Call this cheating, but its my blog and I can bend the rules as I please. I took this photo a year ago today, for the purpose of the blog.Here I am. Waiting patiently, as a patient does, for a GP to see me. A few days prior, at the tail end of a nasty cold and cough, I felt a sharp pain between my ribcage - muscle strain?! fracture?? Days later the pain hadn't subsided, but worsened instead.
Hypochondria set in and I was determined I had a tumour in my spine or some rare and incurable conditoin that would do me in. So I took myself to Westminster's A&E, albeit reluctantly, because I pretty much knew what I was in for.
Three long and tedious hours surrounded by coughing, snotting, bleeding, aching people before I was taken into the clinic only to be placed behing this blue curtain - a visual shield but not sound proof, allowing me to listen in on the dialogue between patient who needs psychological support and GP. That could be me in a few years, I suspect, if I don't get over this hypononsense.
Finally, a friendly GP allowed himself into my quarter, checked the usual signs - pulses, breathing, heart rate - and told me that I probably just pulled a muscle and any further diagnosis would require x-ray or MRI - another long waiting time during which I'd most likely just recover. He was young, assertive and good looking, so I believed him.
He sent me home with a wink, and I can attest one year later that the pain has not returned, and that I will think twice before submitting myself to A&E for such frivolous niggling aches and pains. Neither will I attend for what in hindsight I realise was a session of 'psych therapy' - for a GP to just tell me I'm gonna be alright. I'm alright.
