h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Though I restrain myself from making such noises in public, in private I don't trouble to.

Really, it was the "oooh"s and "ow"s (with a downright feline accent) I was thinking of.

I've had ongoing coccydynia for well over a year now and if I sit wrong or on certain types of sofas or chairs I'll make rather pathetic sounds and take way too long to stand up again.

I shall make it a belated new year's resolution not to grunt. That involves using more muscles to sit down properly and not just flop, so it's quite a valid resolution. Wish me luck!

Watch straps. Every time one of us buy's the other a watch for Christmas/Birthday there is yet another reinvention of something that ain't broke. The strap clasp.

Spending 20 minutes having to work the blooming thing out without breaking it is really very irritating.

I only buy pocket watches, the chains haven't changed in the last century or so

I have thick wrists and have a heck of time finding large enough watchbands. All but one of the "large" ones I have require me to use the last hole. That one that doesn't just proves to me that the others lie.

I have replaced the straps on some of my watches with expanding bracelets. They're easier to put on than fiddling with a buckle or clasp.

I have the opposite problem to the Baron - my wrists are very thin & I end up with loads of strap flapping about. I've now got a metal strap with a clasp, had several links taken out & I find this better, although it does slip about a lot.

The next time I order a watch band I'm probably going to go with the "NATO" G10 style watch strap.

http://gearpatrol.com/2014/01/07/icon-nato-strap/

my dad always had those straps - in Regimental colours :D

Fair warning, this is not a Petty Hate. This is a rant.

I suffer from MS. My misbehaving immune system also affects my eyes, giving me recurring episodes of uveitis. Unfortunately my uveitis is asymptomatic, so I need to have my eyes checked every 3-4 months. That's the background, now the rant.

I saw an eye specialist in September. At the end of the appointment he said he'd see me in 3-4 months. Fair enough. I checked with reception whether I had to make the appointment myself. I was told that the ophthalmology department would write with the appointment details. It's now January and I haven't heard anything, so I rang them to find out what's going on. I was told that I'm on a waiting list for a 'follow-up' appointment. I was transferred to the department that handles appointments and was told that they are fully booked, and that everybody goes on a waiting list for appointments.

I can't afford to be on a waiting list. If I do have another episode of uveitis and it's not caught in time, it could seriously affect my eyesight. I already have the early stages of cataracts, which may have been caused or exacerbated by previous episodes of uveitis. I don't know whether the problem lies with the local NHS trust or whether it's a general problem with the NHS. All I know is that the process of trying to sort out an appointment was so stressful that I was almost in tears when I put the phone down.

Yikes!

I have a friend that nearly lost his sight to undiagnosed uveitis.

He was complaining for weeks about his eyes. He was photophobic and his eyes had a spongy pink covering like conjunctivitis. I recommended he go see an ophthalmologist, but since he had no insurance (US of course) he just went to a GP whose daughter he dated and gave him cheap or free office visits and wrote prescriptions for him. He gave him some drops and pills and also told him to see an ophthalmologist but he didn't. After a month or so he got very sick, vomiting and headache, and went to the emergency room. This was at a local hospital that my mother once worked for but has since lost it's once good reputation due to stories like this one.

The ER attending doctor made an assumption based on my friend's place of employment. He is a DJ at a gentlemen's club. The doctor kept wanting to check his penis for signs of venereal disease regardless of no symptoms that would indicate an STD. After he was finally satisfied that it wasn't gonorrhea or the like, he made another assumption that it was meningitis again without symptoms like neck ache. They basically just gave him antibiotics and got him rehydrated and sent him home after the weekend. One thing they never did was check his eyes even though they looked like pink sponges.

A week or two later he called me asking for the ophthalmologist's name I had previously recommended. He had suddenly lost his vision and was in serious pain. He called another friend who could pick him up and take him to the ophthalmologist's office. Once he walked into the office, the receptionist saw his condition and rushed him past the waiting room. The doctor he was to see wasn't in the building. Once he was reached on the phone, he insisted my friend be rushed to his operating theatre at another location (the doctor is locally renowned for various surgeries he performs, lasik and the like).

He did emergency surgery to release the pressure in my friends eyes. (IIRC it was something like 40 PSI.) He told my friend that if he had waited until Monday (this was Friday) he'd be blind from the glaucoma he was experiencing caused by the uveitis that he said should have been obvious to any doctor. He said the reason he was photophobic (bright light hurt his eyes) was because his uveitis had kept his irises dilated. He offered to testify if my friend decided to sue the ER doctor (he didn't, but I wish he had.)

He recovered quickly and hasn't had any serious long term effects. His vision is acceptable with glasses.


His girlfriend at the time claimed responsibility. She was rather unstable and vindictive against him for some unclear reason. She apparently put a "curse" on him. She also surreptitiously fed him organ meats hoping they would aggravate his gout. He learned all this after he finally dumped her from a mutual acquaintance.

CD.

I suspect strongly that the admin-heavy process that you are describing here is not so chaotic as you might suspect. I expect that it is carefully choreographed waiting-time management.

The modern NHS is so closely scrutinised by commissioning bodies that falling outside of waiting times costs hospitals / departments funding. I would put money on your wait being managed to fit in with the demands of commissioners. These are known as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The resultant masses of administration may well NOT be in the interests of the patient.

It isn't just waiting times either. You may well have been asked things like religion, sexual orientation and housing status.

The commissioning, checking, collection and management of data within the NHS is a massive and costly operation - in the belief that having established whether someone lives with their parents, is gay, does voluntary work shows that the NHS is efficient. Of course, all it establishes is whether that data has been gathered. Or more correctly, that those boxed have been ticked.

PP.

I wasn't asked anything like that, so I don't think it's a box-ticking issue. Unless they have that information squirreled away with my medical records.

The original referral was made by an eye specialist at the QE in Birmingham. He's the one that warned me about the problems I could have if I had uveitis and it went untreated.

Reading between the lines, it could be a problem with the hospital where I was seen. The county's ophthalmology department is based in Kidderminster, which has a decent well-equipped hospital. They do eye surgery there as well as eye checks. My appointment was at a local community hospital that has to bring doctors in for the eye clinics. These are simple eye checks, not surgery. The waiting list could just be for the local hospital, not for appointments generally. I may have to accept that the only way to get appointments at the appropriate interval is to go to Kidderminster. This is not ideal as I rely on Hubby to take me to and from my appointments.

Do you really not have any symptoms?
I know some hosp are struggling with the volume of Px needing f/u in a certain time. I would say if you have sudden changes that you think are a bout of uveitis, go to A & E.

When I saw a specialist in June he went through the symptoms with me to determine how uveitis manifests itself. Sore,red eyes - no. Increase in floaters - no. Photophobia - no. Blurred vision - no. Loss of peripheral vision - no. This means my uveitis is asymptomatic or, in layman's terms, I don't display the usual symptoms when I get it. Consequently I can't head for A&E when I have an attack of uveitis. That's why I need to use an eye specialist every 3-4 months - to catch it before it does any damage.

Ah, that really is a problem for you.

Not sure if this is a new PH or not, but it's annoying the heck out of me...

People who keep prodding door open buttons.

It's not going to open any quicker you idiots!

Was that on a train? I get the same feeling with people who watch you press the button on a pelican or toucan crossing, and then press it themselves.

<BB<