on 22nd May, 2007
I can’t believe I forgot to post on this. I had to rush off straight afterwards to go to our Spanish class - the first we have attended for a month or so.
Dad had been phoning around trying to find a nutritionist for me. He is good at phoning around and I’m not, and I have been speaking of it for months and not getting round to it. And so after I threatened to take time off work to write, and said I needed to get my food problem sorted, he said he would ring around. I left a note about what he should look into, ADD and casein/gluten intolerance.
He rang around. There are no dieticians in the area who know anything about it. He continued to ring around, finding then a gastrologist in a hospital in Dudley. I was sceptical, but he assured me that he had asked the secretary about what I had written down and that yes, he knows about that. I would need to see my doctor and ask for a referral.
Come the day and I consulted the nurse at work, asking how to get a referral, because it had been like hitting my head up against a brick wall. It should be ok, but yes, she said, I was right to continue to be sceptical, and I should ring the doctor my father had come across and check that it is the right thing for me because if not they might be more difficult next time in referring me.
I came back, nervous. I tend not to think much about things that are being done for me, but now it was upon me. I was seriously doubtful. Dad remembered the number to Dudley hospital. I rang and got through to the secretary. No, he doesn’t know about that, I think you would need a dietician wouldn’t you. He does biopsies and Celiac disease, but, no.. I was angry. I stomped about saying I would have nothing to say to the doctor. I worried how he would take me. It would be the third or fourth time I had gone about the same thing, and they have been off hand or unhelpful every time. The only difference was this time I was seeing a different doctor. Before now I had seen one doctor who is the most supercilious bastard I’ve ever met, a new doctor who rang through to this doctor I’d be seeing, and also his wife. He had always been my preferred doctor, but he had been ill for a long time, and, because he is probably everybody’s preferred doctor he is always more difficult to get an appointment for.
I drove down, waiting restlessly in the waiting room, reading the beginning of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and parts of the New Scientist, worrying about what I would say to him, and what he would say. Genuinely anxious, almost shaky. Doctors have affected my mood so many times before so negatively.
I got it together and went in. He said hello, cheerily! Sorry, but this fact alone is worthy of an exclamation mark since it is a fact that NHS GPs are so in need of training in dealing with people: they have no communication skills, or perhaps, rather, are quite unprepared to use those they have for ordinary people. He apologised and said he would have to read a couple of letters on his computer. He did so and then, looking at me(!), asked was the problem.
I explained.
He asked if I had kept a food diary. I had. He asked several questions. I talked about having had a couple of slips recently, how I had felt having drank the vodka the other Sunday, and the Ginsters the other day. He flickled through the A5 notebook I have kept a food diary in since 20th May, 2006. I made a few disclaimers. I said I found it hard to do anything consistently. He asked what I experienced with convenience foods, foods I didn’t prepare from scratch. I said I would be going back too long to remember. So, he said, when it says re-heated chile con carne that’s one you made and re-heated. yes, I said. He asked a couple more questions and said he would refer me.
I think that one of the letters was a letter from a shrink I’m seeing. He had asked for a referral for me. I wasn’t sure what was happening with it. I’d seen him since he sent the letter and heard nothing. The Doc explained, saying that it hadn’t been addressed to him.
He said he wasn’t sure whether the dietician would have experience with mood and behaviour but that he would put that in the letter. I said I was prepared to travel. He said the NHS being what it is it would be a question of where they refer me to.
I thanked him, and meant it.
I went out and drove home and had some dinner, before going to Spanish and having a good time for once, acting out a conversation in a silly voice and making everyone laugh.
It’s only later that I realised how inconvenient for my blog it was, what with this doctor being so nice and all, but maybe the dietician will deny that there is a problem, or claim it is psychosomatic, or say I need only avoid MSG and Aspartamain[]!
We’ll see.
