The Beginning of The End

When life senses the closing, when the collective creaking joints and ashen ochre pallor seen through blood shot tired eyes stare back out at you from the bathroom mirror. You instinctively know that the bright stargate of finality is opening slowly before you as it bids you to enter its mystic realms. As unsettling as this creeping reality is, the inevitability has been made even more intolerable by the recent sufferance of several age-related humiliations. Whilst it's true to say I have never been one that could be remotely described as fleet footed, the very idea of scurrying or worse sprinting through life is an anathema. I believe life should be taken up at a balanced pace with occasional moments of dalliance and industry in equal measure, appreciating the finer qualities of an unhurried, an accomplished and kindly lifestyle has been, until late, my raison d’etre.

The stop, start, stop splutter spurt of my nocturnal urination trips have for some time now heralded that there was worse to come. Sadly, the recent onset of erectile dysfunction and consequent loss of libido and associated prostate enlargement has been a cruel attack, to my once undoubted masculinity, so much so that I am hardly able to bear it.

Osteoarthritis, no painful aging progression should be without it, and now in my tall seventies my qualification to this less than exclusive club is my left knee joint. A ‘Meniscus Tear’ an injury caused from playing rugby over fifty years ago is the catalyst for this excruciating pain. My doctor together with a specialist consultant gazed and squinted at the X-rays that had been taken and once examined they were almost salivating in delight at the blurred grey images of my ruinous knee. The very idea of a painless repair is not a practicality my doctor was easily able to define instead choosing to inform me that a steroid injection may help initially and, in the meantime, taking regular opioid medication. Nonetheless despite the danger of addiction, Tramadol evidently work in simpatico with paracetamol will help deaden the pain thus making living with this crippling agony day and night hopefully more bearable.

Various balms and Ibuprofen ointments and Naproxen tablets were also advised to be regularly administered the outcome of which I suffered severe constipation. To try to open my bowels easily I began a regime of eating fruit and all manner of fibrous vegetable, all this the advice of a medical publication, if after a few days or so you if there is no benefit do not hesitate to pick up the telephone and ring your doctor.

Ringing the medical centre or just calling in to arrange an appointment to see your chosen GP is now prohibited instead post Covid medical centres together with their practice of doctors, locums, consultants, and nurses have made themselves unavailable for our health and well-being. You are instead advised by ‘Reception’ to phone the same reception sharp at bell of eight o’clock a.m. a doctor will offered to you a time proffered to you and the chosen physician, they say, will telephone you and attempt to diagnose your unseen ailment. The only problem with this scaled down and complicated system of communication is that it does not work.

As directed at exactly at eight, not a second before or after, your call takes an eternity to be answered after which you are required to listen to a recorded voice advising you of various other options you may make online. If none of this robotic advice is to your liking, you are finally invited to be attended to by reception staff. The robotic voice continues politely explaining the delay is being caused by the fact the reception advisory staff are working to full capacity. Over the drone of dreary distant ‘Muzak’ the female robot advises you every three minutes of your number and position in the queue. After twenty minutes or so of this painful frustration, the only highlight being is the fact that you are now number eight in the queue there are several clicks on the phone followed by the abrupt severing of the ‘Muzak', the line eventually hums loudly in my ear and goes dead.

The cat detects my change of mood stops momentarily to sniff the marmalade and toast dripping from the wall and leaves the room.

'You may well be served better by arranging to visit a private medical consultancy or better paying for medical insurance', said my wife as she dabbed at the wall and carpet with a sponge and hot water.

Following my initial investigations via the internet I was invited by an image of an attractive nurse welcoming me to contact them to arrange an appointment to visit them for a consultation. This centre of excellence also it seems can furnish me with details of medical insurance that would include not only me but my whole family. In the event of this appointment being made I would need to ensure to bring with me a referral letter from my doctor.

A referral letter can be easily arranged by telephoning your current National Health medical centre and requesting to speak to your registered GP to arrange a signed letter of referral to enable me to proceed privately.

'I wonder if I should ring the medical centre now and arrange this letter of referral', I said quietly to my wife, who had begun to visibly tremble.

The mellifluous robotic tones had just updated me and announced that I was now eleventh in the queue, clasping the telephone tight to my ear and humming inanely along with the grey Muzak I heard the cat flap swing open and shut with a thud, we have never seen our cat since.