The State of The Old Man

OK. I give up. Some of you probably want to know about The Old Man's health progress. The truth is - that I am not sure really.

Everyone we meet, who knows him, says how well he is looking - that it is unbelievable that he could have been so ill this summer. He is doing more and more. Some cooking now. Sunday, he took pity on an Old Grey Doll and did the washin' up.

But he has his flakier days.

Last week he trots along to the Heart Nurse, for the second of his regular four-weekly visits.... And she tells him that his heart is worse on the function front than it was on his last visit. And he comes home and mentions this to me. And I feel like clocking her one.

Medical people don't appear to have any idea what it means for someone who is battling away on the health front - when they airily make a bald statement which they believe to be factually correct, but can be somewhat brutal. I mean, good for them. I admire their medical skills and knowledge. But they know how to take the precious wind out of a previously billowing sail.

Chugging along, we thought we were. Chugging along.

The Old Man is philosophical. And brings to bear upon the problem his years of experience of being poked about and scanned for this and that. In particular, he says, the scan that she's basing her pronouncement upon could be different each time you take it... and the technician who did it recently was different from the one who did the scan in August. And it can be their difference of interpretation alone that could emphasise that difference.

See how subtle we get when we are trying to "be reasonable" about stuff?

But I'm still growling and snarling. I could swing for the Nurse and I could swing for The Old Man's Cardiologist.

Because what the whole medical world agrees upon.... or at least that portion of it which has examined him.... is that he needs to have another drug reinstated as soon as possible. This is the drug that his Cardiologist said needed to be reinstated back in August when he saw The Old Man. But the Cardiologist refused to prescribe it. (see the Old Man's Prescription Post). He says the prescribing is for the Heart Nurse to do.

The Heart Nurse does indeed want The Old Man to be taking this drug. But it's not actually in her power to generate the prescription. The prescription, she says, must come from the GP.

Now the GP wants him to be on this drug also (as does the Surgeon) but..... he thinks he will just write to the Cardiologist to make sure.... As will the Heart Nurse.

How long will this circular "pass the prescription parcel" be going on for?

And it's not as if this is a new drug for The Old Man. He was on it before the operation. They all think he should be on it now. So what's the problem?

In truth, people, this and the distraction of Mrs Doonuthin distracted state and her technical preoccupations..... is why I haven't been posting quite so often this last week. I am feeling a bit anxious I expect. A little crestfallen. A little like a Grey Doll living with an Old Man.

Certainly, when The Heart Nurse's view is recounted to me by The Old Man, I feel a little low.
Then in recounting to The Old Man why I feel a little low..... I shout myself into a headache.

The optician has suggested that I get my blood pressure checked. Because of the pretty little lights that I see running along across my vision every now and then.

"Though it's probably a headacheless migraine." she says.

Oh, forget it. Getting my blood pressure checked - would just raise my blood pressure.