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Thursday, August 5, 2010

What a week - been Mad!

Been frenetic here and its not finished yet.


Rhonda's on an RDO break and we had hoped to go away for a few days but I was booked for my orthopaedic review today, for which I had to get X-rays done. Yesterday I had to go for bladder CT studies to try and find out what's going on where with my waterworks. What an experience - turns out the Doctor at the radiology clinic couldn't get the catheter in (I told him that would happen) even using a paediatric catheter and the contrast spilled everywhere, the catheter kept coming out and he had me in contortionist positions on the table trying to get some view of the waterworks up on the screen, etc, etc - the nurse and I were cracking funnies and this poor Indian doctor didn't know what we were going on about. Talk about hysterics. He was aware that I knew quite a lot about urology from my nursing days and even suggested I should be the one doing the procedure.

Anyway - result as expected so it will be back to the urologist when we get home from our trip to Tasmania and then looks like it will be a trip to Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney to see this 'Gun' urologist who will attempt a guided cystoscopy. Sheesh! We might make that a few days in Sydney and try and have the grandsons for a day – they love The Sheraton on the Park and drove room service crazy last time we were there. This time I’ll have to hide the cordless phone so they cannot get to it!

Our General practice doctor quit yesterday - delivered a letter to all his patients saying he was closing the practice and heading off to a SuperGP-clinic in the ACT. Thanks a million, mate! So I had to rush around trying to get a substitute local GP and ended up with a female Pakistani doctor in the only group practice left in town. Beggars can't be choosers, I spose but I have found that the female Asian doctors to be very professionally competent and efficient – unlike male doctors they tend to take time to listen to you and either make decisions promptly , or, are more willing to seek another opinion before doing so. Tomorrow I see my ex-GP (booked appt) as I need some scripts and I also have a chiropody nurse appt  at his rooms (which I'll have to get her to book me for the new GP clinic in future.) On top of that we have had to contact all our specialists and tell them to not send reports to our ex-GP and send them to my new GP instead. Staff at the practice are really peeved at him 'cos they are on a months notice and our growing town loses another GP to the City!

Rhonda is going to salvage something out of her three days off, anyway! She’s informed me that when we go to Canberra today to see the specialist she wants to go to the Mega-Mall and do some shopping. Better get the credit cards ready I reckon.

2 comments:

Gill - That British Woman said...

doctors are in short supply here and when you do find a new doctor, they tend to be born outside of the country.

Good luck with all your tests,

Gill in Canada

John Going Gently said...

John
tell me more about the health system over there...
is it all pay for what you need?

and keep up with the old cranberry juice