Friday 5 November 2004

Pic of the day: For some reason I found this screenshot from the anime Narue no Sekai appropriate ... although I have to excuse myself, since no one else is around to do it! Yes, I will be ranting again.

More *xib

Time passes, and eventually we are all ground to dust by the wheel of time. But in order to slightly delay this incident, and particularly to avoid my arm being ground to dust while still attached to my body, I went out of my way to see a doctor today.

***

It is actually nearly a month ago that I called the doctor's office to get an appointment. Or rather, I called to get a paid sick leave, which requires a form from the doctor. Due to Norway's Stalinist primary health care -- an aberration in an otherwise well functioning market economy -- I had to wait this long. I will repeat this even though I have mentioned it before, because it is likely to sound unbelievable to my foreign readers: In Norway each person is assigned to one doctor (physician) by an arm of the government. The more patients that are assigned to any one physician, the better he is paid, regardless of whether people actually gets sick. Of course, he (or she) is also paid for consultations, both by the patient and by government which pays part of the expense. Once you are assigned to a doctor, you are stuck with him unless you can put on the table a convincing reason why you should have another doctor. Long waiting lines is supposedly not an argument, as the government agency has already consider this. Waiting in line is considered the right way to approach a doctor; we would not want to risk them being idle even for a moment! But a woman can for instance ask to get a female doctor if one such is available in her county. (Actually I think we would all prefer female doctors, even us men. Or perhaps that is just me?) But enough about that. The doctor is a nice enough guy anyway. It is just the system I am skeptical of.

Finally the great day arrived! I slept till 11, and ate nothing. I left home well in time to reach the bus. After a few minutes of walking, I found the path blocked by a big machine digging up the road. It filled all available space. To get to the bus stop, I had to leave the road and trudge through the forest which was wet and boggy from the recent rains. While jumping over a large stream, I stepped through and got water and mud in my shoe and on my leg. Then I took the bus to the town center and waited for an hour or so at the doctor's office. The waiting room was nearly full all the time, as is considered good and proper around here. Several other people who were sitting there were positively ancient. None of them complained, although I doubt it was the most comfortable place they could spend their old age.

I whined about my arm, which is after all my excuse for not working full time and still getting paid. I also mentioned my digestion and the fact that this had deteriorated recently. The doctor warned me that it had become harder to get disability pensions lately, something I was already well aware of. This may have been after I expressed my belief that my arm was ruined forever. Things may have been different if I had taken action years ago when the symptoms first became problematic. But as the real man I am, I have faithfully waited until it was too late. That's what real men do: We laugh in the face of danger and then die screaming.

The doctor stubbornly sticks to his outdated belief that my tendonitis can be treated. He insists that I should walk -- briskly -- at least an hour a day, or perform equivalent outdoors exercise. (It would not surprise me if the result is that my feet will hurt as much as my hand. On the other hand, as it were, I enjoy walking even though it takes time away from playing City of Heroes. Actually, in November I need to take walks anyway, because that is when I get the inspiration for my novels. But he didn't know that.) He requires me to take physiotherapy, which will go on for a long time and cost extra money even though it is just all placebo all the time. And he gave me a prescription for another of those newfangled next generation nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs. (How come this speech-recognition software can misunderstand simple everyday words but spell "nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs" without hesitation?!) Like all next generation drugs this one is remarkably expensive. It is called Bextra and its active component is valdecoxib. From the description on the Bextra.com web site it seems to use exactly the same chemical pathways as the previous drug, Vioxx, which was recently withdrawn from the market because it caused blood clots in elderly people when used over a long time. (A current article in the Lancet argues that Vioxx should have been withdrawn four years ago. I wonder if they will say the same about Bextra?)

Starting Monday, I'm supposed to work half day and start physiotherapy. On the bright side, I have already got another doctor appointment, on Monday 22nd at 10 o'clock. Look forward to it!