Doctor's

Mstr A cycled to school all alone today. I felt quite sad as I waved him off this morning. I know he's taken himself to school a few times before, but that was when I could stand outside my house & watch him go the whole way & enter the school gates. This morning he just yelled "bye mum" as he zipped past & out of sight.

Well, the school hasn' t phoned me yet to ask where he is, so I assume he got there safely;-)

He had to go on his own as I haven't had the time or energy to meet any other parents who live in this direction, and I had a Dr's appointment at 9.25 in the other surgery - the one that's 5 miles away. We have such a chronic shortage of GP's in Weston (I really have no idea why) that when they built the extra 15,000 homes near th motorway, they also built a lovely new health centre to house 6 Dr's, a few midwives, nurses etc, then couldn't find anyone to put in it. So some kind of wierd deal was done with my surgery (and probably some others) that the Dr's will all spend 50% of their time in the new surgery. Of course I expect they had to take on a load of new patients, while still keeping 100% of their home surgery patients, which is why seeing my own Dr is such a problem.

But when I phoned this morning I insisted on seeing Dr Y. He's probably the only family Dr I've ever built up a decent relationship with, and he knows (the rather complicated) family medical history, and NEVER makes me feel that I'm wasting his time or coming to him unecessarily! But as he's there all day, there was where I had to go, and i couldn't get there on time and take Mstr A to school.

Actually I couldn't get there on time! Because the bus broke down in the middle of an estate and although the driver promised "they'd be another one along soon" we opted to walk the rest of th way, got a bit lost, went round in circles, and jogged the last 1/2 mile with LMD sitting on LMB's lap in the pushchair!

Still, Dr Y is ALWAYS running late, and I was only 3 minutes past the appointment time, so it wasn't a problem. When I went into see him he immediately recognised that there was problem! I explained the same symptoms to him as I had to Dr B Friday week ago. He actually took my tempreture, which, as I had said, was slightly raised (38.1), but as I usually run at 35.4, it was quite high for me. Then he listened to my chest. Properly. Under my clothes. More than once! And immediately siad that I had an infection in my right lung. And that i probably got it when I first started feeling hot!

A prescription for amoxycillin quickly followed, and hopefully I'll start feeling better soon.

I ill never go back to Dr B. That's the third time I've seen her for something, and the 3rd time she's made me feel like a complete time waster hyperchondriac! he also missed what could be a life threatening condition, if not for me, then for Aggie who is, after all, on anti-immune system drugs! If he gets a chest infection it's pretty damn serious.

Aggie wants to complain, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I'd like to think she'll get an informal reprimand & try to be a bit more understanding in future, but I think it's more likely that she will either brush it off as completely inconsequential while branding us as trouble-makers, or that it will go too far and we'll be yet another Dr down in the surgery!