I think i have good reason at this stage of my life and with health 'issues' in abundance, which would dictate a certain level of 'understanding' in my Irish System.
No, wrong words, not MY system, but the system i personally am part of as being, in it...very much in it.
to my disappointment and regret.
When our Health Minister says that He and the present Gov inherited a mess, well who ever inherited it, it is just that...a mess...words fail to describe how much a mess actually.
I can attempt it, but it would all fall short, this is not the definitive set of volumes but only the prefix to the introduction which then leads on to the first volume of volumes into the next decade kinda thing.
We, the sis and i arrived early at the hospital. We were directed to 'Admissions' ...closed..we were..too early. This was our fault not the hospital.
Off we went, i for a cuppa, twin to watch.
Back to the Admissions and we were there as 'opening' was declared, first in queue as i say 'the twin was enthusiastic!'
she signed in..i watched.
It was then up to the ward.
We were beckoned into the day room..store room for chairs-cum-day-room. I have a horrible sense of deja about this, and wonder will i find the cigarette butts jammed into the cracks of the toilet if i go there, for thats what i found when i was a patient here last and more besides.
I attempt to open the doors to a small balcony.
Failed (suicide prevention tactic to have it locked?)
Baking.
I try to separate two sandwiched chairs and succeed.
we then are summoned to see the reg doctor.
she was lovely.
My twin only light up when she saw the familiar face of the cancer nurse.
she rubbed hands and admitted 'now we are down to business, and comfortably so!'
not spoken but implied.
we were really.
My twin was prepped up for ever and i sat it out down stairs.
I now was on a mission to find my own surgeons, or rather possible surgeons, and here the difficulty started.
I actually was peaceable for a change.
I mean i am known not to be.. but this time i was...sickness can cause two things..a sabre tooth or no tooth at all.
physcially i have little but realistically i can have some in spirit, and it all depends. but i am sickening and so the teeth that i can have left me, entirely, and so peace reigned, and in that regard all were lucky.
I was grinding what was left in my mouth though.
down to the cafe where i saw a wonderful inviting Wifi symbol which usually means what it says on the tin, but not in this hospital it doesnt.
why? the Wifi services are for the elite, and that doesnt include them patients and the relatives.
the elite are the doctors no less!
and you and and tudder can think other.
I then tried my mobile to extract a contact number through directory inquiries, but i was out of money...so...next tack being to put money in! i was told i coudlnt do this at that particular cafe but one a couple of hundred yards further into the jaws of the hospital, which at this moment in time i wasnt enthusiastic about.
I go to the reception desk.
I first ask if he - the male receptionist, if he can find me a phone number of another hospital, where my consultant resides.
he cannot.
Can he find me the number of another consultant within this hospital, i have rather a lot of them, see start of blog for explanation, if it is one.
he cannot.
But he does tell me that this consultant's secretary is near by, in fact, nearer than the furthest cafe, which is a blessing.
i go, but am told by that person, a woman this time that she doesnt have a number to the consultant, so she doesnt have a clue how to give it to me, naturally.
i leave.
I go to get the yellow pages and sit down again, in the first cafe.
I cannot read the darn thing for my sight is too bad.
I then go back to the receptionist. He suggests i pick up the phone by the entrance door and ring the operator.
i do so, but its the wrong phone, as he has come over to tell me this.
i take up the right one.
but nothing happens.
he is back at his desk.
i cannot leave as i have a heavy bag i am reluctant to lift again, in this moment in time.
i shout 'excuse me!' he hears, thank god.
he gives me the number, one digit, so thats a blessing too.
i ring.
sucks, i cannot hear, i do hear garble but apart from that, thats my hearing for you.
i wasnt deaf for no reason...i have not heard the operator.
tears are now welling up in my eyes.
i feel sick and in pain...i have been outta A&E two days now, i have been told i have Gallstones, plenty of em, so now i want outta pain and them outta me.
but i am not getting very far to realise either ambitions.
i pick up a heavy bag with a heavy heart and cart both self and it, back to the wards.
See, they were to find me a 'way in' so that i can get a 'way out' of the hospital, in communication terms.
I ask the secetary if she can ring IT department and get the password and user name for getting logged in on my laptop.
she raises her eyes to heaven, pretty much the same way as the porter/receptionists did downstairs, and i am feeling that there are a lot of unhappy people in this hospital and i am not the only one.
she hands me the phone, i am a bit startled at this but evidently its the IT department.
he, the guy at the end of the line, recites a password, and i have no pen and paper.
i ask for one from the raised eyebrow woman and she rips off a sheet of paper from a pad in an alarming fashion with more raised eyebrows.
jaz many got out of bed the wrong way this morning.
I wasnt one, for a change.
i attempt to get logged in, and fail.
i am banned from entry, i have been blocked and denied for some unknown reason. my next plan for getting out was to physically do just that, i left the ruddy building no less, i nicked the twin's wheelchair and off i went to the Merrion Centre or tesco or whatever it is beside the hospital on the merrion road.
i got onto the internet, all for the sum of one euro, but did it at a booth, and very successfully so.
i have now an appointment to see the consultant about puffy knees, one of my probs and in the process or at the consult i will ask about the surgeon and the other matter of an ovarian cyst which i insist will all be done and dusted on the same day, that is three lots of surgeries all on one day, job lot fashion, knees sucked out, gall stones blasted or ribbed out and cyst removed all together, one lot of anesthetic, one lot of taxi fares, and one bout of out of my own home. what more could a woman want, in life.
well i want more, but never seem to get it.
we moved on...well she did, the twin that is...down to theatre and poor twin was upset and nervous.
there was really no going back, but the staff nurse who was not in good mood said that the image of her appointed 'assistant surgeon for the day' could stay in her room...the black assistant with the knife...that is.
well we had other ideas, to which i encouragingly said that actually would the black assistant not go and stay close to her hearing aids and specs?
and it was more of a 'grrrrr...the black assistant GOES to theatre...grrrrr..gnarl...grrr...'
the Black Assistant went!
who is this Black assistant, none other than her Saffi, holding the large lethal weapon of a knife, nothing stands in the way of our Saffi and the knife...Saffi the wonder...black..dog!
Saffi went where she always goes, with my twin in mind and spirit if nothing else, this time.
and you and tudder can think other.
She has gone and so do i, leave.
I leave the hospital, she stays.
i go for lunch, grand plan to get out and use my laptop and see what is happening my world via the internet and the only place to do that is the nearest hotel.
i hail a taxi, and he wasn't pleased either, another grumpy soul who just wasn't pleased to get a small fare.
all of E7 but as my dad always said, 'look after the pennies and the pounds would look after themselves.'
its Euro now and they don't seem to look after themselves for this man wasn't interested in the pence, not a bit of it.
again i was near to tears for i find all this unsettling and begin wonder do i have the same effect on others when in similar mood?
i possibly can, and do.
i sit three hours out in the hotel.
jaz i was in pain.
and info on a four wheel was less than promising as the two weeks wait had now extended to three.
(another story for another day).
i then leave, deciding to save my E7 back to the hospital i have the brainwave to catch the bus.
i should have thought better.
the toilet beckoned so it was back to the hotel.
and the taxi the reception THERE has requested was waiting after i had peed, so i had now to spend the E7 after all.
another bad mood met me up on the ward.
mags wasn't back from surgery.
and the staffie (yes, the barker) informed me that she had no idea how mags was or when she would be back.
tears ? yes, again - nearly.
a student told me she would ring if she had word.
on leaving i asked the Staff nurse was she always in such bad mood as today?
she didn't know what i was talking about - the student did!
ah for a cuppa cha.
and when i then saw my twin wheeled in, it was her screaming desire for the same. the tea.
and mine was for the bed.
we got our wish in due course.
I also got my wish to make peace with the neurologist at this establishment.
a lovely man actually but i had always known this.
what i also knew was, he has a shite manner, as others know too.
but i made my peace to an amenable guy, who finally announced that he knew all along that my neuro difficulties was Dystonia, but did he have to say too, that 'you don't have parkinson's you just want it?"
this was the pits, and i shall never forget that.
no, bad choice of words and bad manner, very.
He wont cross me again, if he does...them teeth, do you remember them teeth..real or imagined?
I left some disgruntled pack people at that there hospital whose brandished snarls left a bad taste in my own mouth.
i left too, the twin, to face either friend or foe, i was outta there, and none too soon.
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