Things move slowly

Finally, I've been able to discuss my hospital appointment with my GP along with my concerns as to the cause of the problem the optometrist identified. My GP was surprised to find I'd been referred to a different hospital from the one she requested and will attempt to sort this out (fingers crossed). She was also startled that though the optometrist had asked that I be referred 'in 6 - 8 weeks' (i.e. fairly quickly, though not urgently), my waiting time is more like 10 - 12 weeks. Her reaction to my question about why the dispensing optician would have told me that I would be better off going to the 'wrong' hospital (her words were, 'I'd rather go to hospital x than hospital y, but that's all I'm saying' was one of surprise a) that she'd said this and b) that she'd said it to a customer!

Talking through my worries about what further examination might or might not reveal, I realised again that I've finally found a GP who listens and is an excellent communicator. While she said that we could 'never say never' in relation to the possibility of a mass behind the eye, she told me of her own experiences when assigned to the eye hospital as part of her training, reassuring me that if the optometrist had seen anything of the sort that she had seen herself as a trainee, I wouldn't be waiting for the appointment but would already be undergoing treatment. So, we'll see... if it's not a mass or MS, it could be anything from 'just how you are' (GP) through hypertension, diabetes, infection or glaucoma. Interestingly, my GP commented that it's possible that if it really is congenital, my previous optometrist may have seen it but done nothing about it because he was older and more experienced than the young woman I saw this time and recognised that it wasn't something to worry about.

Things move so slowly in the health service. It does make me wonder how many people get much worse before they're seen by the appropriate service - I know I did when I had endometrial cancer, and both my GP at the time and the consultant I saw commented on this fact after the event. It's certainly a worry that if you have money and can pay for private treatment, you're more likely to see a named consultant rapidly whereas if you go through the national health service, the waiting times are very long and you're not guaranteed an appointment with the consultant her/himself. What happened to me was that I first saw the consultant's registrar and then, six months later, the consultant. And look what the outcome of that wait was - a post-surgery course of radiotherapy that would, according to the consultant, have been unnecessary had they identified the problem sooner. Admittedly, it wasn't the registrar's inexperience that meant the diagnosis wasn't made earlier - even the very experienced consultant who carried out a hysteroscopy a couple of weeks before my surgery told me (three times) that he didn't think I had cancer. Nevertheless, if that test had been performed six months earlier instead of medication being prescribed, the outcome would have been very different. But, as my mother used to say, 'if wishes were horses...'. 

I've come to the realisation that there's no point in staying angry forever, but it's taken a very long time to come to that conclusion.