A hospital visit or a shopping trip
The hospital visit with my mother yesterday did start quite badly. J and I were a couple of minutes late to meet her at the hospital when J's phone rang. We thought it would be Mum asking why we weren't there yet but it was Mum telling us she hadn't left home. F, my mum's carer, is just back from Uganda and hadn't changed her watch and my mum exists in her own time zone so they were running an hour late. Fortunately I am aware that these things can happen so generally arrange that we get to the hospital an hour early. We snaffled a wheelchair and waited for them to turn up, which they duly did...eventually.
She was supposed to be having a CT scan for her ulcerated legs but when we got to the appointment (in plenty of time) we were told that they thought it would be safer for her to have an MRI scan. The MRI department had very kindly agreed to fit her in without an appointment so off we went. My mum has had MRI scans before but a very nice doctor came to explain the procedure to her.
Mum: Oh, is that the one that's just like being at the crematorium. They put you into a tunnel and the only thing missing is the organ music.
Doctor: We don't quite like to think of it like that.
At these moments I usually pretend to be a random passerby but as the doctor was talking to me too it wasn't particularly effective this time!
The MRI people were all lovely, let us go away and have coffee rather than hanging around and we really didn't have to wait too long. When it was all done off we went to get a taxi but our local hospital has some small shops that Mum likes to visit so we ended up leaving hospital loaded with shopping bags. I'm sure she thinks she's there to shop rather to have any treatment.
I suspect they won't actually be able to do anything for her but at least they are trying. The NHS is a wonderful thing.
In other news: I was very sad to hear that Tim Piggott-Smith had died. We saw him Educating Rita a few years ago and he was wonderful.
She was supposed to be having a CT scan for her ulcerated legs but when we got to the appointment (in plenty of time) we were told that they thought it would be safer for her to have an MRI scan. The MRI department had very kindly agreed to fit her in without an appointment so off we went. My mum has had MRI scans before but a very nice doctor came to explain the procedure to her.
Mum: Oh, is that the one that's just like being at the crematorium. They put you into a tunnel and the only thing missing is the organ music.
Doctor: We don't quite like to think of it like that.
At these moments I usually pretend to be a random passerby but as the doctor was talking to me too it wasn't particularly effective this time!
The MRI people were all lovely, let us go away and have coffee rather than hanging around and we really didn't have to wait too long. When it was all done off we went to get a taxi but our local hospital has some small shops that Mum likes to visit so we ended up leaving hospital loaded with shopping bags. I'm sure she thinks she's there to shop rather to have any treatment.
I suspect they won't actually be able to do anything for her but at least they are trying. The NHS is a wonderful thing.
In other news: I was very sad to hear that Tim Piggott-Smith had died. We saw him Educating Rita a few years ago and he was wonderful.