Pandemonium

I fell into the clutches of the N.H.S. myself last month...

My mother was a great fan of snooker and became a little concerned when snooker balls, rolling across the green baize, disappeared before they reached the pockets. Definitely something wrong there. Very quick, my Mum was. {g} She was later diagnosed as having glaucoma.

For those who know little about it, it's a condition for which there is no cure. It eventually results in blindness unless it's treated, in which case its advance can be stopped or slowed. The symptoms are easy to miss if you're unaware of them.

What happens is that increased pressure in the fluid inside the eyeball damages the light receptor cells in the retina. Each eye is affected differently. When the brain receives no information from damaged cells, it fills in the missing bits by duplicating the information received by the other eye. Hence, you don't immediately notice that you've got a problem. When enough cells have been destroyed in both eyes, so that blind areas overlap, the brain receives no information at all. By this time, you may have lost half your vision in both eyes.

It's a hereditary condition. The specialist suggested that Mum should notify members of her family and when she did, an alarming number of the older ones said things like, "Oh, my mother had that", or "My father's cousin went blind." Her own mother had claimed to have cataracts - which she didn't - and that she had 'funny sight', so she could well have had undiagnosed glaucoma too.

I had an eye check shortly after which was clear, but the pressure in my eyes was rather high, so I was referred to a specialist at the General Hospital. At the time, the B.B.C. was screening a dramatization of Tom Sharp's 'Blot on the Landscape' starring David Suchet as the mustachioed Blot. Remember that?

I arrived at the hospital in good time, but - as anticipated - was kept hanging around for several hours. Still, at least it's free. The staff there seemed a little thrown by my appearance and didn't seem to know what to do with me, but were very friendly and chatty nevertheless. Eventually, I got to see a little foreign guy who was rather crotchety. He did a few tests, found nothing amiss and said grumpily that he didn't know why my optician had referred me.

On my way out, I confided to the staff on the desk that the ophthalmologist looked just like Blot. That comment clearly struck a chord with the girls as I swear the shrieks of laughter could've been heard across the river!

Once the laughter had subsided, one then said, "Oh, he isn't an ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist isn't in today."

Explained the wait, I thought, then another one said—

"He's a psychiatrist!" 8-O

So not only were my eyes okay at that point, but they weren't crazy either.

......

With my history, I used to do regular checks by closing each eye separately to see if there any flaws in my vision. About four years ago, I noticed a shadowy arc in the vision of my right eye between my central focus and peripheral vision. Of course, it didn't mean it was glaucoma but naturally I went to my optician for a check up straight away. He found nothing but referred me to another eye specialist - a real one this time. He couldn't find anything wrong either. That was over three years ago.

A few months ago, hallelujah!, I got to see an optician who actually managed to spot something wrong. Give the man a cigar! So last month, I got to see a third specialist., Mr Bhattacharyya. I am told that there are no doctors at our hospital with English names now. Guess the name, Grimsby, puts off over-qualified medics who don't actually know the place. No doubt it also explains why I haven't had a dentist for about six years.

This is a tad worrying as I'm missing a large filling from my upper left seven. I have to say at this point that you really don't appreciate the absence of toothache until you've had an abscess! 8-((( I have less than zero desire to repeat the experience.

Anyhow, the whole trip took the best part of four hours, but hey! It's free - except the car park which you can spend half an hour lurking around, waiting for someone to leave so you can, hopefully, drive in before some opportunist nabs it first.

The staff car park likewise has spaces for about two thirds of the number of people who need them. Didn't the people who designed the hospital (which is fairly new) bother to find out how much parking they'd need? Stupid question I guess, since the answer - as there's plenty of spare ground around - is patently NO.

I'm afraid Mr. Bhattacharyya and I got off to a bad start. He asked me to describe my symptoms which I gave in scientific terms. This comes naturally to me as I have a scientific background.

"No, no, tell me in your own words," says Mr. B. in an accent that put me in mind of the Peter Sellars/Sophia Loren song 'Goodness, Gracious Me'.

So I try again, adding a few more details.

"No, no, no. Do not tell what your optician says," said Mr. B., "tell me in your own words."

Now, I hate being talked down to like I'm some sort of imbecile. Rod - who came with because you're not supposed to drive after you've have drops in your eyes to dilate your pupils - said later that Mr. B. is probably more used to dealing with elderly people who're going a bit senile. Whatever, he hit one of my sensitive buttons.

"Forget my optician," I snapped. "This is me telling you in my own words— You are familiar with glaucoma, aren't you?" I added with measured sarcasm.

"Of course I am," he snapped back, and then had to leave the room for some reason or other, possibly for the sake of his blood pressure. {g} When he returned, he seemed in a much better, and more cordial, frame of mind. Just as well, really, because any more and I would have asked him bluntly to stop patronizing me.

Of course, I got my come-uppance for my uppityness later at the hospital pharmacy. {g}

We'd taken Mel home on the way to the hospital. Mel is my 'major domo' from Manilla, and an absolute treasure. {beam} Anyhow, being in panic mode already - I'm iatrophobic - I'd forgotten my purse. Rod had his wallet, but was out of flimsies and the parking ticket machine had taken most of his small change. And they didn't take plastic. Between us, we couldn't scrape together the £6.40 prescription charge, so I had to sign an I.O.U. LOL!

If we'd gone in my car, it wouldn't have been a problem as I always have several £2.50s in it for the toll fee for the Humber Bridge, plus money for parking in town when I go for my acupuncture. But that's another story...

This is written for any of you, mostly Stargate fans, who may have wondered why I've kind of disappeared off the radar for the past few weeks. It may also be of some small interest to others among you.

A month or so ago, Rod and I went over to visit a very good friend in the East Riding of Yorkshire, just across the river, for a barbecue. It was a very happy day - just us two, my friend, her husband and their two little children.

A week or so later, I rang her to arrange for us to 'do lunch', as we do every couple of weeks, before the children broke up for the summer holiday. It was fun. We used to go to Oliver's, a lovely little tea-shop in Swanland, and discussed the stories we were writing around the characters and concept of 'Stargate S.G.-1' - among other things.

She sounded dreadful. I asked what was the matter. Her husband had just collapsed and died of ischemic heart failure. This was the day after his doctor had said his heart, blood pressure and everything were just fine!  I was devastated so I cannot begin to imagine what she is going through, and will be going through for a very long time to come. 

It also brought back painful memories for me, as my father went pretty much the same way - and when he was a couple of months older than I am now...  He, too, had been to see his doctor ten days earlier after experiencing severe chest pains. Unfortunately, his own doctor was away so he saw a locum instead who dismissed it as heartburn.

Not surprisingly, I lost that respect for doctors which they were accustomed to receive earlier last century, when they still had the sort of mystique that clings to the man in the white coat who possesses a kind of arcane knowledge beyond the ken of ordinary folk.

I cannot help thinking that his own doctor would have taken him more seriously as my father had a pretty Spartan attitude to pain. His response to the pain in the first instance was to work through it, playing a round of golf and three sets of tennis - possibly the worst thing he could have done. 8-(

So all of this has really sucked all the joy out life, for a while anyway. {sigh} But I'll be back - eventually. 8-)  BeOn the plus side, the time I haven't been spending socializing has been channelled into writing, so there will be some new stuff coming to Pandemonium very soon.

Finally, if any of you reading this believe in the biblical concept of Hell - well don't, okay? Just plain losing a loved one is bad enough. I mean, could you be happy in Heaven if you knew that someone you loved was suffering eternal torment? Which means that most folk 'enjoying' the conventional view of Heaven would be pretty miserable too, I think. It would definitely be a lose-lose situation, and it's wa-ay better than that. 8-)