Broccoli / cauliflower cheese and bread

Today has been a long day.

Mum woke up feeling fine, until she remembered that she was due to go out to lunch, and the anxiety kicked the headache, stomachache, knee-ache, et al, back into full force.

I went to do her meds and realised that I made a critical error when checking in mum’s meds yesterday: I saw boxes labelled with a word beginning ‘pr’ and thought “oh, that’s good, we’ve got the prednisolone [steroid] tablets”, and thought no more of it.

So this morning, as I said, I went to do mum’s meds, and realised that the boxes contained propanalol, which mum no longer takes. 🤦‍♂️

And so began a day of navigating the depths of the NHS. I went on to the 111 website and submitted an emergency prescription request, then immediately called the pharmacy (not the one we usually use, but one that is just around the corner from where mum was going for lunch) to check that they could provide what we needed. The person I spoke to confirmed they could.

About half an hour later, the duty pharmacist called to tell me that, as they weren’t mum’s regular pharmacy, they weren’t happy to issue the meds and I would have to try somewhere else.

So I went back to NHS 111, told the call-handler what had happened, and he promised a clinician would call back within two hours. Two and a half hours later, a non-clinician called to go through what I needed (again), and promised a clinician really would call soon.

About 4.30, with half an hour until the nearest pharmacy closed, I called 111 again, and was told I would be moved to the top of the list. 5pm came and went, leaving only one pharmacy in the area that was still open, but only until 6pm.

Eventually, a GP did call, and went through mum’s entire medical history, the symptoms that led a specialist to suspect mum has GCA, did a have a medical LPA for mum? What about a financial one? Did I know of such-and-such an organisation that could provide advice? And I must remember that steroids can’t be stopped immediately and must be tapered?¹ And…

I had to interrupt, twice, to remind him of my deadline.

He eventually agreed to give mum the additional tablets, and then I had to arrange a taxi, and got to the pharmacy 15 minutes before they closed. And within 5 minutes had the meds that had taken me more than 7 hours to procure.

After all that, I was very glad that I had planned cheese sauce-based ready-meals (cauliflower for mum, broccoli for me) for dinner: three minutes in the microwave, ten in the oven, and it was ready to eat.

I followed it with a slice of the homemade gingerbread that mum brought home from lunch (oh, she had a lovely time, thank you: she couldn’t remember what or if she ate, but she did remember to bring me back cake 😄), with banana and custard. Mum had tiramisu and coffee ice cream and chocolate.

I didn’t take a picture of any of it, sorry.

Unsurprisingly, I’m completely exhausted, thoroughly cheesed off (in every respect), and really looking forward to lying down.

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1. Why do you think I’m so desperate to get more? 🙄 ↩︎