So have another GP appointment today at just after 5pm, with a different doctor this time. I’ll try and get across again that I’ve got symptoms that I either need to know are from the diabetes or aren’t so that they can be looked at. Not liking confrontation, doctors and health issues doesn’t make visiting the doctor any easier, and when you feel like you’ve been ignored 3 times so far, it’s even harder to bring those issues up again.
Fingers crossed.
EverQuest patch day today, releasing a new expansion (Depths of DarkHollow), servers are expected to be down for about 11 hours. So, all around the world, EQ players are trying to remember what they did before they played EQ, that filled 11 hours.
I suspect many of them will either,
For me and my good wife (who also thankfully plays EQ) it’ll be an evening on the sofa with some good food and hopefully a good film.
So, been playing with blogger.com and … I’m impressed. It’s a hell of a lot easier to blog stuff than it was on my own home page using my own custom written simple stuff, and you get plenty of control over the layout and structure! Even the ability to upload images and not worry about hosting is very nice. Very pleased.
And the best thing.
Spell checker (when I remember to use it!)
The NHS in the UK is ‘great’. It’s good knowing if you’re ill, the last thing you have to worry about is whether you can afford the treatment required to get better. I’m sure huge health insurance policies which cover everything provide the same feeling of security, but I’m a big believer in the social provision of things like the health service. And so, I think it’s great.
I just wish the people were equally great. Sadly, people are normal, and some people are better than others. And the NHS is oddly, populated with people. I have much respect for the people who work in the NHS, mostly, because it’s suffered a lot over the years and I bet it can’t be much fun.
But when you’re ill, you want some compassion, some respect, and some good advice, and when you get the wrong person in the NHS, you don’t get that, and it doesn’t help you get better. How a GP deals with patients is a critical part, in my opinion, of the recovery process. If they treat you with respect, and listen, and deal with your issues, getting better will be a hell of a lot easier than if they don’t bother listening, ignore your questions or provide sarcastic, unhelpful answers.
I know that they’ve probably seen 40 people that day, and more than half probably didn’t need to be there, and some of them were probably abusive and rude, but that doesn’t mean I need my GP to treat me like,
a) a 5 year old
b) a 90 year old
c) an idiot
d) all of the above
The two ‘classes’ of people I find best in the NHS are practice nurses and hospital specialist doctors. In the past when I’ve had any kind of illness, those two groups of people have been the most useful, compassionate, informative and understanding. When I had Bell’s Palsy, the initial nurse was great and the final specialist was superb and helpful, but the ‘layers’ in-between including my GP at the time were an obstruction to getting healthier, it’s frustrating. I try and forgive them, because I’m sure people don’t go into the health service to be like that, but it’s hard.
So I suck at blogging 😉 What can I say. Work sucks, garden is a mess, house is rotting around us, car is falling apart, I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t get enough exercise, and I eat too much.
Yay life.
Getting to the end of the week, and several more people have been told they need to find alternative employment, as the company moves into a phase of ‘involuntary separation’. Mood on-site is pretty bad as friends find out they’re no longer required. Not much else to add.
Was really tired when I got in yesterday, so decided to just mooch about on EQ, start my epic 1.5 bypass quest and chat to friends. So, started the quest, found out the first fight is in PoTactics on a loot-dropping mob which is probably perma-farmed. Oh well, so complete change of plan, grouped with some friends in a DoN mission or 2, made another 10-12% on my way to 70. Only 64% left 😉
I always said I’d be happier at work if I was busier, and well, this is my chance [irony]. One AIX guy onsite (me), and one HP guy onsite (not me), two major incidents (one HP, one AIX), and all the normal work as well. Still you can only actually physically do so much – so I’ll just sit back and enjoy being stretched for once.
another day another dollar at work, less tired today, although i got to bed much later than i should have. still, managed to make level 69 on my warrior in EQ, i know in know, you’re all thinking wow awesome well done. oh? you’re not? oh well ok, it was awesome though 😉 and couldn’t have happened without the excellent bunch of guildies i play with.
it’s an oddly positive mood at work in between the periods of complete blackness. we’re just sort of hanging on for the announcement about involuntary redundancies and/or moving all of our workload off-shore and how that affects our roles. i think we’ve just decided that there’s nothing we can, so we just stick it out, grin and see what happens.
and today, too lazy for the shift key
Pretty busy at work, as you can imagine considering we’re 1/3rd the size we used to be in this team. Probably means a lot more out-of-hours work for me over the next few weeks, including evenings and weekends. Sort of a mixed blessing, I can always use the extra cash, but it eats into work-life balance, which is already skewed towards work due to the energy it uses up staying positive. But, we move closer and closer towards the day we finally pay off the 10k loan, and that means we’re £200 a month better off, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for nearly 7 years.