The health watchdog NICE
(National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) have had
a genius idea. Currently when your G.P. suspects there is
something raher nasty wrong with you (the "C" word),
you then get referred to see a specialist within two weeks. Said
specialist then arranges an array of tests and says for you to come
back when all the tests are done which is (in my case) some
six weeks after the supposedly urgent referral.
NICE have recommended
that the specialist doesn't order all these tests; the G.P. referring
you does that, so when you see the specialist within the designated
two weeks he has all the information to hand. It is a sensible idea,
and apparently this should save about five thousand lives a year
(because it currently takes so long to get all the tests done)
I wonder how many lives
could be saved if people didn't have to wait for six months to get
seen by the G.P. to get on to the system in the first place?
And with this rather
cynical attitude I set off expecting an ultrasound-guided aspiration
of the painful lump which has been in my throat since Christmas.
Pausing only briefly to chat in the car park with an old friend I was
soon on the table with my neck covered in some ultrasound-encouraging
gloop....
About half an hour later
with the side of my neck having been aspirated I came home and then
took my dog for a little walk. I felt I probably needed it more than
he did. At one point he seemed to be eating something disgusting that
he had found under a footbridge, but dogs do that.
With both of us walked I
got some KFC for lunch (I deserved a treat) and with that
scoffed I set about ironing shirts; I'd not ironed any for over two
weeks and so had a dozen to do. As I ironed I watched a film. I've
seen "The
Station Agent" before; but this time the lead actor
seemed very familiar. Wikipedia told me that this chap is one
of the better characters in "Game of Thrones". I
thought I'd seen him in something recently.
It was surprising how
much the morning's rather trivial surgical procedure had taken out of
me; I had such plans for what I might get up to whilst taking
advantage of a day's sick leave. In the end I didn't get up to much
at all. With shirts ironed I thought I might work on a presentation
for the astro club but fell asleep for much of the afternoon instead.
I did find time to mow
the lawn. As I mowed I found myself getting more and more worked up
about the letter that the neighbour sent me yesterday. He's asking me
to complain about a tree three gardens away whilst his trees block
the sunlight from over half of my garden and his clematis and roses
are three feet over the fence into my garden.
On the one hand I might
tell him to wind his neck (and his shrubbery) in. On the other
hand it's taken ten years to get back on speaking terms...
"er indoors TM"
came home and we walked "Furry Face TM"
round to Frog's Island and then home for a rather good bit of scoff.
As we scoffed we watched the second episode of "Humans"
and the latest episode of "Thunderbirds". Both were
quite good.
I'm off to bed now. I
feel rather tired...
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