Grrrr to the NHS

Feeling a bit cheesed off with the NHS today. Since the day I got back from holiday I have been having a problem with my right hand. The little finger has permanent pins and needles which stretch down the length of my hand, through my wrist and a pain runs up to my elbow. To begin with I assumed that I had somehow managed to trap a nerve whilst carrying my luggage and that it would soon get back to normal. A week or so passed and there was no sign of it getting better, in fact if anything it was getting worse to the stage where the part of my hand that tingles is also quite numb. Of course I kept convincing myself that it would improve but the pins and needles have started to spread to the next finger. On top of this I now find it hard to use the hand for many everyday things (a pain being right handed). Turning the key in the door or car is a major effort and even holding things is difficult. Add to that the fact that sometimes it is just downright achy and painful. It has got to the stage where I have to wear a wrist support to stop the pain and to give me a little extra help with things like opening doors. I even had to wear it to work at the pub as I was having trouble carrying glasses without it.

Finally I stopped being pig headed and decided to go and see the doctor. To be honest I kept putting it off because it seemed such a stupid thing to see him about, but the increase in pain and lack of mobility goaded me into action.

So yesterday morning I phoned the doctors to make an appointment. Now obviously i didn't expect to get to see my doctor as he is very popular and gets booked up well in advance, although sometimes one can get lucky. However, the receptionist immediately told me that there were no appointments for that day at all (apparently the child population of Walderslade all went sick on the first day back to school) and that the next routine appointment she could give me would be for Wednesday 12th September - yep you heard right a week away!

I did enquire about seeing my doctor but was told there was a 5 week wait to see him. So I have booked the appointment for the 12th and have to hope that it doesn't get any worse in the meantime. Of course I could always phone the doctors every morning at 8.30am between now and then and see if I can get an earlier appointment, but that seems like a lot of hard work for little reward.