Strange Times at the Surgery

The whole of Thursday morning was spent at my new doctor’s surgery. Signing up for a new doctor is always fraught with peril. In the past I have managed to evade health checks because I never needed repeat prescriptions. I would just fade into the woodwork until a leg dropped off. I dealt with ill health by attempting to ignore it until bad things happened. Previously when I didn’t ignore it my experience was that bad things still happened but for longer and with more interference from men who didn’t listen.

Now though, I am a person who has medications so I need to co-operate. It’s one of the annoyances of getting older. The NHS refer to multiple health problems that need monitoring as complex comorbidities. It’s a vibe for older people. It’s an awful term that I with my interesting blood pressure, menopausal everything and mental alarums now neatly fit into. I am blessed.

I have not had a great run with the NHS as an adult. It’s fair to say I have a great deal of trauma and some fairly extreme triggers brought on by a heady combination of poor treatment, misdiagnosis which has on more than one occasion led to emergency situations and the disbelief that comes as standard when women approach the medical profession with anything gynaecological. There are scars, both real and metaphysical. Every time I am gp adjacent I have to deal with a lot of fear.

I just wanted to get my prescriptions and get the hell out of dodge, but this was not to be. I was to be weighed and measured and have blood tests taken, like a prize pig. I think of myself as the Empress of Blandings. Then I had to go back for whatever the equivalent of a post mortem is on someone who atent dead. A pre mortem?

Whatever kind of mortem it was, it involved me spending forty minutes with the pharmacist, half an hour with the gp and half an hour in the chemist, which is longer than I’ve been in an NHS building without actually waiting for surgery for about a decade. It was distinctly unnerving that nobody seemed to be in a rush and in fact actively prolonged our interaction by asking more questions.

Not only did they ask questions, the questions that they asked were intelligent and showed that they had actually listened to my responses. I was used to a listening face, but very much a twirling a drug rep’s pen, staring out the window attitude. In the past there was always the sense that they had decided my fate in the first sixty seconds and the only listening was to tick a box on ‘interacting with the patient.’ My fate, much like a prize pig, was ‘almost ready for slaughter. Not much to be done here.’

To be part of a genuine conversation about my own body with a person who took my words into account actually melted my head.

When I got to see the Doctor to talk about my mental health, she listened to what I had to say and then opened with: ‘I just want you to know that you’re a fantastic mum. I think you’ve been doing a great job. Mums usually get the blame for everything and are given none of the credit, so take some credit please.’ I’d started crying since the minute she said, ‘How are you?’ This did not help the snotterfall. About twenty minutes of the appointment was conducted in a blizzard of tissues.

I came out with some resources and a sheaf of prescriptions, red raw eyes and a face that looked like a punched pillow. On the way to the chemist I had to have a little sit down to gather my wits. It was a very strange feeling to be seen and to be listened to. I had gone in expecting to fight my corner and instead I had been welcomed in with open arms. I was extremely confused by it all. I have no idea what all these new medications will do to me. I am quite nervous about taking them, if I’m honest, but the doctor has already said that if there are any problems I can go back and someone will see me. It is strange to believe someone in this situation, but I’ll try it. Stranger things have happened. They did already happen.