Today was very frustrating, one of those days when everything seems more difficult than it should be. I had a hospital appointment this afternoon, I'd been looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. I badly needed some answers but I wasn't sure that I was going to like what I heard, so I felt very anxious.
Robbie came with me and since parking at the hospital is challenging at the best of times, I decided to park in a nearby car park and walk the short distance to the hospital. We still have snow but as the hospital is very close to the town centre I was fairly sure that the pavements would be gritted - they weren't! We slipped and slid towards the hospital very slowly indeed, but we made it without any serious problems. The road and pavement leading to the hospital main entrance were treacherous, it beggars belief that the local authority take no responsibility for making sure that roads and paths leading to hospitals, schools and the like are cleared and made safe. Having negotiated the icy pavements I had to pass a huddle of smokers who blocked the pavement just outside the hospital grounds. I was on my way to the chest clinic and the last thing that I needed was their second hand smoke!
I didn't really get the answers I wanted, just lots more questions, more medication. To be fair he did take my problem seriously and he understood how debilitating this cough is, it makes every aspect of my life so much more difficult. He requested lots of tests including an MRI scan, blood tests (I think they took a whole arm full of blood!) and various breathing tests. I have to see the consultant again in 2 months, I really hope the increased medication will help because the thought of putting up with this for another two months makes me feel like giving up.
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We had to go to a different part of the hospital to get my blood tests don so we walked back towards town a different way, but the paths were just as bad and our progress was slow. We walked through St Giles churchyard, it is beautiful at any time of year but the snow against the white snow-laden skies made it look magical, for some reason it made me think of Narnia. I have happy memories of walking through the churchyard with my aunt when I was a child and it looked so beautiful today that I asked Robbie to take some photos for me with his new phone.
Robbie took me to the Cordwainer for something to eat because I had been too anxious to eat much at lunchtime. He likes Wetherspoons food but it didn't really 'float my boat' and it was so dark in there, I like to see what I am eating. It is scary, but I have to admit that I sound more like my grandma every day!
Robbie can be so annoying, especially when it comes to time. He deals with everything the way he deals with a train timetable, always in the 24hr clock and always timed to the second. This in especially annoying when he phones me asking for a lift, a simple ten to, or quarter past (or whatever) would be so much easier to deal with. He rang me yesterday to tell me that heavy snow was expected at 04.00 the following morning, I wasn't keen to know that more snow was coming our way, but it his use of the 24hr clock that irritated me and I told him sharply that you can't time nature. When I got home from work he told me that the timing for the snow had been revised to 03.00, and he got an even sharper answer from me. So it was infuriating when I got up to visit the bathroom during the night and found that his prediction had been spot in and we had several inches of snow! The roads have not been gritted and traffic has more or less ground to a halt, so there was no chance of going anywhere safely this morning. Robbie is working from home and Sam and Laura are out playing in the snow because their schools are closed. The previous snow had become compacted and turned to a sheet of ice on the pavements and minor roads, so the new snow is deceptively dangerous to walk on or drive on and I dread to think what will happen tonight when this lot freezes!
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