It started with a snore
By Philip Whiteland - 30/04/2009
I seem to have been seeing quite a bit of the medical profession recently. Or, I suppose more accurately, the medical profession have been seeing quite a bit of me. Now, before you get too concerned (as if) I should say, at this juncture, that I am not, to the best of my knowledge and belief, ill (excuse me whilst I grab a large lump of wood to ward off any gestures of supreme irony by a malevolent Fate). I have, however, been checked to within an inch of my life. Let me explain.
It started with a snore. In fact, it may well end with a snore, but we’ll come to that later. For years my poor wife has endeavoured, with a great deal of fortitude, to sleep with my nocturnal ‘noises off’ bellowing in her ears. I, of course, have slept on soundly, safe in the knowledge (from previous expensive experience) that no amount of strips applied to the nose, herbal gargles or specially contoured pillows make any difference (when I referred to a malevolent Fate earlier, I think that the fact that light sleepers are invariably attracted to those with stentorian snores is a pretty good indicator of the existence of this particular force). Anyway, all this changed as soon as it became apparent that I had started to stop breathing (or stopped starting to breathe…if you see what I mean?) Hurling yourself awake in the wee small hours, seized with the absolute certainty that you’re about to snuff it, tends to put a crimp in your otherwise peaceful slumbers, and this was only on the occasions when I knew that I had stopped breathing. The upshot of all this was a trip to the Doctor’s to see about a consultation with a specialist. This was about two years ago.
Have you tried making an appointment to see your friendly, local GP recently? I only ask because I am now aware that there is a technique to this. Being ill isn’t sufficient to warrant an early appointment. The novice will ring the Surgery hopefully, perhaps mid-morning, with the expectation of getting an appointment in the next 24 hours. No chance! If you’re lucky, you might get the promise of a slot a week on Thursday. If you want to see a Doctor on the same day of telephoning, then you will need to join a determined band who will commence ringing the Surgery at precisely 8.00 a.m. in an effort to grab one of the few, jealously guarded, ‘emergency appointments’ that are held for that day. By 8.10 a.m. these will have been snapped up for the day and everyone else, regardless of condition, will have to join the grim band of telephoners tomorrow. Being at death’s door might help, but is no guarantee of medical attention. Of course, you only get to know all of this if you are a habitué of the Surgery. The occasional putative patient discovers this only by bitter experience and either gets better regardless, or clogs up the Accident & Emergency service of the local hospital.
The reason that you can’t get an appointment for love or money is because the ‘chronically ill’ have got them all sewn up (to coin a phrase) for months on end. Now, please don’t think that I’m belittling the troubles of those who have a chronic illness of any nature, I am not. My beef is with a system that does not make proper allowance for the vast majority of the population who only need to access their Doctor once in a blue moon, and then discover that it would be easier to book a place on the International Space Station. I was amazed to find (when I finally gained access to the Surgery) that it was like a miniature social club, full of little groups who meet on a weekly or monthly basis as they wait for their latest test or check-up. When they finally come out from their appointment, they do so with a prescription the size of the Dead Sea Scrolls, sufficient to bring a tear of joy to Jesse Boot’s eye. In addition, they will have a list of follow-on appointments that will take ages to arrange with the Receptionist and which will keep them happily occupied until next Michaelmas.
Anyway, I finally got in to see a Doctor. Not, of course, at the appointed time. The appointment is simply a work of fiction designed to keep the waiting room full and the receptionist’s PC tidy. The major improvement in the NHS, with its new focus on ‘customer care’, is that they now apologise for your wait, whereas before you were just supposed to grin and bear it. They don’t, of course, mean it. If they did, they would do something about it. No, this is the Public Sector (and it seems to be pretty widespread) equivalent of “Have a Nice Day”. At my last appointment, the Doctor opened the consultation with the immortal words, “Sorry you have been kept waiting, I’ll have to keep this short if I’m to catch up” which I thought rather missed the point!
This last appointment was the culmination of two year’s of sporadic visits to the Doctor (I was going to say “to my Doctor” but as I’ve never seen the same one twice, it is a bit tricky to know who that is supposed to be) to try to get something done about my snoring/sleep apnoea. Throughout this time, the Doctor and I have been involved in the long dance in which I seek to see a Specialist and he does everything in his power to avoid referring me. Therefore, I have been sequentially urged to; lose weight (tick), cut down on my drinking (tick), and take regular exercise designed to increase my upper body strength (tick again – I may be suffering from ticks!). All of these things, I’m sure, have been beneficial but haven’t made a blind bit of difference to my snoring/sleep apnoea (you always know an ailment is getting serious when the spelling gets weird). It is at this point that you realise that the primary function of the G.P. is to keep you as far away as possible from the rest of the NHS at any cost (which is, of course, what they are trying to avoid…any cost). On this occasion, I must have caught him in a generous mood, or he had just run out of alternative therapies, because I recounted my symptoms yet again and asked to be referred – and I was!
At the same time as all of this was going on, I attended my regular biennial appointment with the Optician. Like most people of my age, I discovered some time ago that if I was ever to read small print again, I would either have to get longer arms or glasses. As a consequence, every two years I get shut into a small, darkened room with a total stranger who crawls all over me, pointing a piercing light into my previously untroubled eye, and getting closer to me than is usually possible without going through a form of marriage. As a matter of interest, why does having one’s eyes tested mean being plunged into a dark room and having a piercing white light shone into the pupils? Intuitively, it doesn’t seem like the wisest of ideas, does it? My particular bête noir is the glaucoma test in which a puff of air is directed at each eye. Surely I can’t be the only one who jumps a mile in the air each time, no matter how many times I experience it, and fetch my head a nasty crack against the apparatus? Or am I just a complete idiot?
Unusually, this particular check-up didn’t result in yet another prescription for glasses but, instead, a recommendation that I should be referred to a Consultant for investigation of possible degeneration of the retina. So, in the space of a few days, I had gone from having no contact with Consultants at all for years on end, to suddenly having two take an interest in me. The medical profession had me in the palm of their latex-gloved hands (which is not a happy image), and it could only get worse!
If you’ll permit me, I’ll continue with this medical tale of woe in the next exciting (?) episode. Until then, keep taking the tablets.
For more from Philip, visit his website, linked below.