. The doctor was truly lovely. It's such a shame that I have to change GP practices now that I've moved. I'm going to hang on at the old place for as long as I can. She took me very seriously, agreed that things don't sound good, talked me through ways to deal with various ridiculous-sounding symptoms, more clearly confirmed the diagnosis that she's been hinting at, organized blood tests, made one referral immediately and promised another when she can arrange it, and is writing me a letter for the managers and HR people at work. The Girl very, very kindly came into the doctor's office with me, which helped me to remember things and push for what I need. Irritatingly, one referral that I could have had is now impossible - the chronic fatigue clinic at St Bart's has just closed. Ah, the marvel of the vanishing NHS funding. Now you see it, now you don't. But the doctor is looking into what else might be available for advice, treatment etc. I've even said I'll pay for one or two appointments if she can find me a private centre or specialist. Yes, better people than me refuse to go private on principle, and I admire them immensely for those principles. However, if it's a decision between living like this for years and paying for a couple of appointments that can teach me to manage this condition, I'll go with the latter. Especially given that it's seriously affecting my whole life at the moment, from work (which I can barely cope with and don't know what I'm going to do about it), to not being able to walk any distances beyond a few metres (although I do have a pretty blue stick now, which is helping), to having to rely entirely on The Girl for everything including getting the shopping in and cooking the dinner. She doesn't mind, but that isn't the point. Oh, and I'm still not getting paid for sick days, which means I can't afford to do anything nice - so it's sort of good that I can't go out... Anyway, after sitting in the waiting room for ages, both before and after seeing the doctor, I was then sent off to the hospital for the blood test, which I was thinking would take hours, but was actually fairly quick. By this time it was much too late to go back to work (I was considering it, although I think The Girl would have killed me if I actually had) so I came home. I am now going to make tea and pasta. I can just about cope with those. Yay for the extremely bright spots in this somewhat irritating situation, which are The Girl and her infinite patience, as well as our beautiful flat. Which has fewer boxes in it than previously. Quite soon I will get round to blogging about life as an attached person, and other things about which I am having thoughts at the moment. For now, though, it is cup of tea and as mindless a DVD as I can find. We still don't have any TV service, cable or otherwise. That's another story.

This rant brought to you by English Teacher, Too Tired To Paragraph.

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