On Wednesday I finally went to the clinic at West Middlesex Hospital to get my thumb x-rayed again. The hospital had diagnosed my injury as "right base of first matacarpal fracture on the background of basal thumb arthritis". So, on top of everything else I had arthrisits as well. Not a good sign.
I know how much Albina suffers from arthritis. It gives her constant recurrences of pain, which come and go, but which inflict occasional spasmes of pain on the joints in her hand and her shoulders. She cannot clasp anything firmly. For instance, I have to open every jar of jam or pickled cucumbers, and any drink with a screw cap. God, why do they do them so tight! Every evening I fill a hot water bottle and place it around her legs in the bed to ease the overnight pain. If that bottle gets overlooked one evening, she is incapable of sleep during that night due to the discomfort. Her hand is too weak to push the flush button in both of our loos, so again that's another task each time for me. Also she cannot lift her hands much above her head, so again I have to reach to high cupboard for plates, or dresses on the upper rung, or the shower head. I hope and pray I don't go in the same direction, or we will just become too helpless dummies incapable of doing anything, except walking (for how long?) and eating.
This tine I went to the clinic at West Middlesex Hospital for an appointment at 2.20pm. I was on time, but the lady at the reception could not check me in because the computer had just crashed. I then registered at an electronic entry check and sat down to wait for my summons in the crowded waiting room where every third chair was blocked in order to ensure covid distancing, even though the main fatal epidemic had now passed, more than six months ago. Consequently, a lot of people had to stand, including mothers with little kids, impatiently waiting and running round, despite their casts from earlier accidents. After exactly an hour of waiting, in which I had managed to demolish all pages of "i" and "The Guardian", a nurse came in to ask who was waiting for Dr Morgan. We were then told that the doctor was not in today but other doctors could see you, ......in the next 40 minutes. She suggested I go and have a coffee in the Costa canteen. After a long queue I ordered a coffee and a fresh prawn sandwich from an overworked barista working totally on her own, making drinks, serving food and receiving payments. Then it was difficult finding a seat, as there was nobody to pick up empty plates and clean the tables. It all look very unhygenic and third world.
The NHS is dying around us as we desperately try and stay healthy so as not to succumb to the 4 million waiting lists and the overworked overwrought staff still trying to maintain sanity. Can our new whizzkid Diwali PM save the day and rescue the health and social services, as well as the schools, when it all just seems to be falling apart? The Tories will have gained the Hindu vote with the new PM, but otherwise they are losing support all round. Still 80% of head teachers say they face dilemmas over their budgets, having to choose between a new replacement teacher or giving meals to hungry kids who haven't been listed for a free meal as the level of their parents' universal credit is too high for them to qualify. Rishi Sunak will get an inital bounceback as his first public speech was dramatic and no nonsense, and people remember his generous furlough scheme in 2020, but once the cuts start and the mortgages remain high, the sheen will be off, and people will remember him as just another Tory, who happens to be twice as rich as King Charles, and would have no comprehension, while resting in his warm swimming pool in Richmond in Yorkshire, of how poor parents and pensioners struggle with the cold during the depth of winter. A relatively warm October has temporarily dulled the pain, but soon the anxiety and stress will return.
Eventually, I wandered back and saw a clinician (whatever happened to doctors and nurses? they're all clinicians now). He got me to exercise my right hand and to bend back by thumb and it all looked much better. I could even give him a thumbs up. However, I opted for one more check on an X ray, despite the fact I could have left the hospital by now. Eventually I came back to the doctor after he received the prints from the X ray room.These showed that the fracture was healing, and that otherwise everything was progressing well. I was discharged, put away my thumb-extension splint and left. Again, three hours in total. But I guess the system just about works, creakily perhaps, but it still serves its purpose. Perhaps no need for outright despair, but plenty of reason to be alarmed.
I was also warned off from driving a car, but I'm sure I will be back behind the wheel before long.
Before I got home I dropped round to the local nail bar in Brentford High Street. The accident had weakened my wrists, and I felt this most acutely when I wanted to cut my nails. My hands seemed too week to squeeze my nail clippers sufficiently. I am getting more and more like Albina.
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