You couldn’t make it up…

My hospital appointment to get my knee sorted was today. I booked it online on the 7th of May. This required me using a days holiday from work.

I was there the regulation 5 minutes early at Kidderminster Hospital reception for my 11:10am appointment with the acute knee & hip injury Department.

I showed the lady on reception my printed off online appointment sheet and she promptly told me she had never seen one of them before. You know when you get a sense of foreboding that things are not going to go well for you…

After 10 minutes of key tapping, she says to me quite incredulously “Why are you here? Your appointment was cancelled!”

I resisted the urge to smash the ball into the back of the sarcasm net. I answered quite politely, “Nobody has informed me that my appointment was cancelled.” The word OBVIOUSLY was left unsaid, but I knew that she knew it was hanging in the air.

“Well it was” she said “You booked it on the 7th of May and they cancelled it on the 9th of May.” Please take note of today’s date gentle Reader.

“Can you tell me why and more to the point when can I see the knee consultant?” Said I.

“Hang on, go and sit over there” she said “I’ll speak to the Boss.”

10 minutes later she came back brandishing a phone, “speak to this lady, she’ll be able to help you.”

Without being boring and long winded, it transpired that the knee consultant saw the results of my MRI scan and decided that he couldn’t repair the damage and chucked it to a colleague who apparently could. Quite what type of damage and exactly what he decided he couldn’t do I have absolutely no idea. But I’m thinking it must mean surgery.

Now was the problem of actually getting to see the new bloke. The NHS bureaucracy is renowned for moving slower than one of the Earth’s continental plates.

To prevent terminal boredom, and suffice it to say after much contact with various people/administrators/receptionists/secretaries and general phone answering types I believe I have finally secured yet another appointment to see my new consultant on July the 18th. That is to be confirmed in writing though and the time has yet to be decided. It is this year I think, I’d better check…

The way things are going, I’ll be having the treatment for my knee on the first anniversary of the injury which is next February!