Robbie has forbidden me to write about his back - and you certainly don't want me to write about his front! So you will just have to guess why I absolutely insisted that he had to go to the doctors earlier this week. We are lucky because the doctors at our surgery are excellent, but since Tony Blair messed around with appointment targets a few years ago it has made the whole process of getting an appointment much more complicated. The theory is that it should be possible to book an appointment several days in advance, but every time you try there are no appointments available, so yet again Robbie had to get an 'on the day' urgent appointment. They have a state of the art phone system now, when you ring it tells you where you are in the queue and you have to sit there waiting listening to advice in swine flu and other medical services awaiting your turn to speak to a human being. Robbie started at 29th in the queue so by the time he spoke to the receptionist he had almost lost the will to live. The appointment line opens half an hour before the surgery opens and we live close by so it is usually possible for him to get an early appointment and then I rush him across town to get the train so that he is not too late for work.He should have gone for a follow up appointment long before Christmas, but he put it off because he had too much work. He makes me cross, this is really silly, if you have a car and don't maintain it properly it will very soon breakdown completely and the same is true of our bodies, if we don't take care of ourselves we can do lasting damage. So why do I have to drag him kicking and screaming to the doctors, and when he gets there why does he have to be so macho and make out that he can cope! I have never known him to be in so much pain before, it is making every aspect of his life more difficult and he really has to stop acting like superman and start dealing with it sensibly.
I didn't write much about the weekend mainly because I was on my own for most of Saturday, Robbie and Sam left early to spend the day with Robbie's dad and step mum in Norton Canes. It gave me a chance to catch up with some housework and to venture into the garden to tackle the hedge. Sunday morning was less busy and I was determined to relax and listen to The Archers Omnibus on the radio. You can always rely on Robbie for a Sunday morning quote and last Sunday was no exception. I hadn't seen much of him all week so it was nice to wake early on Sunday morning and know that we were in no rush to get up. We could have talked about anything under the sun, we could have just been quiet and enjoyed the luxury of time, but Robbie talked endlessly about the wonders of his dad's new cheese grater. Surely there is only so much anyone can find to say about a cheese grater - unless you are Robbie of course!The Galaxy went back to have the break pads checked yesterday, they were fine but there is an intermittent fault on the sensor so I have to put up with the warning light and the very annoying alarm sound until it becomes a constant fault, then they should be able to identify which sensor is causing the trouble. I'm sure that car has a gremlin in it!Sam went for his hay fever medication review at the doctors. It was such a pointless exercise, the nurse didn't ask anything about his symptoms she measured him, weighed him and asked if he smoked - no way will he smoke! How ridiculous, there would be some point to asking if it was part of a message to prevent young people from smoking, but it was just a tick in a box on the computer. That is the first time in his life that Sam has been weighed or measured at the doctors without screaming the place down. When he was younger he was extremely uncooperative when it came to developmental tests. He took particular exception to the wooden giraffe measuring stick on the wall, he wouldn't go near it and he screamed so much that people must have thought he was being tortured. Maybe he is like me, I object to being measured and monitored, and these days there is so much bureaucracy involved in health care that I don't feel like an individual anymore. It isn't the doctors fault, it is the system that is imposed by the government.
I am beginning to think that the world is conspiring against me. Why do the little tasks turn out to be so complicated and time consuming? I had to take the Galaxy to be serviced last week, this week it passed it's MOT and I was pleased that it was ready to go on holiday. Two days after the MOT the safety warning light came on to tell me to check the break pads, so it is going back again on Monday! The expense is bad enough but the inconvenience of arranging lifts to get to an from the garage is even worse.Meg also has an appointment on Monday, she is going to the vet to get her booster injection and the kennel cough treatment. They put the kennel cough stuff up her nose, but the vet ends up wearing most of it because it always makes Meg sneeze.On Tuesday morning Sam is going to the doctors for a medication review. The Micra is having it's MOT on Thursday and I am going to the hairdressers on Friday. I still need to book a medication review for Laura, she has to see the GP rather than the nurse for her review, because she has Pityriasis Lichenoides Chronica, an unusual skin condition that requires a lot of medication and she also takes medication for migraine. Dave the cat will also need to go back to the vet very soon because his paws are getting sore again. With all that to fit into an already busy life I think I am in for a stressful week.On Friday I went to the doctors to drop off our repeat prescription requests and to book the medication reviews for Laura and Sam. The girl on reception informed me that Sam was very late for his review and was therefore not a priority. They use the date of birth as a review date, Sam's birthday is in December - who needs hayfever medication in December? They wouldn't thank me for taking up their time on that during Christmas week! I couldn't get an after school appointment for Sam until mid July so he has to miss an hour of school on Tuesday morning just for the nurse to tick a few boxes. I couldn't get an appointment for Laura at all, she has to see the GP for her review rather than the nurse because she is on beta blockers for her migraine and she has loads of medication for her skin condition. I have to ring at exactly 8.30am on Monday when new appointments wil be released. Until a couple of years ago the system worked quite well, you rang on the day and you got an appointment. Then Tony Blair decided that we had to be able to book ahead, the government did their usual micro management thing and imposed loads of new rules so now it is worse than it has ever been!Robbie rang me at lunchtime on Friday to ask if I would mind picking him up from the station at 3.50pm because he had booked a hair appointment and he wouldn't be able to get home on time otherwise. I agreed and I was just pulling into the station when Robbie phoned, I couldn't take the call but when I had parked I found that he had sent a text with a grovelling apology telling me that he had given me the wrong time and he would be there an hour later. There was no point going home, by the time I got there I would have to turn around and go back again. It was pointless to get cross so I just sat there and waited. It was one of those days where I had rushed around all day but I ended up further behind than when I first started!
I can't say that Monday mornings ever fill me with unbounded joy, but this morning proved extremely challenging. Thankfully we had planned a slightly later start today due to a GP appointment so Robbie and I were still at home just after 8am, Laura was at home too. As I glanced up my attention was attracted by a flash of movement in the back garden and I realised that there was a man dodging around in the garden. Robbie, who was wearing only PJ bottoms went out to see off the intruder. I am not sure if he intended to scare the fugitive into submission, but it seems he was fairly effective. The man took one look at Robbie and ran shouting and swearing towards our neighbours fence. He cleared the obstacle with ease, but the scene became even more surreal when two policemen popped up and pursued the man. One followed the man into our neighbours garden, but the other clearly felt that enough was enough and gave up. Robbie let the policeman through the house to the street in time to see an extremely vocal and foul mouthed youth man being led towards the police car. With that much drama before 9am it is no surprise that the rest of my day was fairly challenging too.
