Now where was I? Oh yes ... en route to GP with a request for a referral for a knee replacement as requested by rheumatology!
Why did I know before I even left home that this just wasn’t going to be straightforward? It should have been, a simple request, what could go wrong? Well ... ...
Fortunately aforementioned GP was in a good mood, that’s a start and ... more or less where it finished! Much of the exchange of thoughts and suggestions had been done in phone calls between either the rheumatologist and myself or face to face between the rheumatology nurse and me. I start to explain that Wrightington don’t do radio-isotope synovectomy anymore and can only offer Osmic Acid (apparently similar to Sulphuric Acid , remember those chemistry experiments? Don’t fancy that swilling round my kneecaps!). I might as well have been talking in fluent Mandarin, he came over all glazed and unknowing and hadn’t the foggiest what I was talking about! Gets the stuff up on his computer screen, no letters, no information, no nothing for months. In fact the last thing he’s got was from the surgeon saying he would prefer not to do knee replacement yet because of the long term implications of future replacements, me being so young etc. etc. He would prefer to try to save the knee which was why he was suggesting alternative procedures!
GP not happy chappy any more because rheumatologist has put him in a bad position. She hasn’t copied him into letters or followed up telephone conversations with letters and now he really doesn’t know what is happening. Long discussion between the two of us followed. Yes, well he’s really not surprised I’m sero-positive I have had all the traits for years and it didn’t need an expensive test to say so because he could see it with his own eyes. Starting to think perhaps GP and rheumatologist aren’t quite seeing eye to eye! And why am I still taking Leflunomide which clearly isn’t working at all and let me see how much that costs? Hmm ... £1.50 a tablet! Why doesn’t the rheumatologist just sort out the medication? Knee itself is not much worse than it was 12 months ago and the pain and inflammation was under control with the meds. It doesn’t need surgery it needs the RA controlling. Oh groan ...
GP referring me back to orthopaedics to see what they think but he doesn’t recommend knee replacement. It’s about now I start to get very bored with the whole scenario and start screaming “just give me back my Methotrexate and I’ll leave you all in peace, please!”
I wait for a letter to drop on my doormat ... ... then?
Lyn x
