223. Who’s a big boy’s blouse!

I’m guessing that title is probably as sexist as the original idiom. (Is it an idiom? A colloquialism? Mrs Friend, HELP!). The point is still there - what a wuss I have been.

Yesterday’s covid test was a straight drive in, park the car in a green gazebo/tent and wait for a minuscule nurse/medical assistant to come out of her little white hut and deal with me. I was the only one there. I tried what the pre-assessment nurse had said, explained my phobia and then resigned myself to my fate as if it was an execution. All I can say is they should be pulled up under the Trades Description Act. It isn’t a throat swab, the mere idea of which has preoccupied me and filled me with occasional surges of terror. The throat is at the back. All she did was swipe my tonsils and uvula. That’s not “back of the throat”. So I drove away feeling somewhat chastened/embarrassed with myself for overreacting. I’m sure there’s an important lesson to be learned but you’d think I’d have learnt it by 69, whatever it is. 

If I receive no phone call by teatime, I prepare for my little op tomorrow. Next anxiety - how do I deal with all the waiting when I’m not allowed to take any medication after 7am. 7am?? I’m not awake at such an unearthly hour. Actually, I want to sleep till 11.30, have a quick wash, nip into Emma’s car and get to Bexley Wing with minimum opportunity for my imagination to go into overdrive. But no, the instructions are that, at 11am, I must drink 250mls of water. That’s a mugful! Tough, they’ll just have to have a dehydrated woman.

See how perverse I am! Most people would be speculating on what the surgeon is going to do, what could go wrong (all listed on my consent form but virtually illegible. Maybe ‘bleeding’ is a bit alarming). Me, I worry about having to drink all that water in one go. I’ll only pee it out anyway. I definitely see the advantage of having surgery privately. I was able to be sure my quirks and foibles were there in the anaesthetist’s notes. That section remains empty, as the surgeon wasn’t interested. 

Today I received this: 

I have checked back and there is a thread of texts from LCC COVID-19 going back to 30 March 2020 so I’m not imagining it. I have been shielding for almost 11 months. But now someone in the NHS has “added” me to the existing list - I’m on it twice. Double punishment?

I accepted Dr W, the rheumatologist’s explanation that I was probably on the original list because I was on the rheumatology list because of all the post-chemo joint pain so it was automatic, no matter how they tried to change it. She has perfectly healthy patients being told they must shield simply because some rheumatology patients ARE CEV - databases refuse to distinguish. Actually I can think of a couple of rheumatology patients not on an active list who would have benefited from being identified as CEV originally.

Now it appears that her explanation doesn’t work out. Who is this malicious, malignant NHS being determined to keep me in misery?? Matt’s letter today told me I must remain shielded till 31 March, regardless of any easing of lockdown and I must await his next letter. I wonder of he’d respond to a letter from Jan asking to be removed from his mailing list?

Next episode: look forward to a black eye! That’s to alert the squeamish. 

When will this ever end? Will I ever feel myself again or have I reacher the Old Age Syndrome early, the one where one thing goes wrong and then, just as you think it’s sorted, something else goes wrong? Mum warned me about that but I just don't consider 69 old enough yet, even if I was referred to the Senility Clinic (I never heard from them of course lol).