More gadgetry

Another day of crappy medical stuff. First up was an appointment with an anaesthetics consultant who wanted "a chat" before the op on my leg on Sunday. He'd noticed I'd had a recent angiogram and wanted to see the results before proceeding. Apparently he was expecting me to ring the neuro consultant and get him to send a report immediately for the anaesthetist - "I don't know who that will be" - to read.This was after telling me off for being 5 mins late (the 5 mins spent queueing at the reception desk). He said he makes a point of being punctual and expects the same of his patients, and expanded on that theme for ten minutes of the already shortened half-hour consultation. He then poked fun at my umbrella - "Are you expecting rain?" (humorous rolling of eyes), to which I explained I was using it as a walking stick, and anyway rain was forecast. He looked extremely doubtful about that, and proceded to talk about my brain injury in a way that demonstated that I probably know more about the subject than he does, being directly involved and having researched the condition very thoroughly since it happened. He said the anaesthetist "whoever he is" would look very silly if something went wrong during the operation. "Not as silly as I'd look" I ventured, trying to inject some humour into his pole-up-the-bum arrogant old soul. Not a flicker. I was despatched to conjure up the report in question - from a very busy and excellent neurospecialist who has much more pressing matters to attend to, and knew there was no way I would make that phone call just because someone wanted to cover his pompous back. The ortho surgeon who will be doing the op - quite a simple procedure really - was ok with my history, and the neuro guy was happy for me to have a general anaesthetic when I asked him, but everything has to be on paper and signed by someone to blame. I sat outside for a while trying to calm down from being spoken to in that way, and it came to me that I'd had enough - I don't want this op on Sunday. It's all too much all at once and it's stressing me out. I told the nurse and she said not to worry, it would be postponed and she would do all the arranging for me. I left with a load off my mind and pleased to see it was in fact raining, and hoped the medic, who'd already sloped off, would get soaked.

Next was a cardiovascular clinic appointment in Huyton, which I wasn't in the mood for but had to attend, as my raised BP is important and needs controlling if I don't want another blow-out. I don't know how two doctors can be so different - this guy was pleasant, respectful and actually knew about cerebral haemorrhages even though it wasn't his field. He congratulated me on not being a smoker and was cheerful and reassuring throughout.He had me fitted with this contraption to monitor my BP for 24 hours - uncomfortable but necessary. Minnie is used to sitting on my lap but gets spooked when it springs into noisy action every half-hour.

Now I'm completely worn out and fed up. Just want to get back to normal but it goes on and on... There - extremely long whinge over.