Hello,
I turned up at my GPs with a list as long as your arm. amazingly a couple of hours earlier I hadnt any idea if I needed to see her as I made the appointment 3 weeks ago. Well I sat down and was amazed I came up with 6 to 8 things (no I am not a hypochondriac!). Well I have been trying to sort out my care, changing hospitals and feeling on my own dealing with this monster in my life. So there has been a number of events causing me great anxieties, some of them were horendous and i have been greatly traumatised by such lousy care. I had sentmy GP a letter, as I do that from time to time to give her an update as my present hospital is crap.
So heres whats been resolved
She will give me repeat prescriptions once it is defined where I am getting my care and I am being safely monitored - she volunteerd this without me asking as I had requested a repeat prescription or if not 2 months worth to keep me going and she had done the latter. Which is great as I got it into my head for some reason she didnt want to help She looked disappointed when I told her what hosptial I chose (unfortunately not the one she recommended) but didnt say anything. I have some anxieties re having RA by reading things on the web and shes directed me to the rheumy thingj so in essence I prepared for my rheumy consultation on Friday and now have a list of things to speak to him about. She reassured me on the other health issues I have.
I feel like things are slowly coming together for me, I hope i amnt being too optomistic as the start on the road with RA has been a rollercoaster in terms of care. My present rheumy made a comment about having real RA, which greatly upset me as there is such a gap in between appointments I just concentrate on how I have been in the last few days rather than the period inbetween visits. So much happens that I forget and the fatigue the difficulty walking etc, and I only get 10mins anyway. I get worried about my future and have limited my reading to whats on teh official NRAS and ARC websites as I can get a bit freaked out. So its good that I now feel that my gp is supporting me adn i think the issues she has had is the way my care has been with the hospitals and not me. She does understand that I can get quite anxious and she knows through experience that I have had a rough ride.
I am looking forward to going to my new hopsitals and actually having a rheumy nurse to talk to when I need help deciding on my meds instead of self medicating myself as I dont feel confident that I am doing the right thing. For example I just started Hydroxc and that hasnt kicked in and am on a very low dose of steriods 5mg which doesnt do the job it did when I was on a higher dose. When I was just on the steriods my rheumy said oh just go up on the doseage if you get a flare and come gradually down. Now I dont do that as I dont want to go up and down on the steriods incase i do damage then again the inflammation unchecked does damage. Anyway I am thinking that I have things coming into place for better care in 2010.
I have my fingers crossed.
Thanks for reading and your support through all my trials and tribulations.
