Catharsis

I've had a really crappy day. Dialysis this morning, everything is hunky dory with the exception that I've developed an infection around the catheter in my chest so I need to have a course of some fairly heavy duty IV antibiotics. The catheter goes in my chest just above my boobline, tunnels up under the skin and dives into one of the large blood vessels that lead directly into the heart so getting an infection is potentially bad news. The line is there on a semi permanent basis and it's used to remove and return my blood to/from the dialysis machine. I've had several surgeries in my arm to beef up the blood supply and make a permanent access point for the dialysis but my arm isn't holding up its side of the bargain so we have to use the line for the time being. I shall be so happy when I get the blasted thing out even if it does mean that the alternative is a couple of rather large needles being inserted in my arm 3 times a week - fun, fun, fun till her Daddy takes the TBird away .... not.

I manage to get away from the unit at around 11:30 and I roll into work at 12:15. I'm completely pumped, raring to go knowing that as I had to leave the office at 15:00 in order to make a doctor's appointment and tomorrow I shall be covering for the Maintenance Group Commander's secretary, I only had a little under 3 hours to get my loose ends tied up before going on leave for a fortnight from Monday. What happens when I get to my desk? I'm locked out because I need 5 patches installed. Chuffin' terrific! I lost half an hour waiting to have those installed.

I was able to get most of the things on my list accomplished but 15:00 rolled around pretty fast and I had to leave with a couple of things left to do - I'll have to go in ultra early tomorrow and send the files to myself by email so I can work on them across the street when I'm covering the other job. By the time I save everything and shut it all down I'm ten minutes behind schedule but I wasn't too worried because the doctor I'm seeing usually runs late.

I arrive at the surgery and check in adding as humbly as I can that I'm 10 minutes late. The receptionist says we'll have to see if the doctor can see you. I ask if the doctor is on schedule? She says no but there's a gap after your appt so you should be able to see her then. I say but if the doctor hasn't got to me yet how come I have to be fitted in at another time? She replies with because you're late and there are people after you. I say but if the doctor was 20 minutes late and I was on time she would see me so what's the difference? She says it's because you're late.

We go round and round in circles for a while like this, I'm trying to be assertive without being nasty. The last thing I want is to be barred from this practice for abusing the receptionist, she's getting all defensive and wouldn't even look me in the eye. Eventually she flounces off saying that she was going to see the doctor, so I say sweetly that's awesome, thank you, and I sit down. The next thing I know is she's back this time with reinforcements to tell me that yes the doctor would see me. The backup gave me a steely Paddington stare so I can only imagine what the receptionist told her.

Now I could understand it if they had already moved on to the next person on the list after me but if the doctor was late anyway what exactly is the problem? Of course what I really wanted to say to the receptionist is that I had to wait 3 weeks for the appointment which was made for a day that I had requested specifically to avoid. Having already missed the morning at work because of dialysis, I didn't want to miss the afternoon of the same day as well. I'm trying to maintain some credibility not be perceived as off sick all the time, and I'm working effin' hard to keep everything together under some pretty shitty circumstances and you don't have a clue what it's like to work full time and to have diabetes and kidney failure. And that was bloody well why I was 10 minutes late!