Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Dish Of The Day
by Russell Turner - 15:39 on 22 June 2016
After several months on tenterhooks, this morning I returned to the rheumatology clinic in Dingwall's Ross Memorial Hospital for more news on my increasingly immobile spine. As it turned out, no news was what I got after waiting forty-five minutes past my appointment time (and I was second patient of the day).
Dr Latest Locum summarised what I already knew, which is that my stiffness is probably not spondylitis but it might be. Another guess is diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (aka DISH) but the bottom line is that my spine has become calcified (which the x-rays showed me two years ago), it will probably get worse, and there's no treatment. At least it doesn't hurt.
A test to see if I'd too much iron in my blood (which could be a clue to diagnosis) revealed I didn't have enough ("are you vegetarian," Dr LL asked) but that I'm not anaemic. NHS prescription steaks weren't offered.
So that's the end of my current medical dealings, unless a colleague of Dr LL's, who will be given my notes as I'm an "interesting case", finds anything new to report. But a new round of hospital fun may begin following a recent eye check-up that found inconsistencies in peripheral vision in the left eye. Glaucoma was mentioned, but only as a slight possibility.
My doctor will be informed and a more intensive hospital check-up arranged. If the speed of previous medical matters is an indication, this will take place some time in 2018.
I may not yet be old, but I'm definitely older.
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