Overheard on the Underground: Romantic Romania?

"He wanted to book a romantic weekend but nearly picked Bucharest instead of Budapest."

Wrist Pain: Mantoux result - Spot the TB

I went to the hospital for the second time this week. (first time on Monday to get the Mantoux injection) I had a nice red spot at the injection point on my arm and the nurse looked at it. She got out her black felt-tip pen and drew 2 parallel lines with the distance apart equal to the diameter or the spot.

This highly scientific test takes its results from the spot size. More than 1.5 mm diameter and you've got a TB infection. Less than 1.5 mm diameter and you've not got the infection but have got the BCG antibodies ie a weak form of the infection.

My spot size was exactly 1.5 mm. The nurse wasn't sure how to interpret it. She consulted her colleague. Apparently even a large spot size might be a false positive!!

She thought about sending me for a chest x-ray which is another way of detecting TB. Why wasn't this suggested first. Probably because it's more expensive and has a longer waiting list. She wanted me to come back for it. I persuaded her to send me for one today, as I would have to take yet more time off work another day.

I went to the x-ray department and had to take a numbered ticket before I could speak to anyone. After 20 minutes the counter had ticked up to my number. I spoke to the receptionist. She said I was in the wrong place!! I had to go to the Accident & Emergency X-Ray department. Why couldn't I have been told that by the TB department? It wasn't obvious to me that I needed an x-ray due to having an accident or an emergency. I had wasted a lot of time.

I went to the A&E department but didn't have a long wait for an x-ray. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand the x-ray technician as English wasn't her first language and she wasn't anywhere near fluent in it. Let's hope she didn't over-expose the x-ray photograph and sterilise me in the process.

I'm going back to the rheumatologist on 11 December. Hopefully, he won't want to continue his hunt the TB game and I actually get some treatment for the arthritis. It needs to be tackled quickly as research shows that tackled late, it gets worse more than tackled early.

Wrist Pain: Third Time Unlucky?

I finally saw my usual rheumatologist - free for the first time. He seemed to take a different view from the other rheumatologist and wasn't interested in talking about drugs to minimise the arthritis symptoms. After negative blood test and biopsy results, he still wanted to do a further test to eliminate TB. He seems to be hoping I've got TB rather than arthritis and keeps looking for evidence for it.

So, I've got to go back to the hospital next Monday to get the Mantoux test administered by injection and then on Wednesday to see if there is a reaction to the injection.

In any case, I'm going back to work tomorrow. The plan is to work 25% part-time in week 1, 50% part-time in weeks 2, 75% part-time in weeks 3 and back to 100% in week 4.

Heard in a Supermarket: Fryer's Delight

"We're going to eat French Fries. Do you want to eat them with us?"