I did something last week that I had never done before in the 77 years of my life thus far. I paid for private medical care. I was not happy with this decision for two reasons. One, it has always been against my vague socialist principles and two, it’s very expensive. I wouldn’t like to say which one was the dominant factor. Anyway it’s done now. I have to wait until tomorrow for the results which is why this retirement blog is in two parts. This first part is being written on Monday and the second part will be written tomorrow when I can share the results.
The results of two MRI scans, at a cost of £700 plus. I have this pain in my back and it or a totally different pain has spread to my groin. These pains make walking the dogs very painful and over the years our walking duration has gone from 2 X one hour walks to 2 X 30 minutes and now I struggle to walk for 2 X 15 minutes. I do try to keep active as all the medical professionals advise but it’s a struggle.
I eventually decided I would make an appointment with my doctor. I got a phone consultation in a couple of weeks and we decided the pains might be sciatica and would need a physio appointment to confirm or deny. All this on the National Health Service. Except she (the physio) didn’t know and referred me for a scan. So far so good except after 2 months I hadn’t heard about the scan. I rang them they had never heard of me and there was no appointment and, as I say, I was in pain.
So then I made the, for me, momentous decision. I would break the habits of, literally a life time, and ‘go private’. I checked for private health care companies and booked the cheapest. A decision I suspect had bad consequences when it came to the actual scan.
But first a telephone consultation with the private doctor, a scan in a week (at least this bit was quick) and the actual scan. I suspect if I paid more I could have had a better scanner (i.e a Polo format which the person passes through rather than a coffin version which you are stuck inside which I found quite panic-inducing and it went on for what seemed like for ever. I guess you get what you pay for even with private health care?
So now I’m waiting for tomorrow and not quite sure what I’m hoping for. That’s the trouble with going private it all happens too quickly and you don’t get time to contemplate what your desired outcome is. No pleasing some people, anyway tomorrow I (and you) will know.
So we’ve just got home from our meeting with the private doctor and I’m not sure I do ‘know’. She was very pleasant, no question of that. She read out the report from the MRI scans and there the positiveness ended. Don’t get me wrong there was nothing terrible to report, at least I don’t think so but frankly the complexity* was such that she might have been saying you only have a week left to live and I would have been no wiser. It wasn’t even a case of ‘I know all the words just not in that order’, I didn’t even understand the words. For example –
A simple example – mild degenerative changes of both hip joints without focal full-thickness chondral loss and chronic insertional tendinopathy about the pubic symphysis and that I emphasise was just two simple examples. I’ve photographed one sheet and you can sort it out for yourselves.
In the meantime what I did understand was that she recommended I consult with a spinal specialist at the cost of a mere £250. Now that I understand. This is private health care. I should have asked for a translation but I couldn’t afford it.
*They probably thought I would want to feel I was getting my money’s worth.