Bye

It's been a month since the hormonal therapy started, so I'm due for another injection. Go to the hospital, register, have the doctor write a prescription, go to the pharmacy, buy the medicine, go back to the doctor for him to administer it, done. Simple, right? Well, if you thought so, you're a naive fool.

Meanwhile, the hospital has done some, erm, "re-organization". The registration process, which used to be free, now costs money. About 30 euros for, I kid you not, "administrative services". That sum is not a problem for me but it is a non-trivial amount of money for many of the people who have come and who just don't happen to be carrying this amount of cash with them (and who had no idea that they would be required to pay for this). In addition, the whole procedure which used to take 1-3 minutes in the past (show me your ID, which doctor you're visiting? tap-tap on the computer, done) now takes considerably longer because there's a bunch of papers to sign, so there is a huge line. I spend 45 minutes waiting on this line just for the privilege of paying 30 euros and having my name put on a list. The woman in front of me breaks down in tears, because even after digging out all the yellow cents from her wallet, she's still a couple of euros short. I take pity of her and give her the missing amount.

After successfully registering, I go to the doctor's office for him to write the prescription. Hopefully, not for the medicine that the pharmacy doesn't have but for the other, equivalent one. Whoops, here we hit another snag. The doctor is not there. That office is shared by 3 different doctors and right now it is used by one of the others (some woman). Where is my doctor? No idea, go check in the oncology department (which is nearby).

A spot of luck, I see my doctor in the halls. He vaguely recognizes me (probably because I'm the only person consistently wearing a mask) but isn't sure what exactly I'm doing here. I remind him that it's time for my monthly injection, so I need a prescription. He starts writing a prescription, gets my name wrong because he misremembered it and didn't bother asking, so he has to scrap it and start again, all the while consulting some colleague of his on the phone about treating a friend of this colleague, which friend is apparently under the mistaken impression that she's somehow special and can be treated differently (like, more expeditively) than the other patients.

Eventually I get the prescription and trot down to the pharmacy. Guess what? The pharmacy doesn't have this medicine this time, either. But, but, but... I need this injected today! Well, this sounds like a problem - but not like the pharmacist's problem. Still, she informs me that they are likely to receive the medicine some time in the afternoon (between 14:00 and 17:00, maybe), asks me for my phone number and promises to call me if/when they get it. Do they have the other one - they one they didn't have the last time? Not a chance; you won't find that anywhere. Any chance that I'll find this one in another pharmacy? Maybe, depends on the pharmacy.

So, instead of going back to the doctor to administer the injection, I take the bus back home (I don't have a car) and start trawling the nearby pharmacies. After a few times of the routine "g'day, showing the prescription, do you have this?, WTF is that? tap-tap on the computer, nope, we don't, kthxbye" I hit a spot of luck - one of the pharmacies has it. So, I buy it and take the bus back to the hospital.

All this takes time. I've started early in the morning but after waiting 45 minutes in a line to register, looking for the doctor, visiting pharmacies, bus trips to, from, and back to the hospital, each taking 30-40 minutes, it's way past noon. I catch my doctor but he doesn't have any time for me, he has to attend some kind of consultation. So, he directs me to the nurses - which really makes sense; administering injections is something the nurses should be doing.

Sure, no problem, says the head nurse, but you have to pay. Sure, no problem, say I, where? On the 1^st floor, of course. Of course. So, I trot back down, pay the equivalent of 20 euros, and trot back up. The nurse tells me to wait in front of the same room where the doc injected me a month ago, so I go there. Some other nurse arrives in a minute to take care of my problem - but when she opens the door, the room is occupied by some other patient. Whoops.

No problem, I'll wait. After all, I've been mostly waiting for more than 4 hours since the morning. When I wasn't traveling by bus or trotting up and down the stairs, that is. After a while, a third nurse appears and takes me to a hall, which is filled with people older than me, sitting in chairs, with systems dripping poison down their veins; I guess they do chemotherapy here.

There is a cot in one of the corners that can be enclosed by curtains. The nurse takes me there, closes the curtains, has me remove by upper clothes, asks me at which side I've been injected the last time (because now she has to inject me on the other side) and proceeds to inject me. She does it much more expertly than the doc. I don't feel a thing and there is no bleeding. I compliment her for her work and make sure to tell her that she clearly has more experience with this kind of stuff than the doctor. She smiles.

She tells me to keep laying down for 5 minutes, pressing the spot on the skin that was injected, and disappears. Barely a minute has passed and a fourth nurse appears. What are you doing here? Well, I was administered an injection and... How long ago? About a minute and... Why is your head up? You have to be laying down and relaxing! Well, because some nurse is talking to me and I have to lift my head to look at her, and the fucking cot has no fucking pillow! Get out! So I do and head home. In about a week, I have to come again and visit the bunker for the next big box of pills. Wish me luck.

By now, I have a feeling that there is a race of who's going to kill me first - the cancer, the doctors, or the bureaucrats? My money's on the bureaucrats.