O! the waiting...I recall waiting in a crowded reception area at King's College Hospital, London, and beginning to feel that I was simply going to have to leave, before I passed out...
What made it worse was the fact that bloody D****d T***p was bloviating at length on the TV Which It Is Forbidden to EVER Switch Off...
Marduk be praised, my name was called (by a very apologetic consultant) just before I decided to make a run for the door...
TICTH DeSantis. I’m a Floridian. My first college was New College of Florida (which was named after New College of Oxford), which he has seen fit to do catastrophic, politicized damage to, putting horrible people in to run what has been—up till now— a quirky cool awesome place for oddball geniuses, and the most queer-friendly college in the state.
He’s also done so much damage to my home state. Prayers welcome that when he gets out of office, we get someone who will undo as much of the damage as possible.
This is where I was born and raised and I consider at home. I’m not planning on leaving, despite all this.
Please pray for us here.
I know a handful of people who were on the point of applying to New College, but backed out when DeSantis exercised his hostile takeover. Some are at private colleges in Florida, others are in other states. Did anyone ever tell you why they chose to style themselves Novum Collegium rather than Collegium Novum?
I’ve been diabetic since 2013 and with a combination of medication and healthy(ish) diet it’s been under control. I was recently put under some other medication for an unrelated problem, unaware that a side effect is that it can play havoc with blood sugar, even more so if you’re already diabetic.
I didn’t realise this, but a couple of weeks after taking this stuff I’d noticed I was displaying all the classic symptoms of high blood sugar - mood swings, constantly thirsty and pissing like a horse - so after a week of unsuccessfully trying to get hold of my GP or practice nurse and with symptoms getting worse, I took myself to the Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) at my local hospital.
I arrived shortly after 8.45 and having spoken to the screening person was seen by a triage nurse fairly quickly who took a blood sugar reading which was, as I suspected, through the roof. I then returned to the waiting area.
Just before midday I was seen by a very young doctor who looked as though he’s only just started shaving. He asked me lots of questions off a screen, sometimes more than once. He then advised me to return to the waiting area while he consulted with his “senior” to discuss a course of treatment.
About half an hour later (12.30 ish), he reappeared and asked me questions about what medication I was taking. (These were questions I’d already answered) and then disappeared back into the inner sanctum.
About an hour and a half later, he came back to tell me that he’d arranged for me to see a diabetic nurse and that she’d be about 45 minutes.
2 hours later I saw the nurse. She was quite annoyed that I’d been put on this medication as it is apparently quite well known for buggering up blood sugar levels, especially if the patient is already diabetic. She prescribed some additional medication to take alongside the other stuff and also arranged for a one-off insulin injection to start getting the level down.
Back I went to the waiting area to wait for the injection. I was told this would be about 5-10 minutes. After about an hour I was called back in, was given the injection and was finally allowed to leave just before 5pm.
So, 8 hours in the hospital, less than half an hour of which was actually speaking to anybody. I’m just glad I had a good book with me.
My sister-in-law has Type 1 diabetes. We have her Libra app on our phones so I know what her current blood sugar level is, even though we live a couple of hundred miles apart.
It's amazing. If her blood drops below 3.5 we get an alarm. She sends a thumbs up sign to confirm she knows. If we don't hear from her and it continues to drop below 3, we phone her. It means that if she sleeps through her own alarm, we are her safety net.
It hasn't happened, but if she was at the point where a hypo was making her confused, or if she wasn't answering her phone, we could get help for her.
It's just wonderful! (And I say that as someone who was woken at 1am by the alarm two nights ago).
Thanks, people, it's good to know there are people out there who've already got the t-shirt that I can talk to, even if its sometimes a pain in your arse. Hopefully tomorrow's call with the diabetes nurse will tell me (a) something, anything and (b) what I actually need to know. And that the fecking phone will pick the call up.
Thanks, people, it's good to know there are people out there who've already got the t-shirt that I can talk to, even if its sometimes a pain in your arse. Hopefully tomorrow's call with the diabetes nurse will tell me (a) something, anything and (b) what I actually need to know. And that the fecking phone will pick the call up.
When I was diagnosed it actually came as a great relief as it explained a lot if the weird symptoms I’d been having and that I could get treatment for it.
Thanks, people, it's good to know there are people out there who've already got the t-shirt that I can talk to, even if its sometimes a pain in your arse. Hopefully tomorrow's call with the diabetes nurse will tell me (a) something, anything and (b) what I actually need to know. And that the fecking phone will pick the call up.
When I was diagnosed it actually came as a great relief as it explained a lot if the weird symptoms I’d been having and that I could get treatment for it.
Assuming that they haven't buggered up my blood test (it wasn't a fasting one or anything like that) that's not far off how I feel.
Though the receptionist telling me that they'll book me an appointment with the diabetes nurse is, frankly, a bit of a brutal way to break the news.
Though the receptionist telling me that they'll book me an appointment with the diabetes nurse is, frankly, a bit of a brutal way to break the news.
At least I was told face to face by my GP (different times). When she sent me for a blood test she had already said she suspected it was diabetes and made an appointment for two days later when the results were expected. Once I was diagnosed, she explained in detail all the implications of this and what treatment I’d receive.
Though the receptionist telling me that they'll book me an appointment with the diabetes nurse is, frankly, a bit of a brutal way to break the news.
At least I was told face to face by my GP (different times). When she sent me for a blood test she had already said she suspected it was diabetes and made an appointment for two days later when the results were expected. Once I was diagnosed, she explained in detail all the implications of this and what treatment I’d receive.
I wonder how it would work nowadays.
Hopefully I'll be able to tell you. Looking back, I can see that I should have been suspicious, but I just thought that the extra drinking was the air conditioning at work.
I'm hoping whatever they recommend will sort me out fairly quickly when I apply it.
Thanks, people, it's good to know there are people out there who've already got the t-shirt that I can talk to, even if its sometimes a pain in your arse. Hopefully tomorrow's call with the diabetes nurse will tell me (a) something, anything and (b) what I actually need to know. And that the fecking phone will pick the call up.
When I was diagnosed it actually came as a great relief as it explained a lot if the weird symptoms I’d been having and that I could get treatment for it.
Assuming that they haven't buggered up my blood test (it wasn't a fasting one or anything like that) that's not far off how I feel.
Though the receptionist telling me that they'll book me an appointment with the diabetes nurse is, frankly, a bit of a brutal way to break the news.
I agree - pretty brutal. I'm thinking of you in all of this and hope there's a way forward soon.
So... It's not diabetes. The diabetes nurse also does cholesterol and they wanted to talk to me about that!!!! Way to scare the shit out of people!
I'm still in a limbo loop between the GP and BUPA about the breakdown at work last Friday - which I guess could leave me feeling ropey still.
I also need my straw blood cell count repeated, and the nurse will try to get iron added to that test - that won't be taken until Feb 7th. I'm hopeful that it's nothing serious as I last gave blood in Octoberish, and blood was obviously OK then, but it does leave me in the dark still as to why I'm so run down, or why it needs repeating.
However I've seen the machine the tests are run on, it is literally a room full of conveyor belts, totally, mechanised after the tubes of blood are put on, so it could be as simple as a bubble in the uptake probe, especially if (as I suspect) at the end of the belt everything drops off into waste and can't be re-run. Keeping thousands of samples in case of repeats would take a huge amount of storage and administration.
I am waiting for a phone call from the diabetic nurse next week.
Two and a half years ago I was told I was pre-diabetic. The next blood test my numbers had gone just over the threshold so I was labelled diabetic, but at the next test they had dropped again. No symptoms, no medication, apart from starting statins. I had another blood test a month later for liver and kidney checks, then nothing.
My annual review date came and went, then it took a month for an appointment for tests etc to come through, and a further three weeks’ wait for the phone call. Given the ups and downs of the past year concentrating on my husband’s illness, death and all I have needed to do since then, I shall not be surprised at whatever I am told.
Today I consign my bank (with whom I've been for some sixty years or so) to the nether regions. I have had a letter telling me 'they're changing the way they are supporting my banking needs' by closing my local branch. Huh ... I've had more support from a gossamer jock strap.
I liked our local branch and the staff were very supportive with my confusions in banking matters.
I don't do Internet banking, nor do I have a smart phone or android, whatever that is.
My 'local' bank is now a longish (for me) car journey away. Or there is the post office .... with its long long line of us crusties......
To hell with the bankers. Mr Mainwaring will be turning in his grave ....
Today I consign my bank (with whom I've been for some sixty years or so) to the nether regions. I have had a letter telling me 'they're changing the way they are supporting my banking needs' by closing my local branch. Huh ... I've had more support from a gossamer jock strap.
I liked our local branch and the staff were very supportive with my confusions in banking matters.
I don't do Internet banking, nor do I have a smart phone or android, whatever that is.
My 'local' bank is now a longish (for me) car journey away. Or there is the post office .... with its long long line of us crusties......
To hell with the bankers. Mr Mainwaring will be turning in his grave ....
Don't panic!! We're Doomed if we panic...
I find online banking convenient, as I can't get to a Real Bank easily (the nearest branch is only a couple of miles away, but there's no parking space handy).
You don't really need a smartphone, as long as you've got access to the internet (which, obviously, you have) - do you use a Debit Card for everyday transactions, or do you prefer to use Real Cash?
I have banked for many years with a Building Society. They have never had as many branches as the big banks (although they, too, have closed some). AFAIK there's only ever been one branch in our city. The one time I use it (or the ATM outside) is the very rare occasion when I have a cheque to pay in - although even that could be posted (but one would have to buy a stamp!)
Who I feel for are small businesses who receive much of their income in cash and cheques - they do need banks (or, at least, "somewhere" to do their banking).
I haven't cashed my Christmas cheque from Mum yet, owing to the difficulty of getting to a bank. Scanning doesn't really work, because Mum uses cursive. The scanner thinks her "1" s look like 7s, although her sevens have a horizontal line half way up. I don't think I've ever tried to scan a cheque with a 7, so no idea whether it would be recognised as a 7. And the scanner doesn't recognise her "4"s as 4s.
My bank no longer has any branches in this county. The most convenient for me are either Birmingham or London. However, I get to use branches of other members of the same banking group instead who will now perform all the same functions - though it took a little while for them to get all of them.
Goodness knows how My Old Mum would manage if she were still in this Vale of Tears. She was over 80 before I could persuade her even to open a bank account, and have a chequebook (she invariably used cash and/or Post Office savings - remember the little pass-books?).
I visited her every week, and used to go to the Post Office to pay her utility bills. If the sum was (say) £26.33p, she would give me cash to the exact amount...she kept her pension money in the house (I collected it for her each week IIRC), and yes, it was under the mattress...
A good thing she wasn't like the Princess with the Pea - she'd never have slept a wink!
There was an occasion, toward the end of her life, when she began to get a bit vague about things, that she accused me of stealing about £800 of her hoarded pension money.
I duly checked under the mattress, and, sure enough, there it was - pushed towards the centre of the bed, and probably just out of her reach. I offered to bank the money for her (using her Post Office account), but she insisted on retaining it in the house *for emergencies*.
On telling this tale at work, and being duly indignant about being accused of stealing the money, one of my colleagues asked *And did you?*. I eventually forgave him, but the gale of laughter from everyone else was worth hearing...
A few years ago I was behind someone in a queue at the supermarket. He was a builder who had been doing a job for an elderly lady who had paid him in cash with money she presumably kept under the mattress or in a shoebox. He was trying to pay for his shopping with this, but they wouldn’t accept it as the banknotes were very old and had been out of circulation for years. From what I could see of this wad that was carefully rolled up, I’d guess there was several hundred pounds there.
There was an occasion (probably around 2010) when David and I were heading off for our annual holiday in Blighty, and a kindly, but elderly, gentleman in the Cathedral presented David with a bag of British coins that he thought might be useful.
It had florins, old pennies and half crowns in it ...
Why stop at that? When they come to do clearance on my house, they'll find a couple of denarii. I'm hoping inflation won't have affected Charon's services.
Yes, the oncologist will do that, with something called a peer-to-peer. I don't know how it works, but I assume it has her explaining why she prescribed these tests for me and why it's important I have them.
@Spike ... and anyone else who may find themselves in possession of old notes. If you go to the Bank of England website you can download a form and send them off and they'll give you the money. When we moved here we discovered that my other half's Godmother had hidden odd notes all around the house, plus left her an envelope with £500 in 1970s notes.
My local post office (though I’m grateful it exists) for being closed on Saturday morning but open on Sunday. Very annoying after having walked there with a parcel to return on Saturday, only to come back home with it.
We changed to decimal currency a mere 53 years ago, which took out the opportunity to pay with pennies carrying a worn silhouette of George IV. Old notes cease to be accepted in general use presumably because machines can only recognise the current ones.
Comments
What made it worse was the fact that bloody D****d T***p was bloviating at length on the TV Which It Is Forbidden to EVER Switch Off...
Marduk be praised, my name was called (by a very apologetic consultant) just before I decided to make a run for the door...
I know a handful of people who were on the point of applying to New College, but backed out when DeSantis exercised his hostile takeover. Some are at private colleges in Florida, others are in other states. Did anyone ever tell you why they chose to style themselves Novum Collegium rather than Collegium Novum?
I’ve been diabetic since 2013 and with a combination of medication and healthy(ish) diet it’s been under control. I was recently put under some other medication for an unrelated problem, unaware that a side effect is that it can play havoc with blood sugar, even more so if you’re already diabetic.
I didn’t realise this, but a couple of weeks after taking this stuff I’d noticed I was displaying all the classic symptoms of high blood sugar - mood swings, constantly thirsty and pissing like a horse - so after a week of unsuccessfully trying to get hold of my GP or practice nurse and with symptoms getting worse, I took myself to the Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) at my local hospital.
I arrived shortly after 8.45 and having spoken to the screening person was seen by a triage nurse fairly quickly who took a blood sugar reading which was, as I suspected, through the roof. I then returned to the waiting area.
Just before midday I was seen by a very young doctor who looked as though he’s only just started shaving. He asked me lots of questions off a screen, sometimes more than once. He then advised me to return to the waiting area while he consulted with his “senior” to discuss a course of treatment.
About half an hour later (12.30 ish), he reappeared and asked me questions about what medication I was taking. (These were questions I’d already answered) and then disappeared back into the inner sanctum.
About an hour and a half later, he came back to tell me that he’d arranged for me to see a diabetic nurse and that she’d be about 45 minutes.
2 hours later I saw the nurse. She was quite annoyed that I’d been put on this medication as it is apparently quite well known for buggering up blood sugar levels, especially if the patient is already diabetic. She prescribed some additional medication to take alongside the other stuff and also arranged for a one-off insulin injection to start getting the level down.
Back I went to the waiting area to wait for the injection. I was told this would be about 5-10 minutes. After about an hour I was called back in, was given the injection and was finally allowed to leave just before 5pm.
So, 8 hours in the hospital, less than half an hour of which was actually speaking to anybody. I’m just glad I had a good book with me.
It's amazing. If her blood drops below 3.5 we get an alarm. She sends a thumbs up sign to confirm she knows. If we don't hear from her and it continues to drop below 3, we phone her. It means that if she sleeps through her own alarm, we are her safety net.
It hasn't happened, but if she was at the point where a hypo was making her confused, or if she wasn't answering her phone, we could get help for her.
It's just wonderful! (And I say that as someone who was woken at 1am by the alarm two nights ago).
When I was diagnosed it actually came as a great relief as it explained a lot if the weird symptoms I’d been having and that I could get treatment for it.
Assuming that they haven't buggered up my blood test (it wasn't a fasting one or anything like that) that's not far off how I feel.
Though the receptionist telling me that they'll book me an appointment with the diabetes nurse is, frankly, a bit of a brutal way to break the news.
At least I was told face to face by my GP (different times). When she sent me for a blood test she had already said she suspected it was diabetes and made an appointment for two days later when the results were expected. Once I was diagnosed, she explained in detail all the implications of this and what treatment I’d receive.
I wonder how it would work nowadays.
Hopefully I'll be able to tell you. Looking back, I can see that I should have been suspicious, but I just thought that the extra drinking was the air conditioning at work.
I'm hoping whatever they recommend will sort me out fairly quickly when I apply it.
I agree - pretty brutal. I'm thinking of you in all of this and hope there's a way forward soon.
I'm still in a limbo loop between the GP and BUPA about the breakdown at work last Friday - which I guess could leave me feeling ropey still.
I also need my straw blood cell count repeated, and the nurse will try to get iron added to that test - that won't be taken until Feb 7th. I'm hopeful that it's nothing serious as I last gave blood in Octoberish, and blood was obviously OK then, but it does leave me in the dark still as to why I'm so run down, or why it needs repeating.
However I've seen the machine the tests are run on, it is literally a room full of conveyor belts, totally, mechanised after the tubes of blood are put on, so it could be as simple as a bubble in the uptake probe, especially if (as I suspect) at the end of the belt everything drops off into waste and can't be re-run. Keeping thousands of samples in case of repeats would take a huge amount of storage and administration.
Buggered if I know what's going on...
Two and a half years ago I was told I was pre-diabetic. The next blood test my numbers had gone just over the threshold so I was labelled diabetic, but at the next test they had dropped again. No symptoms, no medication, apart from starting statins. I had another blood test a month later for liver and kidney checks, then nothing.
My annual review date came and went, then it took a month for an appointment for tests etc to come through, and a further three weeks’ wait for the phone call. Given the ups and downs of the past year concentrating on my husband’s illness, death and all I have needed to do since then, I shall not be surprised at whatever I am told.
Not that I know, but I've been taking cod liver oil for a bit over a month so I am hoping it's higher than it was!
Hoping you get good news, @Puzzler .
No, do you know?
I liked our local branch and the staff were very supportive with my confusions in banking matters.
I don't do Internet banking, nor do I have a smart phone or android, whatever that is.
My 'local' bank is now a longish (for me) car journey away. Or there is the post office .... with its long long line of us crusties......
To hell with the bankers. Mr Mainwaring will be turning in his grave ....
Don't panic!! We're Doomed if we panic...
I find online banking convenient, as I can't get to a Real Bank easily (the nearest branch is only a couple of miles away, but there's no parking space handy).
You don't really need a smartphone, as long as you've got access to the internet (which, obviously, you have) - do you use a Debit Card for everyday transactions, or do you prefer to use Real Cash?
Who I feel for are small businesses who receive much of their income in cash and cheques - they do need banks (or, at least, "somewhere" to do their banking).
I visited her every week, and used to go to the Post Office to pay her utility bills. If the sum was (say) £26.33p, she would give me cash to the exact amount...she kept her pension money in the house (I collected it for her each week IIRC), and yes, it was under the mattress...
There was an occasion, toward the end of her life, when she began to get a bit vague about things, that she accused me of stealing about £800 of her hoarded pension money.
I duly checked under the mattress, and, sure enough, there it was - pushed towards the centre of the bed, and probably just out of her reach. I offered to bank the money for her (using her Post Office account), but she insisted on retaining it in the house *for emergencies*.
On telling this tale at work, and being duly indignant about being accused of stealing the money, one of my colleagues asked *And did you?*. I eventually forgave him, but the gale of laughter from everyone else was worth hearing...
It had florins, old pennies and half crowns in it ...
I should bloody hope so
What she said!