Assessment time

Up nice and early this morning, in time to walk to UHW for the long awaited pre-op assessment. The walk took forty eight minutes, ten longer than I thought, but I arrived exactly on time. Along with the opening sections of the assessment dossier I was asked to fill in with personal details, I was asked to complete a form about alcohol drinking habits. It started with a questionnaire which asked how much I drink a day and how many days in the week. It asked me to score myself, except the scoring device was badly designed and made no sense. The second part of the questionnaire was all about the impact of regular alcohol drinking on my behaviour, listing half a dozen forms of dysfunctional behaviour, with responses varying in frequency from 'never' to often. The bottom line of the form proposed that if the answers were anything other than 'never' you should consider seeking help, and offered a phone number to call. It gave the impression of being a student project, not quite thought through enough. 

I still have issues with the vague concept of 'glasses' used in medical educational literature, as it's so ill defined. One beer may be double the strength of another, one beer glass may be half the size of another, or nearly twice the size. Likewise wine glasses. One bottle of wine may be consumed in five small glasses or three large ones. Wine might be eight per cent ABV or fourteen. Fortified wines, liqueurs and spirits are dispensed in standard measures, except perhaps at home, but glasses smaller than a small wine glass tend to be used. One kind of strong drink may contain three times as much alcohol as another, so the amount of alcohol consumed in each case varies widely. I've seen posters which try to spell things out a little, but the quality of information isn't as good as it needs to be in today's data savvy world. We're still a long way off from health advice deterring over-consumption, or dishonesty about what is actually consumed over a period of time.

Anyway, a male nurse interviewed me this time around, which was a change to routine. He had to call in a colleague to take blood however, having tried three times unsuccessfully to do so. He thought there was nothing to cause concern to an anaesthetist and delay receiving an operation date. It remains to be seen how long it takes to be informed.

On the walk back, I went into the pharmacy in the Tesco Extra superstore to get my prescription medications for the next quarter. The prescription informed me that I needed to book a medication review, so I did that as soon as I got home. This batch will see me through until I return from Ibiza, so that's another thing done on my check list. The pressing concern is getting the Spanish Police check done. The diocesan administrator has been helpful in enabling me to make correct sense of the form, but there are still unanswered questions. Thankfully, my lawyer friend Bill of the Costa del Sol West chaplaincy has offered me some practical help in getting this done, if I'm unable to do it on-line.

In the avenue of trees by the riding stable, I was delighted to see the first daffodils in bloom, also some patches of snowdrops, and patch of crocuses. The weather has reverted to being overcast today so the light wasn't wonderful. I failed to get good pictures of them with my Blackberry, so after lunch  returned with a camera and get the photos I wanted.