Bye

The other day I took my mother to an ophtalmogist for a routine eye scan - to see if her macular degeneration has started progressing again and if she needs another injection in the eye to stop it. We arrived on time, even a bit early for the appointment. Nevertheless, we had to wait for an hour and a half before our trun came. There was a place to sit, but the chairs were hard and uncomfortable and after an hour and a half it felt like torture for both of us.

So, when our turn finally came, I helped install my mother in the front of the eye scanner, asked whether I could take a seat, and plopped myself into one without waiting for permission. One of the doctors in the room deigned to notice that something was off with me and asked if I was OK. I hate stupid questions, and I'm that kind of guy, so my answer was "No, I'm not. I'm dying."

Suddently, the heads of all the three doctors in the room swiveled like gun turrets in my direction. One of them asked me if I'd like her to take my blood pressure - probably thinking that I was having a heart attack. "It's not going to help," was my reply. "I have cancer."

The relief felt by the doctors was palpable. You could literally read on their faces "Oh, so he isn't dying in my room right now, and I don't fucking care about the rest". Oh, well, whatever.

After the scanning, we went to the ophtalmogist's office, where she would interpret the results of the scan. Her conclusion was that my mother's eye illness has advanced only a little bit and, given that she's 93 years old, there is no reason to torture her with yet another injection in the eye. Just come back for another scan in 2 months. Well, thank you, doctor; both of us are relieved.

Anyway. Today it is time for my once-in-six-months injection with the potent stuff. In theory, it goes like this: my personal physician writes a prescription, I get it from the pharmacy (for free), then go to the hospital, where a nurse administers it. You know what's the difference between theory and practice, right? In theory, there is no difference. In practice, however, there is.

I got the prescription without any problems. The pharmacy had the medicine in stock but refused to give it to me. Apparently, it can be obtained no more often than once every 180 days - and there were still 3 more days left. So, come back in 3 days.

Three days later, I got the injection and went to the hospital to have it administered. In theory, my personal physician's nurse could administer it for free. However, this is some special kind of injection, with a spring that expells the container with the medicine under the skin, and if she screws up due to lack of experience with this particular kind of injection, the whole thing has to be thrown away and I need to pay for a new one. So, I better go to the hospital, where the nurses of the oncology department do this all the time and have the necessary experience. Although I'd have to pay for the procedure there.

As I've mentioned before, the oncology department is on the 8^th floor. The place where you pay, however, is on the ground floor. So, I decided to be "smart" and pay for the procedure in advance, so that I won't have to go back and forth. The place where you pay is labeled "Information", believe it or not.

Of course, there is a line for it. When my turn eventually comes, I explain my problem and show my ID, in order to prove that I'm not someone else who likes being injected with this stuff for fun. I am asked who my doctor is. I tell them the name of the younger doctor who usually talks to me and prescribes the pills - but emphasize that I've come for the injection this time and it is one of the nurses who will administer it.

The lady at the information desk looks confused for a moment and eventually decides that all this is above her pay grade. So, she tells me that I have to go to the emergency department instead, pay at the registration desk there, and have the injection administered there. But before I paid here and it was administered by the nurses of the oncology department! Well, that was before and this is now.

Fine. So, I go to the emergency department and explain my story at the registration desk there. "This is nonsense," exclaims the lady there. "I've worked at the Information desk before, I've handled patients for exactly this sort of thing, and I know that it is nonsense. If they didn't know what to do, they should have called the oncology department and asked." She also grabs the phone, calls the Information desk, and tells them off. Then she tells me to go back to them.

So I do. The lady there, having being told off, now knows what to do, takes my payment of 24 euros, gives me a receipt, and sends me off to the oncology department. I take the elevator to the 8^th floor, go to the oncology department, find the head nurse, and explain what I need done.

"You're too early," she says. "Hormonal injections are administered only between 10:00 and 13:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays." And points to a sign that says exactly that and which I had failed to notice (or failed to remember) from 6 months before. "Go to the manipulation room and wait."

OK, there are only 5 minutes left until 10:00, so no big deal, right? I go to the manipulation room and wait outside. The only problem is that there is no place to sit. After half an hour of waiting, I'm completely groggy, I'm out of waiting juice, and I'm starting to weigh the alternatives of either plopping myself on the floor, or going back to the nurses and politely inquiring if any of them could spare 3 minutes doing her job.

Thankfully, before I have to make a final decision on this matter, a nurse appears and invites me into the manipulation room. The rest is routine - well, almost. I lie down on the cot, she administers the injection, puts some kind of dressing, because, evidently, she has hit a blood vessel again (although the bleeding isn't as strong as when the doctor did it once), tells me to keep pressing it for 5 minutes, and heads for the door.

"Thank you," I say. "See you in 6 months - if I'm still alive.". The nurse doesn't react - either because she isn't listening, or because the implied alternative is of no surprise to her for someone in my condition - and disappears. Five minutes later, I head home.

Tomorrow I have to go to an ophtalmogist for my annual checkup - something that I find completely pointless, because there is no way in hell either of my eysight problems will make me blind before the cancer kills me. But I'll do it anyway.

In a couple of weeks I have to come back for the monthly dose of pills. I probably won't bother writing a blog entry about it, unless something unusual happens.