Locum doctor

September 12, 2003

Day 3 of sickliness. The antibiotics seem to be working their magic on the chest infection, but today my asthma is worse. I called the dr., who told me to come in, so I went in and he told me I was fine. Well, not really. He told me I wasn’t TOO bad and I could just double my dose of inhaler, but he wanted to shy away from the “sledgehammer” approach of prednisone pills. Yeah, okay. My peak flow was apparently fine and he didn’t seem put off my the strange noises that were going on in my chest while he listened to me breathe. He also told me that they gave me tranquilizers in the ER b/c they just do that to someone who is fine so they can get on with the next patient who might really be sick. Lovely chap, you see. Anyhow, he told

me to go in again next week for a check up. Thank goodness that was free or I would’ve

raised all hell. I pressed him (of course) but I get the feeling he thinks that Americans are just

overmedicated. Anyway, I went to reception to make an appointment for next week and she said

he didn’t have any open appointments ‘til next month. Oh darn. I said that’s fine, b/c I didn’t want to see him again anyways, so she told me to call in on the day I want to come and just see the locum doctor (apparently, that’s what they call the “fill-in” doctor. That’s who I saw yesterday and when I asked him what locum meant, he took a bit of offense and assured me that he was indeed a licensed physician.)

I just ordered pizza. It’s 4:30 pm and I haven’t been able to eat today b/c of the sickliness and all. There’s only one place that delivers up here on the mountain, and they don’t start delivering til 5:00, but she took my order and said it’d be here around 5:20.

I was supposed to be going out with a friend tonight celebrating his 30^th birthday, but the sickliness prevails. I was also going to go to the city centre tomorrow and finally see the sights of Belfast, but alas, that looks like it’s off the schedule as well.

Our third roommate is arriving tomorrow at about 6:00 p.m. His name is Peter and he’s from Germany. He’s going to be here for a year as part of his mandatory community service. In Germany, men of a certain age either have to join the military or do a year of community service. I think the lad’s made the right choice!

Well, it’s time for the next round of meds. Yippee yi yay! Maybe I’ll write later and tell you how the pizza was!

Toodle doo.

Love,

Sabrina ;-)