Wrist Pain: Diagnosis

I turned up on time. I had to wait 1.5 hours. Even though the rheumatologist I had seen privately twice and his name was on the letter, I didn't get him but got someone else, as I predicted (He was just the "consultant presiding" but doesn't turn up). She went over the biopsy results.

The good news was that I didn't have TB.

The bad news was that I didn't have TB.

I have arthritis in the risk. It isn't rheumatoid arthritis so it seems to be a generic inflammatory arthritis that can't be positively identified as the rheumatoid variation.

It's incurable and progressive.

She said that there were different drugs to try and deal with the symptoms but didn't know what her male colleague was going to suggest. I said I should have seen him or she should have spoken to him before I arrived. She agreed. She was keen to offer me leaflets for different options, instead. She seemed to be fobbing me off and procrastinating making a decision on which drug.

There were leaflets for 2 options. From the Net, they take up to 3 months to work but only work in less than 50% of the patients and have significant side-effects.

Sulphasalazine
Possible side-effects:

• nausea
• diarrhoea
• abdominal pain
• dizziness
• headaches
• rashes
• drop in fertility
  
• turns urine, sweat & tears orange

Methotrexate
Possible side-effects:

• nausea
• hair loss
• ulcers
  
• rashes
• fatigue and feeling like having the flu
• increased risk of infection
  
• liver damage (exacerbated by alcohol)
  
• lung damage causing breathlessness
  

She looked at my wrist. At the time of the biopsy, I was told that the stitches were dissolvable. Now, we could see the black stitches were still there and she thought they were nylon so would not dissolve. So, I hadn't been given an appointment to take out the stitches!!

Furthemore, I had to wait 1/2 hr to get them removed and I will have to go back to the hospital on 13 November to see the first rheumatologist, to find out what drugs he thinks I should take and stop boozing.

Heard on a Bus: Life imitates Art

"I'm going to see Dr J. She looks like Yoda from Star Wars."

Heard on the Metro: Hangover Cures

"I'm sorry I didn't answer my phone yesterday. I was hungover. All I cared about was eating and X-Factor."

Night Tales

After watching the late-night premiere of Planet Terror, I had to catch the night bus home.

At 3am, there wasn't a bus to my home, so I had to walk down the hill.

Boy, did I see some sights.

I noticed that for 100m on the left-hand side, there weren't any lampposts. Then, for another 100m, there were lampposts but they were either switched-off or broken down. Kudos to the council for keeping green and saving cash by only lighting one side of the hill. Never mind safety.

Then, forced to walk on the right-hand side, I strolled past a darkened window, illuminated only by the flashes of a wall-mounted flatscreen TV.

A few minutes later, I saw an Asian couple, smirting outside their own house.

The cream on the cake was a couple in a car parked up. The headlights were on and the engine was running. She was lying with her head on his lap. What was she doing down there?

In an ordinary suburban street, as night falls, everything changes & dark desires are played out.

Heard on a Bus: Taxing Thought

"You pay too many taxes to be unhappy"

Quiz: Films of the 1990s

Try this film quiz and see how well you know films of the 1990s.

I scored 8/10 and the average is 6.35/10.

Wrist Pain: 3rd time lucky?

I received a letter for purporting to give me an appointment with the rheumatologist to discuss the results of the biopsy on 30 October. This will be the 3rd time I see him but this time the NHS is paying, not me so I wonder if I'll be fobbed off with a junior doctor instead as I'm not paying to see the main man.

Hopefully, whoever I see will be competent enough to interpret the biopsy results. They might show that I have TB (a good result as it's treatable), arthritis (a bad result as it's not treatable), something else or nothing at all (the worst result of all).

Wi-Fries

McDonalds will be offering free Wi-Fi access in their outlets. I can't bear to call their meat-thawing depots, "restaurants".

And you won't even have to buy jigsawed-burger made with pieces from 100s of cows.

Poles Present

The BBC claims that there are a million Poles in the UK. There not here to hold up telephone wires but to install them. It's true. Indeed there is talk of the "Polish Builder" as the only type one can find.

Everyday I go out, I see a car with Polish plates: I hardly see foreign car that isn't Polish-registered. The Polish either immigrated with their cars or have gone home after earning pounds and bought a bargain.

In my local high street, a Polish shop has opened next to the East-European shop. Even the bank has posters in Polish only.

Wrist Pain: Biopsy Diary

0700: I woke up and broke my fast with a glass of water. Muslim practice had been forced on me during this time of Ramadan. I rushed to the hospital for my biopsy. I was running late so took the Tube rather than the bus as I'm appalled that the metro costs 73% more than the bus. My biopsy is considered to be a minor operation which should only take 1/2 hr, so I was to be operated in the Day Surgery Unit. I'd be kicked out before bedtime.

0805: I had managed to negotiate a delay in my arrival time from 0730 to 0800 - so I arrived 5 min late. As I checked in at reception, I got a phone call telling me that my operation was to be in the afternoon and I wouldn't need to arrive till 11am. Doh!! Apparently they tell everyone to turn up early in the morning and don't sort out the order of operations till the day itself. (I reckon they expect no-shows and don't want to plan anything till they know who bothers to turn up.) So, I had a long wait. I was told I could go home and come back later. I thought this was a bad idea as I would be tempted to succumb to the growls of my empty stomach. Instead, I waited in the waiting room with the other patients - non-patients are banned from occupying space there. I noticed a woman wearing a pink dress with a low-cut top. She looked dressed for a tea-party. I listened to The Corrs & Avril Lavigne on my MP3 player.

0900: I was upgraded into the First Class waiting room. It had a portable TV with a loop aerial. I dozed there for a few hours.

1130: the hand surgeon spoke to me. To ensure he attacked the right target, he drew an arrow on my right forearm, pointing to my right wrist. Soon afterwards, the anesthetist spoke to me.

1230: Working Lunch (the best daily business and financial programme) was about to start on BBC2, I was asked to get change into my operation outfit. It has an unflattering gap at the back and have cords to be tied together. After getting changed, I was ushered into the pre-operation waiting room.

1300: I was asked to lie on a trolley and wheeled into the operating room. The general anesthetic was injected into my left arm and it felt cold. That's all I remember.

1430: I woke up on the same trolley at in the recovery room amongst half-a-dozen other cut up people. The local anesthetic was wearing off and I asked for painkillers. The stabbed wrist was hurting more than it was before the operation.

1530: I was wheeled back to a semi-private room - I was to share it with an old man who had a hernia repaired. I was offered a sandwich - my first meal for 16 hours - and got a turkey one, with a cup of tea.

1545: My parents arrived.

1730: I was allowed to leave the hospital.

Wrist Pain: Awake Again

After being injected with a general anesthetic, I did actually wake up again after the biopsy.

I have a sore wrist in a sling, so I'm hunting and pecking with my left hand.

I'll write more about my hospital experience in a couple of days.

Wrist Pain: Morning warning

I was about to go out this morning when my mobile phone rang. It was an orthopaedic nurse from the NHS hospital. She gave me the good news that the hand surgeon had managed to find a space on list this Monday. So, my biopsy could be carried out in 3 days.

Getting an operation done for free in 5 days was due to persuasive argument and desperate pleading. Being a financial adviser on commission, not working means not earning and I haven't been working for over 2 months.

The bad news is that I was asked to get to the hospital at 0730 - I negotiated a later arrival of 0800. There will be lots of waiting around and I might not be cut open till the afternoon.

As I'm having a general anaesthetic, I can't eat after midnight and can't drink after 6am. So, no food for 24 hours :-( Otherwise, I might vomit or regurgitate and some of my undigested refreshments could flood into my lungs causing me to silently drown in my own food & drink.

Wrist Pain: Eroded but not arthritic?

I went to see the hand surgeon today. He went into more detail than the rheumatologist about my MRI scan. Apparently, most of my wrist is in bad shape. Most of it is inflamed and not only have some of the bones been pushed out of place but they seem to have been chemically eroded by the inflammation (I guess by the production of "toxic" chemicals). Isn't the body wonderful.

The expert who reviewed the MRI scan wryly wrote than the only "normal" area is the one from which arthritis starts. So, maybe the good news is that I haven't got arthritis. I'm not raising my hopes too much.

The surgeon said that the arthroscopy that the rheumatologist recommended wasn't going to cut it. He frankly admitted that such a small cut meant that he sometimes couldn't get enough tainted tissue for analysis. So, to do the biopsy and get enough crap out, he wants to do a bigger, "open" cut, that'll probably leave a 2.5 cm scar.

The good news is that there's a slim chance of getting it done on the NHS in 5 days time. This would be quicker and cheaper than a £2000 private operation. I'm not raising my hopes too much.

I'll know by Friday.

I moaned about having a blood test, MRI scan and biopsy and still no treatment. I'm frustrated. If it's TB, they could give me the antibiotics saving time, pain & money. If it isn't, I wouldn't have lost less time or money, than waiting for a diagnosis.

I remember my school science. First, form a hypothesis. Then, carry out an experiment to test the hypothesis. Finally, analyse the data to see if it supports or refutes the hypothesis. In this case, it would be quicker & cheaper to try treatments to see if the hypothesis is correct.

The surgeon said that if it isn't TB, then the antibiotics could cause a problem but was vague on the consequences. I think he didn't like my idea of hacking scientific method.

Campaign

Watch an innocent and naive newcomer fight opponents, his own side & even his own wife to try and win in a few weeks.

A cliched fantasy film?

No, the story of a Japanese council election!! No, it's not boring, really. Before you go to YouTube to watch kittens savaging woollen balls , check out Campaign! The Kawasaki Candidate.

In Kazuhiro Soda's first feature length film, he follows an old student friend, Kazuhiko Yamauchi, who was plucked out of obscurity as a Tokyoite coin and stamp dealer and parachuted into a Kawaski council election where defeat would hand control to the opposition Democratic party.

This would be a coup as his party, the Liberals (LDP) has been in national government for nearly all of the last 50 years.

It's a real-life Being There comboed with Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

During the film, we see Yamauchi's wife complain that she has to call herself his housewife rather than his wife. She also gets stroppy when she's told that she should leave her job to help her husband's future, particularly when he has to pay for all election expenses himself.

The workings of the LDP are exposed when we realise that he's a pawn who's there to fill a bye-election vacancy and when the main elections occur in 2 years, he'll be without support.
If he gets elected, he'd have to recruit his own supporters and raise money. He compares the LDP to the military and moans about all the criticism he's getting including the angle of his bows. This is crucial as he is commanded to bow to telephone poles. When he says he is "pissed off", is this atypical Japanese frankness or a hyperbolic interpreter?

Find out what happened after the election [spoilers].

There is a gratuitous moment which has no relevance to the film: a packed commuter train gets going after 4 train "pushers" cram overhanging passengers so that the doors can shut.

Campaign! The Kawasaki Candidate is part of the Why Democracy? project to start a global conversation about democracy. This version is about 50 min long. The DVD, titled "Campaign", with the theatrical version, is 120 min long and can be bought from Film Baby.

Space Auction

If you want to send something into space, get some rocket hardware that was launched or have lunch or a tour with an astronaut, check out the International Space University (ISU)'s eBay auction.