Doctors and pigs
I’ve had a cough for about 3 weeks now. Last week it decided to mutate into a bad ass head cold.
Eventually I decided I’d had enough and went to the doctors. I finally registered with a new doctor after our most recent move, and have made 3 appointments with them to date, including the one on Thursday.
So far they have been mostly unhelpful. I’ve only seen MY doctor once to fill in some RAF forms, and he was actually very helpful.
The reason I don’t go to the doctors more often is because its a complete waste of time. When you are a teen its always “growing pains” now I’ve stopped growing, they’ve come up with a new and more frustrating line. “Come back if its not gone away in a week.”
The problem with that line, is that its been so long since you’ve been to the doctors that you’ve forgotten how useless they are, you feel ill enough to actually spend your time going there, and once you sit down they spend 5 minutes making you feel like a complete asshole before sending you on your way. Am I really going to go back in a week to receive that level of service?
What bothers me more, is that I am showing every symptom of swine flu. I’m not saying I have swine flu, but it would of been nice for the nurse to at least acknowledge that it could be the case, or explain why she doesn’t think I have it.
My brother and his… friend? (I suppose is the official term) had swine flu, and I was the one who went round with the tamiflu, so its not entirely unrealistic to assume I might have it is it?
But no, I sat down in the nurse’s office. She asked what was wrong, I gave her the symptoms, and one by one she pretty much called me a liar, told me I was fine, and sent me on the way instructing me to “rest, and come back in a week if I’m not better.”
The thing that bothers me, is i’m not fine. If I was fine, I wouldn’t wake up unable to swallow cause of the pain in my throat. If I was fine, I wouldn’t have pulled a muscle in my back where I keep coughing so much crap up. If I was fine, I wouldn’t have the shakes, and would be able to have something cold hit my skin without it feeling like I’ve been stabbed. If I was fine, none of those things would happen, and I wouldn’t of bothered booking an appointment to see a “Health Professional” which I’m fairly sure is an anagram for “over paid, uncaring shit” (Its not, but it would be great if you just looked).
I know the obvious response to this is “Man Flu”. Fair enough, I’m not saying I’m dying here, all I’m saying is that they could of easily given me something to get rid of this in a couple of days, but instead they called me a liar.
So here I am 3 days later, probably a little more ill, not feeling much like going back to the doctors to be called a liar, and having to sit it out. Antibiotics would have mostly sorted me out by now. Since I pay for my prescriptions, and its not like there are any antibiotic junkies in the world, I really can’t see the harm in me being given some.
Anyway, rant over. Very tired of the NHS. They are utterly useless.
