The NHS and me

Fair play to the NHS.

While I believe there are better health systems and providers, I've certainly been getting my money's worth since I turned 60 a few years ago.

It began with my local surgery booking me in for what felt like a service or MOT.

Within days I was prescribed statins to reduce cholesterol in my blood, and since then I’ve been prescribed two more pills that I have to take every day.

One is to control my blood pressure, the other is to allow the blood to flow more freely around the body.

However, it was when I described to my GP symptoms that suggested a rather more acute problem that the system really kicked in.

I was immediately told to double the dose of one (multi-talented) pill and a few weeks later I was booked in to my local hospital to undergo series of scans – ultrasound, CT, and MRI –with the aim of checking my various organs for signs of wear and tear, or worse.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that my body is a temple, but the results weren't too bad, all things considered.

High blood pressure is still the main issue, not the condition of my liver, kidneys and prostate.

Anyway, last week I had another appointment, this time for an ‘abdominal aortic aneurysm screening’.

The letter inviting me to have what was effectively another ultrasound scan arrived out of the blue a few weeks ago.

The purpose, I was told, was to 'help find an aneurysm' in the main blood vessel that supplies blood to the body.

What they were looking for was any swelling – which can be serious – but they couldn't find anything so I passed that test and we move on.

I suppose I should be grateful that the NHS is taking such an interest in me, and I am.

My GP, in particular, is a very pleasant fellow who has never once told me to lose weight, although common sense would suggest that it’s the major reason for the high blood pressure.

He knows I know that, and he doesn’t push the point, which I appreciate.

He also knows what I do for a living and, having asked, has never mentioned it again. (Perhaps he thought I was joking.)

In the meantime the only side effect of the pills I take each day is occasional drowsiness and the fact that I’m advised not to drink grapefruit juice, which I miss but not as much as I thought I would.

I don’t want to sound facetious, but the thing I worry about most is not a sudden and possibly fatal heart attack, but the thought of long hours in hospital.

My father, who underwent two heart by-pass operations and then a heart transplant before he was 70, spent the last few years of his life on dialysis - four hours at a time, three days a week - and that didn’t include getting to and from the hospital.

His quality of life plummeted but he kept going (until he was 84) largely for the sake of my mother, although it was difficult for her too.

With that in mind, I am already making plans to equip myself with one, and possibly two, portable batteries, and even a spare tablet, because I know that if I was to spend long periods in hospital the one thing that would make the experience vaguely tolerable would be my iPad - and the access it gives to books, podcasts, news, and so much more.

Without it, and I speak with some experience of sitting in hospital waiting rooms for hours on end, I think I might die of boredom.

See also: ‘Scanned alive’ and ‘What’s up, doc?’.