In my post https://derrickjknight.com/2024/08/02/bcg/ I described the treatment plan for my bladder cancer. When I was recently telephoned booking a date for this to begin, I was told I would not need another cystoscopy before it commenced. I therefore have been anticipating the vaccine installations sequence to start in one week’s time. It now seems this is wrong.
At 8.50 this morning I received a call asking me to attend a pre-assessment appointment, fortunately at Lymington Hospital, at 9.30. This would be a questionnaire from a nurse, checking on current details. We arrived at the hospital at 9.25 to be told that I was booked in for 9.45. I was called at 10.10, which was just after the nurse herself had been informed.
The staff were all very friendly – I attributed this mix-up at least to the fact that the arrangement had clearly been arranged in a rush.
Nurse Paula Rickard was thorough, friendly, and efficient. She was quite clear that my appointment on 21st is in fact for a further cystoscopy which does, as Consultant Miss Vickie Dawson had informed me, need to be carried out. The meeting with Paula involved much more than the usual questions: she gave me another ECG, checked blood pressure and pulse, followed by escorting me to a blood test and asking me to deposit a urine sample. We agreed there was no need to measure height and weight again.
Neither consultant nor nurse had, of course played any part in this confusion and the message from them is consistent. So – I think I know what to expect at my next procedure, and will await a date for the vaccine application thereafter.
This took the whole of the morning, after which I made good headway in reading “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a wonderful book making me feel very much at home that I will review when I have finished it.
Tonight we dined on tender baked gammon; piquant cauliflower cheese; spring greens and green beans; crunchy carrots; firm broccoli and boiled new potatoes, with which I drank Luis Felipe Edwards Gran Reserva Merlot 2021