Rough Week : Update

The picture on the left gives you some idea as to what sort of drugs I've been on lately.  There's a few of them there.  We still haven't got to the bottom of it, but I think we're getting closer.  Ever since my last post on this subject I've been getting these weird blisters appearing all over the place.  At first I thought they might just be some lingering reaction to the antibiotics, apparently strange rashes are a side effect, and they did make me so sick I couldn't actually complete my journey into work in one go. 

It's been a while since I was off them though, and they were still appearing, and when one started to come up on my eyelid I thought enough was enough and it was back to my friendly medical centre and another hour long wait.  I've decided that GP's are basically help desks, in that they can't actually help you or diagnose your problem, but they are pretty good at referring you to the person who can.  Let's just say that I've certainly been getting my money's worth for my National Insurance contribution.

I have to say one more thing about my awesome medical centre, I turned up at 8:55am ready to start queuing for the duty doctor.  I was of course told that they can't start taking names until 9am, because that makes sense.  I turn around and there are already 5 people sitting, looking like they are also waiting for the doctor to open.  At 8:58 am one of the two sets of parents there got up to take their child to the bathroom, at 8:59 am one person got up and started queuing in front of the duty doctor's counter.  Which was, of course, everyone else's sign to get in line, and being in England we all tried to follow the order of who had arrived first, but then a whole crowd of people arrived and join the queue as well and all order was lost.  At 9am the duty doctor counter opened, at 9:01am the parent emerged from the bathroom to see a queue already 10 people long.  Lesson learned in that experience! 

I was chatting to some other people in the line as we were waiting, one of them was a guy who had been in to see the doctor yesterday and had been told to come back today, but unfortunately there were no appointments available.  So even though he literally lives next door to the clinic he can't go home after he's signed in, he has to wait around for anywhere in excess of 2 hours to be seen.  A word of advice for those seeking a duty doctors appointment here, arrive early, queue early and if you need to go to the bathroom, cross your legs instead!

My doctor's experience was quite pleasant this time, no nasty antibiotics, instead he took a look at my weird blisters, and unfortunately for him that's my only symptom, other than them I feel fine.  Even though they have their software now which you can just enter all the symptoms and see what pops up, with only one it's hard to narrow it down.  So he admitted defeat and said he'd get me in to see a dermatology specialist.  This is where I am again impressed with the hospital system here, I would think that to see a specialist for a non-life-threatening condition in Australia would take weeks, not that I've ever really been in that position so I'm only guessing.  I got to see one three days later, so local anesthetic and biopsies later hopefully we are on the way to working out what it is.  I'm going to attempt to fumigate the bedroom this weekend, as one possibility is bugs, have to say they gotta be some pretty nasty bugs to be causing what I've got!  But then bugs sound a lot better than immune disorder, which was another possibility.