Tlönista

Me!

Well, That Was Anticlimactic

I have to go back and get a fasting blood sugar test done next week. I also got a new venlafaxine prescription, just as my last allotment is running out. A month’s worth of medication is £6.85. If I have more than one prescription, the doctor told me, I can pay a lump sum of £90 for the entire year.* Counselling** runs on a sliding scale and is surprisingly cheap: £10 per session, maybe, a fraction of what it cost back home. And contraception, which cost $7 a month back home, is free.

It’s also easier to get an appointment here, compared to the chronically overcrowded university health clinic. So far I’ve been able to get an appointment within the next week, twice, without any fuss.

All of this comes with simply living here.

I will inevitably grow disenchanted with the NHS, but right now, this seems like a damn good place to be.

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* According to a 2006 Consumer Reports comparison of antidepressants, my current dosage of generic happy would cost me approximately $232 USD per month out-of-pocket. From one of those sketchy online marts peddling cheap Canadian drugs, about $60 CAD per month.

** Hey! You got your medication in my therapy! You got your therapy in my medication! Two great tastes that taste great together.

The health-care assistant dips a piece of litmus paper into the vial of urine, draws it out, and compares the colours to a chart. Glancing up at me abruptly: “Do you have diabetes?”

“Er…no. I don’t think so.” Shouldn’t she be the one giving the answers?

“When did you last eat?”

“Two-ish, maybe?” It’s evening now.

She frowns at the bit of paper again. “Wash your hands.” When I’ve done so she pricks my finger and draws the little drop into a digital thingamabob. The number means nothing to me, but it puzzles her: “Well, blood sugar’s fine.” She tells me to make a doctor’s appointment.

The discrepancy is probably nothing, but alarming nevertheless. Yes, I know that diabetes has gone from an early death sentence to a common, serious but manageable medical condition. But it’s an annoyance. And I like my sweets, damn it all.

I’ll make an appointment tomorrow, before they need me too much at work.

P. S. I discovered, rather too late, that the Angoulême comics festival is coming up in only three weeks’ time. Getting travel and accommodation together in time is a bit of a gamble and I will probably end up just attending next year’s.

P. P. S. Must go, cat wants love.