I apologise for the lack of bloggage, this will be excused latter. Right now i will chronicle monday and what happened to me on that day, or at least comment about it.
For the most part it was a wasted day. I got up around half 9 as is now my norm. And i sat down to my dads laptop and dawdled through the hours till about 11 or so when i cleaned the kitchen in full to make it look like i was actually doing the housework i was meant to be doing.
I had wanted to wake at 5am or whatever inhuman hour my parents wake is, and head into town and spend time with the society etc and do some judging and generally help out and "hang with my hommies". I really really really miss campus life and doing anything in particular.
If i had passed my assignment i would be on the wards in hospital. Slaving after people for free, learning minute amounts and generally doing something with my day, and or life.
Instead i've been watching tv on my dads laptop, with the widescreen tv showing bbc news 24 on mute, (so as to not miss the apocalypse or another source of the time) and generally looking after the house and feeding the dogs.
Last wednesday i even walked the dogs for about 10 kilometers just because i was bored! 10 KM! I was fucking knackered, and they slept for the rest of the day, poor little things.
But back to monday. My daily clean up was running late, and lazy. I caught Dexter, Family guy and other shows but slowly and mainly the morning was catching up on blogs.
I then had to go to the doctor. I had been last thursday for a consultation and i had learned what it actually was i had.
A skin condition thats a cousin of psoriasis called Lichen Planus.
Its a very mild thing and isnt actually all the serious, just a bitch.
So on monday i had to go into the doctor for a biopsy, and the removal of a "congenital mole" on my chest.
After the gruelling hours spent driving in with my father we eventually got there.
There is little to be said about drives with my father, but they can be very dull, nothing but talk radio, the odd idiological discussion, tid bits of philosophy, polotics and trivial facts, but usually one sided, uninteresting and generally arse numbingly boring.
I'm used to the 15-20 minutes we usually get between the train or bus to home, but an hour and 50 minutes heading into Dublin can be torture.
Drogheda, Dublin Road, Julianstown, M1, Drumcondra Road onto Griffith Avenue, Some random housing estate, The ballymun road and then all the way in and spitting back out again at Christ Church.
We decided going via the back of the city instead of across or through it would be best, so we went "home" to Rathfarnham. Damn it's changed. Well home is more Ballinteer but our old housing estate was so posh that it adressed itself as Rathfarnham solely because it was beside Marley Park.
We then went up the "green route" that passes behind our old estate to get onto the slip road that we thought went to Sandyford and the Private hospital.
We got there and we were met with no road signage and several exists on the roundabout. We saw two seperate tower block area's sticking up and we couldn't figure out which one it was. So we went ahead thinking we could still stay on this "slip road", big mistake.
We ran out of road and straight onto the M50. We went under the junction we thought was the right one and flew down the motorway for a couple of miles before we could turn back. It was so annoying.
And then when we got back the junction we got lost on turned out to be the right one, we could see a big green banner about 3 stories high hanging off an unfinnished apartment block advertising the very collection of buildings we wanted.
In time, just about.
Up to the day ward.
"You for Dr Foreigner, he's upstairs on the 3rd floor in the "Satalite day surgery" today" said the Clerk.
Despite directions for the day ward on the first floor from Dr Foreigner, oh well i guess he was bumped up.
Lifts, where are the shagging lifts, oh right, hidden around the corner with little signage.
Door wheres the door, Satalite Day Surgery anyone? Oh it's not signed it litterally is the first door here...
Another Clerk.
"I wouldn't know, it's through there."
Arrive at my destination with Father in tow, only one there.
A scrawny guy with glasses is tip tap tapping at his computer and tell's me he'll be with me in a minute.
I go through.
Clerk: "First time here?"
SD "yes, well no, i was here on thursday for a consultation."
Clerk "Okay." He turns and grabs a few forms slashes out sections with his pen and hands it to me.
I fill it out with aid of a note in my note book. As i hover to answer what my DOB is and so on he starts asking me them for another computer form.
Clerk: "Religion?"
SD: "Eh.. Agnostic..?"
And other information i won't share, but short and brief and generally annoying. Then with the forms signed i sit there for a couple of minutes as he types and prints and doesnt say a word. I twiddle my thumbs, my dad checks with me by mouthing through the open door if the date i asked the clerk for was the correct one. I just nod.
A random comment about the weather. "Yes it is rather warm today..." I say in reply, obviously caring very little about the predictable and silly small talk that came from nowhere after 2 minutes of silence as the clerk frustratingly filled out his forms and clicked in vein to get his printer to work when ordered to. It printed eventually...
Then i sat back in the weighting area.
An old man babbled about some old irish celeb from the radio with my dad, and also how his assistant is a pakistani but "i shout at him in japanese..." I smiled at the thought but was busy putting my wallet etc in my bag and handing my phone to my dad as he had left his at home.
I also noticed the tea trolley for hospitality was parked infront of the fire alarm circuits and controlls. Right ontop of some of the master switches at that, very safe...
Finally the nurse called me in.
As i entered the room the Dr Foreigner was there, it was all go now.
The nurse asked me where i was having the mole removed etc, my chest. And then the doctor looked at my rash.
Despite taking no medicine that day it was mild, but this was because it was late after noon and been sitting on my arse all day. It was at its weakest.
But he found one on my right inner arm that was good enough to rip up so he chose that one.
I took off my Jumper and T-shirt and lay back on the paper hygene cover of the opperatting table.
"Think happy thoughts, and it will be all be over before you know it." Said nurse 1.
"heh" i thought.
The over head light was moved into place and i waited.
The doctor scootched back to me on his stool and pulled a dressing trolley with his disposable cutting kit and some swabbing liquids.
"What gauge do you want doctor?"
Hmm i should have recognised all that dialogue, frankly i ignored most of it, even didnt hear what local i was getting.
"Now think happy thoughts, just lie back there and it'll all be over soon."
Hooo hoo hooo shooo shooo shoo. Deep Breath deep breath. There's a dent on the ceiling, OUCH OUCH OUCH, Pinchy feeling, pinchy feeling, deeper pinching feeling, breath, breath, breath, FUCK off with the patronising words, i know i'm doing fine, i have no happy place!, Breath, breath, Ooohh the Lamp looks like it's from Close encounters of the 3rd kind! Okay thats done.
Now the arm....
The the sheets go on. Sterile sheets. Damn my arms sore in this arkward position.
And i have to say its kind of embarrassing sitting here in front of 2 nurse's who aren't actually paying attention to me all to much, and yet i am fully aware that i have a stomach mike the Michelin man when i sit forward. Damn i need to get into shape, just so i don't have to have little dumpling rolls of fat when i have to bare all for strangers during a clinical procedure....
The Doctor starts to cut away at the mole and i flinch a bit but look up at the ceiling, breathing.
"Are you okay, do you feel anything?"
"No just the pressure and the movement, it's a little weird, but no pain." Exactly what i expect, and what they want to hear. And of course what i felt.
Then after a few bizarre tugs and chops the nurse is holding a mole, flesh and fermaldahide in a toxic waste cup inch's from my face "All gone".
LOVELY.
Then the doctor leaves for some reason, my arm is getting tired here!
Chit chat with the nurse's.
"well i was studying nursing until recently."
"I was in second year."
"no i was in my repeat year."
"it was an assignment on the outpatient care of a patient with hypertension, asthma and give him smoking cessation and weight loss advise."
Nurse 2 talked about how she did it as a mature student a few years back, but could never have passed if it wasn't for spell check.
And Nurse 1 did it back in 1991, that apparently tells me how old she is. But i don't care about the maths my arm is uncomfertable and i'm sitting here all moobs and Michelin man chest!
The stiches hurt for the mole, i had felt the pinch and pull as he closed the site where my little mole had been.
Now i worried it had been so long that my wrist would hurt more, "is this local really lasting this long" i thought in my head. I didn't doubt it though. The second the doctor was back he was at it again and it was all done. I'm biopsied.
He then asked about my Acne, and whether we, as in he, were going to do anything for it. I just said after all these years its actually pretty mild, i don't even manage it anymore. I get by fine and even with health insurance i wasn't going to let that guy do any more, or milk more money.
I had taken 3 course's of antibiotics in the passed without a cure. I knew that the last option was a dermatology only drug that had a major risk of a side affect that causes low moods, FUCK THAT SHIT!
I was all done. The dressings will be off in 48 hours, stitches in 10 days.
I love dressings. My favorite skill when i was doing nursing.
Out to the dad. All done.
He couldn't figure out my phone for some reason. Eh, it's the C button, it clears mistakes, YES there's 2 buttons there.... one C, one Red...
The Dad stops and asks the Clerk we talked to on our way in if we have to pay?
"I wouldn't know, this is cardiology, if he didn't stop you to ask for payment the i'd say just go?"
"Right dad, leggit!"
I knew it was on the insurance, but to stop and ask was just a bit silly.
Oh god, rush hour, heading north? 1hour 50 minutes just to get to the M1!!!
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