Arachne

By Arachne

I was going to post this text yesterday (the pic is today's) but it got bumped. So...

In the GP waiting room yesterday morning, Dr H came out of his room twice, spotted me and apologised for running late. I don't mind, and told him so. 

I've mostly seen two of the very different GPs in my surgery: the quiet forensic one, who spent months thinking about my foot that didn't feel right and ended up diagnosing my rare lymphoma; and Dr H, who has once got a diagnosis wrong (not very seriously), and with whom I have very interesting conversations. 

He hadn't read my notes, so I when I went in I summarised: back in May, the blood pressure readings I take from time to time were higher than they used to be, so I'd phoned the surgery and been told to stop worrying, go and enjoy my holiday then visit with a week's worth of readings when I got home. What with my distractions and their waiting times, I didn't get an appointment until a month ago, with a physician associate (the first time I'd knowingly seen one of this new breed) who looked at my blood-pressure-reading printout and prescribed medication with very little discussion. 

Dr H frowned. I'd had my doubts at the time, but I've taken what was prescribed and watched my readings creep down a bit.

He looked at my readings and said they didn't indicate a need for medication. He told me about the history of discovering that raised blood pressure was linked with with strokes and heart attacks and about the studies needing huge numbers of subjects to establish whether high blood pressure was a cause or a symptom. He told me that he felt prescribing medication as a statistical precaution risked doctors not seeing the individual patient, which led not only to unnecessary medication but also to unnecessary worry. 

Music to my ears. Appropriate use of statistics is one of my minor obsessions - I think it could and should be taught in primary school.

We talked about ageing, about bits of the body slowly dying (my terminology, not his), about the advantages of having more time after retirement to find and do what you enjoy, about keeping engaged with life. 

When I left it was without a repeat prescription for amlodipine and with a prescription for Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning'. 

I was almost skipping, and forgot to look to see how many patients there were in the waiting room, waiting.

Today? Lunch in Wallingford with some ex-colleagues from my graphic design days. I'd wondered whether we'd still have enough in common, but it was a good three hours.

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