Of Sickness and Appointment

I was down with flu the past week. And my cough was getting worse everyday. And the cold weather is no help for proper recovery at all. What with the swine flu still around, it is difficult to get an appointment with the GP. My first call to set an appointment I was asked to come at 11.00 a.m. but when they asked if I have fever and I answered yes, I was told to wait for a call from the Health Centre to determine whether I should turn up for the appointment. And of course after I told them I have fever, I was advised to monitor myself for the next 40 hours and only if my fever subside and my cough gets worst should I call again for an appointment. In the meantime I was advised :

(i) to continue with my O-T-C medication (that's nurofen and benylin mucus cough)
(ii) not to go out as I may "distribute my germs" to everyone else - and I felt so horrible imagining myself full of germs and as I open my mouth my "germs" went flying to a new host - double horrible!
(iii) not to attend class for the reason in (ii). When I asked for medicical chit, I was told that for the first three days of sickness I am allowed self-certified sick leave. I will only need to produce one if it prolonged. OK. So, I sent an email to my Lecturer and true enough he's OK with it and asked me to "Take Care" and "Get Well Soon".

And finally last Friday, after my fever subsided and of course my cough worsened (it came to a point where I felt like my rib cage is going to burst and my diaphram is getting loose every time I cough) I managed to get an appointment with the GP. And the verdict? It is showing signs of early bronchitis "But not to worry (the young GP told me) normally your own bodily immune system will take care of it - give it 2 - 3 weeks, you will be fine". Well, I thanked him and told him, since my phlegm is changing colour to green, can I at least have some anti-biotics? And can I also have a medical chit since I am going to miss classes and as we are talking, I have my Investment class going on". "Of course I can give you that. No problem at all." And with that I thanked him again and took my leave.

That's just the first part of it. Now, getting the prescribed medication is not as straight forward either. You have to bring your prescription note to the pharmacy, hand it over to the Pharmacist/Chemist and normally you'll be asked to come back in half an hour time for them to get it ready. You pay your £4 and come back for your medication at the given time - then only you complete your "medicational quest". Well, at this moment I really miss our family physician back in Shah Alam - Dr. Suzet. Maybe one of these days, I will give her a call and thank her for all that she did for us all these while.

Sources of images : Pills from www.kindnessinc.org; chart on bronchitis from www.nlm.nih.gov.