Anyone else feel like your life has been taken over by appointments and you sit in waiting room after waiting room gradually becoming, what I have proudly termed, an Expert Waiting-Roomerer? Looking in my diary last Monday I realised I had 5 separate medical related appointments booked in for the week. This got me thinking; just how many appointments do I actually have each year? Is it really as many as it seems? Am I alone in this? Surely not; there has to be other Expert Waiting-Roomerers out there. In my case it’s not unusual to have at least 2 appointments a week; after all, I have a chronic medical condition on top of being a mother of 3 and a woman and all of these factors have the tendency to send appointments flying into overdrive.
So, me being me, I did a spot of investigation. The results? In the past year I have had in excess of 120 separate appointments, that averages out at 2.3 per week. On top of this I have had 1 day trip to A&E, 1 overnight stay in hospital and 5 whole days in hospital split between 2 of my children. This doesn’t even take into account school & playgroup / kids activities / hair salon appointments / mortgage advisors / estate agents / solicitors / banks / social events / work / work and work.
As of 2014 the average time spent in a doctors waiting room was 21 minutes, meaning that during this last year alone I have spent approximately 42 hours in waiting rooms… that’s a lot of Sudoku.
If we are to look solely at appointments related to having MS over a 7 year period the results are still quite impressive:
4 MRI scans, 8 flu jabs, 16 Neurologist clinics, 20 Neurology Nurse clinics, 37 Tysabri infusions, 42 blood tests, 47 GP clinics, 138 counselling sessions and countless other appointments for eye scans and bladder scans and physio and occupational health and capability to work assessments
How on earth do I know all these numbers I hear you ask? Three letters O, C and D.
First published 2 October 2017 (Which means I have of course had several appointments in the meantime. 68 to be precise. Including 3 full days in hospital, 1 overnight stay, 1 day in A&E, 8 infusions, 4 blood tests… the list goes on).
The Wibbly Dinosaur 