Remember I told you a couple of weeks ago that the ultra sound scan had shown a few problems with my kidneys and that just two days after the scan my G.P. had called to say that I would need to see a Urologist in a hurry. Today having heard no more about it I decided to find out what was going on? I could not call my own Doctor as she is away on maternity leave for six months. I could not call the Doctor who gave me the test results as she left the day after I last spoke to her. I tried to get in touch with the Urology department but the switchboard was jammed for ages and then the signal on my mobile phone gave out. It was at this point that I decided to sort things out once and for all and without more ado I set off for the hospital.
Thankfully this “Centre of Excellence?” is not far away and within less than ten minutes I arrived at the Urology department. I spoke to a young lady receptionist with a bored expression and a nail file and explained the wretched rigmarole as well as I could. She pressed a few buttons on her key board and informed me that as far as they were concerned I was only known to them as a former patient and that they had received no referral.
Not reassured I returned home and discovered that my phone was working once again so I called my Doctors Surgery and recited the whole blasted tarradiddle all over again to another receptionist, who I must say did at least sound interested. She asked me who my Doctor was which suggested that she had not grasped that part of my difficulty was that both the G.P,s dealing with my case had left , so that there was no one to ask.
So, now we were both baffled, she asked me to hang on..... I hung......... Time passed and at last she spoke again informing me that the scan results had recently been referred to the Referral Facilitator who would in turn refer me to the urologist. This apparently is the way things are done now... all in the patients best interests of course! It also explains why with a general hospital just down the road all three of us are frequently referred to a facility which is ten miles away, presumably for their convenience rather than ours. My own G.P. tried to send me to this unit for the ultra sound scan which I eventually had at my local General Hospital, when I asked if there was any reason why I could not go to the nearest facility she told me that it was the Practices practice to push as many patients as possible to the other place.....why I wonder? To attend there would have cost me twenty pounds at least in taxi fares whereas I can reach the nearest Hospital in a few minutes on my buggy, ridiculous is it not.
Now at last I know at least that I have been referred, but to whom, confused, me too!
While all this was going on I learned that the desk which the boys are giving to me for a birthday present is to arrive on Saturday afternoon. This meant that as well as the normal Wednesday cleaning of my room I needed to empty my old desk which is totally decrepit and far to large for the room. Rather a lot of rearranging had to be done and by the time I had completed the job I was tired out, so no gardening this afternoon. I could swear I heard my son sigh with relief through two solid wooden doors when I announced my intention to give the garden a miss today!
Dinner was gorgeous, delicious roast lamb with new potatoes, baby leeks from the garden cooked in cream, diced carrots, gravy and fresh mint sauce. The milk jelly made yesterday was very good too, I topped mine with a spoon full of lemon curd, very naughty.
We have a pair of Long Tailed Tits nesting in the garden, they spend all day flitting about picking up small feathers, bits of dry moss and cobwebs. The male Black cap is using the drinking bowl in the front garden several times a day at the moment,I have nit seen the female for a few days, so she must be busy with her eggs.
It has been a funny sort of day, but in the end not unpleasant, in fact rather nice.
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