Saturday 22nd October 2022
Just over a week ago I was afflicted with acute lower back pain which came on quickly. I suffered a couple of days before phoning my GP's surgery. Your call at our practice is normally answered in less than five minutes. One gives brief details to an experienced and sympathetic receptionist who logs you for a call back by the GP within that morning. I fielded the call and had a positive conversation and was offered an appointment with the surgery's physio one week on. From what I read that is pretty good. I saw the physio this last Wednesday after increased suffering. He gave me a through examination taking my complaint seriously. He booked me for an x-ray and gave me a sheet of individual exercises compiled there and then from his main list on the computer, and he also booked me in for blood sampling the next day-but-one (Friday.) On Thursday I went to Kendal hospital for the x-ray. I only had to wait ten minutes and the radiographer was pleasant and welcoming. The pain had become much worse but I stuck it out until my appointment today, Friday with the nurse for blood taking at 11:00 am.
I told the nurse that I desperately needed further examination and help from the qualified GP, not that I was dissatisfied with the physio, but I had to make something happen. Nurse said that there was only one GP on duty and she would get him to ring me later. At that point I'm afraid I burst into tears, so off she went to speak to the doc. After waiting another five minutes in the waiting room the doc appeared and saw me. Again he was sympathetic and thorough. He examined the source of my pain and concluded that it was "muscle spasm" whereas the physio had been more on the track of something orthopaedic, The doc prescribed me: Diazepam, Tramadol and Amitriptyline, sending the prescription electronically to the chemist in our village. I drove straight there and only waited ten minutes for the tablets. Back home I took the doses as indicated and sat in my large comfortable armchair stretched out and so dosed up I drifted off to sleep and awoke four hours later after very deep sleep. The pain had almost gone. Well, that is for the moment and I will have to see how it goes.
My reason for detailing the above is to illustrate that I doubt if there is any other country in the world where you would get such good treatment for free, ok I know we pay National Insurance but that is now so firmly embedded it tends to be hardly noticed. We do also have to pay for prescriptions up to the age of 60, so for me they were also free.
------------------
In the evening I was still comfortable enough to listen to some music which included Nicola Benedetti playing Elgar's violin concerto. The music with the London Phil was of course moving but in particular I was struck by the bewitching tone of Nicola's violin which took me to an even deeper level of that emotional pit of the stomach feeling - that is how some music does for me anyway, others talk of goose pimples or back of the neck hair raising.
Curiosity prevailed and I found this on the Classic FM website.
3. How much is Nicola Benedetti’s violin worth?
The violin Nicola plays is called the Gariel, made in 1717 by Stradivarius. It's worth an estimated £2m and previously belonged to an ancestor of Princess Diana. Nicola has said if a fire broke out in her home, she would grab her violin before her cat. "In an ideal world, all three of us would escape unscathed," she says. "But if I had to choose between the cat and the violin the £2million Stradivarius would have to come first."
