by GothNinja | Jun 10, 2011 | Illness
Greetings & Salutations Dear Readers,
If you are wondering Why I have been quiet on here the last week, Then wonder no longer. I have ManFlu. (Well that and I’ve had a busy week, which is normally when you get hit with ManFLu. Sunday was Wales Comic Con, Monday was Royal Arch Installation, Tuesday I was in Hospital for a Vampire eye Checkup, and Tonight is the Jonathan Coulton Concert)
So basically I have ManFlu which is scientifically proven to be one of the most destructive illness known to mankind, Its so bad that even Nations who use Biological Weapons have signed a treaty never to use it in a weaponised form.
So I apologise for the lack of postings. Now maybe there are a few Female readers who may be doubting the SCIENTIFIC evidence on ManFlu. Well to you I say “Good Day! You can not argue with Science IJMU”
Here’s a chart I got from the NHS website showing the deadliness of several known infections, and as you can clearly see, ManFlu is quite bad.
by GothNinja | Apr 13, 2011 | Illness
Well its that time again when I have to pop into the local hospital for a check-up on my Vampiric eye syndrome. Only today’s appointment was not at my usual first thing in the morning time, but at the unhelpful time of 11am. Now this is both a bonus (I can work from home for a while before having to go for appointment, which means less time spent in the office) and a hindrance (If you’re not there early enough in the day, then parking is next to impossible.).
I arrive at the hospital in plenty of time and try and park in the car-park near the eye outpatients, No Room, So I try the several staff car parks close to that end of the hospital (I may, or may not have acquired a staff parking permit for my car) No Room. OK, so there is a car-park half way along the hospital complex, No Room. The staff car-park near the middle of the complex? No Room. The huge main car-park at the other end of the hospital to where I need to be? No Room. The overflow massive car-park that’s been built on the far end of the main car-park? No Room. At this point I would have happily parked on a manger in a stable!. Right there is a bit of wasteland at the end of the overflow car-park where people park if there is no where else left? No Room!! At this point I remember I’m driving a 4×4 and park it “off road”
Its Raining, and I have approximately a 3/4 mile walk through the various car-parks to get to the hospital, and then a 1/2 mile walk to get to the opposite side of the hospital where my appointment is in 18 minutes! Did I mention its raining?
So I get into the eye outpatients slightly bedraggled from the rain, and out of breath from the speed walking. I report to the receptionist who disappointedly is not the cute friendly one who always remembers my name, but some other one. I explain I have an appointment, confirm my address to prove who I am and get asked :-
Receptionist: “Have you moved house since you were last here?“
GN: “err no! I just confirmed my address to you?“
Receptionist: “Have you changed surgery or doctors since you were last here?“
GN: “err no! I would have informed you, I just want my appointment! please can I sit down“
Receptionist: “Its sometimes like you live here isnt it?“
GN: “err yes” *smiles disarmingly as I back slowly away without making any sudden movements to a seat*
The waiting game begins, So I start writing a blog post about an update to my Vampiric eye syndrome, not this blog post, oh no. I wrote a post of several hundred words, using the wordpress iPhone App, and saved it to “local drafts” only for it to vanish into the void. I then get called for an eye test before moving to another waiting area to wait to see the actual doctor.
I should point out stupidity of the eye test station. You go in and read the letters off the board for them to measure your eye sight level. Only you are there due to some eye problem, Myself I’m on eye drops that tend to dilute eye and make everything fuzzy, so have yet to go into eye test room when I could see the board with the drop affected eye. I also have them confused as there are two identical test rooms, with identical eye charts, Yet if I am in the right hand room I can see several lines further down the chart than I can in the left hand room.
So I make it to the final waiting room, and boy does this room live up to its name, and then some! I was here for over an hour. It’s not their fault really, the eye outpatient department is the busiest department in the hospital (Well maybe apart from A&E on a Saturday night) So the place is always packed to capacity. Then you have the fact they have a special infectious eye clinic on the second Wednesday of the month (to add even more people to the overcrowdedness) And to top it all off today, they were a Doctor down, and then a second Doctor was called out to an emergency, meaning the remaining Doctors had to see their patients as well as the missing Doctors patients. So this meant I had an hours wait, and there was no WiFi available for me to use, and no phone signal.
So, to recap, I had a stupidly long walk through the rain to get here, I’ve been waiting bored out my head for about an hour and a half in total. And how long am I in with the Doc for? FIVE MINUTES! Long enough to say Hi, her to check my eye, declare its looking good, and lower my drops, and say she will see me in two months.
I hate Hospitals!!!!!!!
by GothNinja | Mar 9, 2011 | Illness
This morning I had a “Quick” 9am appointment at the local hospital for a cursory check that my recent Vampiric eye illness was fully cleared and all doing ok.
That was the plan, but we all know what they say of the best laid plans, and how they often “Gang aft agley,”
So here I sit, drained dry of blood, with a bruised arm, after hours of tests. I believe they have decided to run every test they could think off, including some I think they made up on the spot to try and track down the actual cause of my Vampiric Eye Syndrome.
Ah, your probably now sitting there thinking . o {Come on? drained of blood? Don’t be so melodramatic!}. Well I was sat in the blood letting chair for quite a while, and every other time in my life I have had blood tests they have taken two tubes of blood. Today they took what looked to be a dozen, Even the blood letter was shocked at the amount of tests being run. Put it this way, when they finally found a vein and started the blood collecting it was squirting quite strongly into the tube, by the time they got to the last tube it was barley a trickle coming out, and she had to keep forcing needle in deeper, and moving it about.
After I was drained of blood I was passed on to the X-ray department, Which was an interesting experience since my last xray was on my knee when I was about nine months old. I’m not sure I will be allowed back after I caused slight upset amongst the staff by suggesting they use the machines to peak into Xmas gifts to see what they are. There was also a case of roving hands, but I was polite and endured it.
So now, I get two weeks to recover from these tests before going back and getting the results.
by GothNinja | Jan 7, 2011 | Illness
This Christmas I was afflicted with “Vampiric Eye” again (Or iritis for those of you who like medical terms). Now there is nothing special about this, other than I am getting slowly fed up of the repeated outbreaks, and there will be vengeance on whatever is the cause (And there may be a new clue).
I only mention this outbreak now as I am reminded of the great “Bedside Manner” of the Doctors who treated me in A&E, and the great way they put my mind at rest, and alleviated worry.
I turned up at A&E since the eye outpatients was closed over the Christmas holidays. I signed myself in and waited upon Triage, I should have been tipped off it was not going to be a good day when I got Triaged twice by two different nurses. Eventually I made it into the examining rooms and was seen by a young Doctor, who was confused by the state of my eye, and just kept muttering to himself (Possibly a curse to ward off the evil eye?). After a while, he asks me to wait while he goes to find a senior Doctor since he admits to being clueless.
The Senior Doctor working in the A&E comes to see me, He looks at my eye and starts muttering to himself. He then calls the junior one over and they start talking to themselves.. “Have you seen the shape of the eye? why is it that shape?“, “Have you ever seen one bulging like that? its all swollen“, “Wow, its like the inside is all full of gray puss“. All the while I am sat there, in earshot, in pain, and getting worried.
The senior Doc returns to me and says with full confidence. “Could you go back and wait in the waiting room please, we don’t know whats going on so we are calling an eye specialist to come in to the hospital to look at you!“. Great, its Xmas time, and a Doctor is being phoned up at home, to travel through the snow to the local hospital to look at me, I sense painful eye prodding & drops in my future.
My eye is 90% fine as of Wednesday, So I feel I can poke fun at the events involved.
by GothNinja | Sep 15, 2010 | Illness, Technology
Yesterday I gave in to the masses, who had been giving me a hard time for not going to the doctor with my “Vampire Eye“.
So I woke up yesterday, got dressed up in my Ninja Gi, loaded up with all the weapons and tools of the Ninja, and prepared for the dangerous, and arduous task that is trying to book an appointment at my medical centre. And was I in for a surprise.
I get ready with the house phone, my mobile, & a scripted PBX to attempt the impossible first step, actually getting hold of someone. I dial and……. I get an automated welcome message, welcoming me to the medical centre, informing me my call may be recorded for training purposes and telling me i shall have options to pick from. WOW. My Doctors place has got themselves a decent phone system that’s not some old woman sat at a desk moving wires about.
I then get to the menu system of the phone call. “Press one for…..” there then followed a huge list of all the possible reasons you may press option one. Then SILENCE, I waited, and waited, but still there was silence. “OK? so the first part of the menu is press 1 or press 1” I pressed 1, and the phone started ringing and I got a real person. Yes their automated phone messaging system goes. Press 1 and get person. They have managed to add a pointless step in the process of PHONE-RINGS->ANSWER-PHONE.
I get my appointment and dutifully turn up at the surgery on time. Only its all different, its bigger, better, and different. In fact its like they had built a huge new building next to the original, then knocked down the original to make additional car parking spaces. Well the old place had been there for dozens of years, and was a bit small and dingy.
I enter the posh new building to be greeted by a large wall mounted flat screen TV with the word “Welcome” on it in a button like box. I then touched the button on the screen like you do, it changed to two buttons [Male] & [Female] “Wow, they really gone to town on making the patients feel comfortable while waiting, they even supply company for you“. I quickly pressed the [Female] button, it now asked for a D.O.B. “wow. I wonder if they ask for my preferred hair colour and such?” I hit a few random options for a birth date, and waited for my order to arrive.
The screen in front of me said “Welcome Mrs ***** ****** ******, please take a seat in the waiting area.” *SHIT* its a login system, not a online ordering thing. I hit reset, and put my details in, and made my way to sit innocently in the waiting room. Where there was an even bigger flat screen TV informing me that “smoking is bad” “unsafe sex is bad” “yada yada yada” and occasional beeping and telling someone they should go to room **. Modern technology is great, instead of the old yellowing posters telling me everything fun is bad for me, they now get to do it in wide screen, high definition.
After all that, the Doc told me nothing I didn’t already know, and I was in with him for about 3 minutes. This is why I never bother going to see the Doctor.
by GothNinja | Aug 24, 2010 | Illness, Medical, Vampire
I am suffering from the medical condition “Vampire Eyes” again. “What is Vampire Eye?“you ask, Well you should read some of the earlier blog posts where its mentioned in detail. OK! I’m nice, I’ll give a quick re-cap for the newer readers.
VAMPIRE EYES:
A weird eye infection that causes the eye infected to glow red, be extremely sensitive to sunlight, spend all day trying to close, and all night trying to open.
So if you’re wondering where I have been recently, I’m hiding in the dark avoiding all sources of light, like for example monitors.
