Lines and Squares

Whenever I walk in a London street,
I’m ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, “Bears,
Just look how I’m walking in all the squares!”

And the little bears growl to each other, “He’s mine,
As soon as he’s silly and steps on a line.”
And some of the bigger bears try to pretend
That they came round the corner to look for a friend;
And they try to pretend that nobody cares
Whether you walk on the lines or squares.
But only the sillies believe their talk;
It’s ever so portant how you walk.
And it’s ever so jolly to call out, “Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares!”
            A.A. Milne 


This has always been one of my favourite A.A. Milne poems. Probably because it appeals to my OCD side. There is order, structure, logic in lines and in squares. The title can also describe how I think and write and a blog is all about thinking and writing and trying to write what you think. Obviously I write in lines but I also tend to think in lines. I also often think in shapes. Different things, people, events, ideas etc will take the form of different shapes in my mind. I don't know if I described that very well but if your mind works the same way you'll understand and if your mind works a different way you might never get it no matter how well I explain it.

Anyway, this was just a bit of background behind my choice of blog name.

Waiting

This week marks four months that I've been sick.

It started one weekend in the middle of January. On Saturday I felt fine, didn't do heaps, just normal Saturday stuff like housework and baking. On Sunday I came home from church feeling really tired and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed. While I don't usually nap for even a short time during the day I thought maybe my tiredness was a result of beginning full time work a couple months earlier, having quite a bit on during the week and weekends during that couple months and not having much of a break over Christmas to recover from it all. I felt pretty awful at work the next day and spent the rest of the week home in bed. Lots of rest got me over that first week of tiredness enough to go back to work but then I developed a mysterious cough.

Four months on and the cough is still there along with fatigue. Fortunately the fatigue isn't as bad as it was at the start although it's still enough to stop me doing much in the evenings and weekends. Several visits to the doctor and a variety of tests (including four blood tests!) have provided no answers.

When I went to the doctor last week she decided to refer me to a respiratory specialist. Yesterday a letter arrived saying the hospital had received my referral and classified me as 'Routine'. Sure, a chronic cough and fatigue that prohibits having a social life and sometimes stops me from going to work is routine and ordinary. 'Routine' means a five month wait for an appointment. If it's going to be that long is it even worth having a list, is it worth me being on it? Five more months to see a specialist makes the four months I've already been sick for seem short. If I was rich and had health insurance or could afford to go private I could probably see the same specialist next week.

Part of me wants to get better but part of me wants to stay sick for at least another five months so I can find out what's wrong. Of course there's always the possibility the specialist won't be able to work out what's wrong or will put it down to stress or something else abstract with no physical cause or treatment. A small part of me wants to get worse so I can get bumped up the waiting list but the much bigger part that hates feeling yuck silences that part pretty quickly whenever it emerges. I'm not even thinking about what will come after a diagnosis, I just want to know (so I can stop making myself feel worse by consulting Dr Google).

So, sorry to those who have had to/will have to put up with me coughing a lot and sorry to those I would like to be spending more time with but can't right now. To those of you who don't get freaked out by blood and needles please consider becoming a doctor and to those of you who are doctors please consider becoming a specialist in something. It just doesn't seem right that in a 'developed' and 'rich' country we can have hospital waiting lists this long and longer. I'm sure there are people out there sicker than I am that are facing just as long or longer waits to see doctors.

ps. I am open to taking bets as to the cause of this cough and fatigue, the time it'll take for me to get an appointment, whether the specialist will come up with a diagnosis, how much longer I'll be sick...