I trust. Been told the scrip has been issued. With my luck the chemist's will mislay it. No, I didn't say that. I took on board Body_bonkers' point about their receiving many letters and at the weekend opened a second front, sending the following through their messaging system
I shall run out of Prednisolone entirely on the 25th. I have no wish to end up in A+E with adrenal crisis. Please would you prescribe the next issue due 22nd by this coming Thursday, 18th, so that there is a good margin.
Please let me know the prescription has been issued.
To be exact I have a total of 112 x 1 mg tab. I am now on 9 mg. That will last 12 days.
This situation has arisen because of hiccups with the last two scrips. I have written a long letter to Dr xxxxxxxxx detailing what has happened. If the letter has not been received, please let me know how I can email it to you.
Briefly, in March when I was flaring badly and on 15 mg I was prescribed a repeat weaning dose, which averages out at 11 mg/day. Clearly on 15, 14, 13, 12 mg I have been getting through that with at best a very narrow margin for running out. The situation was made critical by April’s prescription, which should have covered 10 April to 8 May, with a further scrip on 8 May. Instead I got issue date 24 April, next issue 22 May.
Thank you for your help with this matter.
I gather the scrip was issued Monday morning, though of course they didn't let me know and I had to ring to find out. I am the last person in the world to create more work for receptionists but really an automated message could be sent. But the effect on my poor little mental elf of all this. What's an acceptable expostulation, jumping juniper beans! How about that? Stress straight to my legs, headache, tearful. I am lucky in leading a possibly rather boring but calm life and I really did not realize disquiet would affect me that badly.
Huge thank yous to all for support in the original thread.
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This afternoon I rang a surveyors office in Scotland - as far as I can see the only company in the area to do the sort of survey I need - for the FOURTH time at least. The surveyor says it is the first he has heard of it! I was stalled by the "administrator" every time. One of them is lying ...
It isn't as if I can drop by the office and stage a sit-in is it!!!!! But every single thing to do with admin in the UK is a nightmare. And those "Press 1 for ... etc" induce steam from my ears - since they don't work on a foreign phone. In the immediate aftermath of OH's death they reduced me to tears until I realised that if you ignore it long enough it USUALLY hands you to a person but rarely the right one.
Yes, if you appear to be unable to cope with the system it can help you by putting you through to a human being who might then find the person you need. Extremely convoluted, I can remember when life in general was simple in comparison. The press1 etc. options don’t always cater for every situation. 🙃🤪
I can echo your frustration. Recently I have had to deal with three major companies and two government agencies and all of them have been a pain in the proverbial. 3-4-5 weeks to respond to emails - if I got any response first time - and then only getting half of the required information resulting in me sending more emails and waiting a further few weeks. Phone calls? Forget them, not once did I receive a, promised, call back. I'm not surprised that when "experts" review a new mobile phone whilst rapturing about the camera and the that it can download a film in a matter of seconds, never do they mention whether said new phone is any good at making phone calls. I can only deduce from that the last couple of generations don't know how to actually make a phone call so there's no point, hence I never receive call-backs. Rant over. 📞📞
Nothing that can't be infused with a sort of crazed incompetence! I just got a text to say my delivery would be made between 11 and 1. so of course I'd be sure to be in. The text was sent at 11.59.
Right on! Even worse, many are actually AFRAID to make a phone call and actually have to talk to a human..I have been told this straight from young people..SAD. SO glad I am "older" and wish I was even born sooner, as to have missed most of this. I still have a flip phone and people (of all ages) think I am nuts. I don't care, I prefer to live my life looking UP at the screen of real life.
I actually see him on the 25th..we'll see what he says. A few of my Drs are over retirement age and only work 3 days per week..I feel like they are kind of "mailing it in" at this point maybe. I have been feeling much better, thank goodness he let me "trial" the pred after ruling everything else out and listened to me about possible PMR. I will give him that! Gotta run, have a great day!
With me I think being put in the position ‘patient’! As in one who cannot take control of the situation, solve the problem, feeling intensely vulnerable. Coupled with the double-bind of the responsibility. That does irk me as a matter of principle. I’m responsible for making sure I have enough medication? Fine, then I can order it as readily as when I see I’m running out of washing-powder. Not. I felt my Pred had been treated like a scrip for tetracycline or something, one capsule tds for 14 days, end of story. That didn’’t make me feel trusting. Quite a lot of that, actually. Ordinarily my mobility issues mean I’m not about to turn up on anyone’s doorstep but I’m perfectly capable of getting into a cab and I cannot see that I should have let this reach crisis, it’s very much the having to do things and possibly having to do yet more things to make sure it didn’t, all the effort plonked on me.
See my comment above - all the things it had to be me after OH died was awful. No-one at all to help since the girls weren't here and anyway didn't speak good enough German - plus each things happened in umpteen steps weeks apart, I finally got my widow's pension from Germany 3 weeks ago - he died in October 2021 and they were notified in early November.
It was and, as the lady in Berlin said, it was worth waiting for! Enforced savings! But had I been a widow who was on the breadline, it would have been a very different thing wouldn't it?
Appalled about the pension: my father was working in The Netherlands up to retirement. Pension was automatic and after he died in 1994 my mum was paid a widow's pension. I'd have expected better of Germany. Yes, after my mum died and I had a three-floor house to clear with already diminished mobility and full-time job, all the ghastly things you have to do after someone dies, while pretending not to be a soggy wreck.
It apparently was the UK's fault! It took them a long time to send the info about other state pension income and even then it wasn't correct - the figure they gave as widow's pension from the UK wasn't purely widow's pension, it was MY pension in my own name plus about £15 which is what the UK so generously gives the widow. Italy and Germany pay 60% of HIS pension entitlement. Mind you - Germany kept sending ME letters directly instead of to the charity office that advises everyone who needs it about official "Stuff" and who had a POA. And to add insult to injury, in Italian! Even the office was struggling with some of the requests which didn't exist on the system and Germany couldn't say what they were either.
Know from personal experience that the wondrous DWP can err but so far as the SP goes I get a clear statement each April of what I shall be paid for the coming tax year. At least the letters were addressed to you not your husband. The classic after my mother died was from BT: 'Dear Mrs .....We were sorry to hear of your loss and here is cheque refunding overpayment on your account..' Duly made out to her. So Germany sent letters in Italian about the finances of a British woman, the nub of which is her time working in the UK. You could not make it up!
Tourists too. Stayed there once im Gastehaus Wagner or some other impeccably German name, everyone saying Gruss Gott as they passed you on the footpaths.
Probably tourists then!!! Here most people say Gruess Gott as well over 90% of the population in this valley are of Autrian heritage but Bozen has become VERY Italian. The Roman government deliberately sent southern Italians there in the 1920s-30s and sent locals down to the south as well as making the use of German illegal. I feel uncomfortable in the hospital there as although legally staff in public service must speak both languages, what actually happens is that locals must speak both, Italians don't! The receptionist in cardiology was a nasty piece of stuff. And the so-called family meeting in palliative care for my husband was with a doctor who only spoke Italian, not a word of English either, The staff in the PO here in the village at present both only speak Italian, they speak better English than Italian which isn't saying much. Awful for the elderly.
But my point is that locals have similar problems, a lot of older ones just don't speak Italian because of the history. I don't have a problem here - I speak fluent German and it is my legal right to have German spoken to me. I have even explained something to an elderly local lady who hadn't a clue what the Italian phlebotomist was saying!
So the phlebotomy department was in breach of the lady's right to be spoken to in German? it does seem extremely off that a bilingual area does not automatically employ translators, find a member of staff to translate. I remember once a patient from I think Rumania and we found a native-speaker in one of the labs.
I feel like I am doing everyone else's job sometimes, cannot tell you how many ties I have had to keep bothering "them" for answers..my guy didn't even address my questions on my tapering this week..guess he'll leave it all to me, which honestly probably will go better with advice on this site anyway.
I used to have problems with scrips, pharmacists and GP practice. I don't want to advertise but 2 years ago I signed up with Pharmacy 2 You. Wonderful. All struggles gone. All done online and no contact with surgery. Email reminders every 8 weeks. Can't recommend them enough.
What I'm looking for is GP 2 You. They could make a fortune here in West Yorkshire and the GP's should be happy 'cos they'd never have to have anything to do with their patients again. Result!!
It is impossible to get past the Rheumatology Nursing Station, who say I am "disrespectful". After 4X in the ER last week my voicemail said my name, health card number, phone number, etc. and then I asked "please do not refer me to the ER again". That was construed as disrespectful. The person who called me back would not get past this. I apologized profusely. She did not "want an apology". I had mentioned "impingement" to which she replied, "impingement is not Rhematology". So I apologized again. She hung up on me. So I tried the Rheumatology Clinic. Had to leave a voicemail and they forwarded back to this same woman, who would not assist me. I asked what should my next steps should be. She said, "you've been disrespectful. This is bullying at it's worst. I ended up telling her what an excellent job they were doing (all they do is answer the phone) and then I hung up.
Oh poor you. The modern demand for 'respect' can of course often be twisted into deterring criticism. But is your care being compromised by this woman? Is it possible to go over her head?
Bullying????? I'd say she was the one doing the bullying - it is her job to help distressed patients. There must be a way to make a constructive complaint.
She is definitely the bully here Pro. It was so horrible. She just kept talking me in a circle and saying "because you're disrespectful". I apologized profusely to her but that's not what she wanted. Gawd knows what she wanted. I said, "Ma'am is there no way we can get past this, because I would like to know what my next steps are" and she reverted back to the "disrespectful" and "impingement is not Rheumatology". I did hang up on her in the end after telling her what an amazing job they were doing. All they do is answer the phone and tell you to go to ER if it's emergent or to a walk-in clinic and that is all. IF they are nurses, they need a crash course in empathy.
Never mind empathy - she needs to learn her job! It sounds like SHE is the person with a problem and if so, she should not be the interface between the patient and the doctor. I think you have to go over or around her ...
Truly, I don't know how she is with everyone else but she definitely has be flagged as disrespectful. I have to go in on Tuesday, and I'm going right to ground floor nursing station to find out. I'd know that voice anywhere. Devoid of humanity...and very robotic. Maybe she's A.I.
Ah, you failed to stand when she entered the room, bob a curtsey? What on earth - who on earth does this person think she is. Er, no-one who knows what impingement means would think it means Rheumatology.
Yes my care is being thwarted at The Nursing Line. There is no one to go to. I will be letting my Rheumatologist know what is going on. Nurse Ratchett. I have a couple of links to make a complaint. On the second go round I did remind her that sometimes respect must be earned. At any rate I went thru my former neurologist who has always been so helpful. Whatever he did...I have an appointment with my rheumy next Tuesday. So yes...sad to have to resort to these measures.
I see you're in Canada so I haven't a clue about the system, can only hope the rheumatologist sorts it and even better some way of permanently bypassing the lady is found. Dear Nurse Ratchett! Met her more than once. Nurse knows best, dear. Even when about the current circumstance Nurse clearly knows nothing at all. It’s really rather wonderful how confidently she spouts nonsense. It was my last couple of days in the rehab place. A local charity had kindly cleaned my flat. I had spoken twice on the phone to the pharmacist at the GP’s about delivery of my meds. The lovely boss lady was arranging an ambulance to take me home. This woman appeared and proceeded to inform me I couldn’t go home yet because nothing had been arranged.
Thank you. Last stage of the mission now accomplished. Just ring the pharmacy to check it's ready for collection. What can be hard about that? Only five attempts in the last couple of hours when it was either engaged or just unanswered. Do any of us have time in our lives for this? The hard answer is of course we don't.
We have to keep on them all the time, otherwise we get absolutely nowhere. Self advocacy even hits walls. BUT I did get around Nurse Ratchett this time, sadly this is what we have to resort to. One thing we can do is complain through College of Physicians and Surgeons.
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How can I get out of this mess?
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