Brighton

I cannot report fully on the consultation with Dr Nisbet as it’s all still in progress;  I will explain in a moment.  ‘Twas a day of two halves and I don’t mean morning and afternoon.  More like journey and hospital.

It was a long day of travelling, but everything was on time and all arrangements were kept, with a few nailbiting moments.

I had made sure I had contingency plans for every occurrence;  the only thing I couldn’t have a back up plan for was if Mabel cast a wheel or something. And I decided that if something happened that I couldn’t deal with, I would just ring the police!  I did ring a magic telephone number given to me by the station from where I collected my tickets a couple of days before travel.  The person I spoke to was so calm, quick and efficient and I had absolutely no qualms about the whole expedition.  The end of May is turning out to be really rather wet and on the day of travel we had rain of biblical proportions. Thankfully, Pip loaded Mable up into the car which saved me one soaking and it at least alerted me to take something waterproof!  Just as we arrived at the station the weather became monsoon-like;  The traffic came to a standstill and people were scurrying around with coats over their heads and a lot of angry taxi drivers were getting cross with everybody.

I rolled into the station, Canterbury West, to be greeted by an extremely pleasant man.  “Good morning Mrs Strevens” he boomed across the concourse!  The gate was opened and he beckoned me to sit near an overhead electric fire which nicely dried out my thin waterproof. Brett explained that I would be accompanied onto the train by Ulysses(!) and within minutes I was on the train and heading towards London on the train which becomes high-speed once it reaches Ashford.

55 minutes later we rolled into St Pancras, and I had in my hand a small piece of paper with all the platform information I needed to board the right train for Brighton.  It was just as well I did, as I didn’t receive the same amount of help I had in Canterbury West, although there was somebody there with a ramp to run up to the train which was just as well because there was no other way of getting off! Well, not on four wheels, anyway.  As I was going down the three levels in two different lifts, somebody in railway uniform hove into view to ask my name and then said they would meet me on platform whatever it was to board the train to Brighton. Having got out of the lift I was then rather nonplussed to see nobody with a ramp and trains were whizzing in and out with everybody seeming to know exactly where they were going and what they were doing.  It then dawned on me that the platform was very slightly raised and watching a train come in I realised that I would be able to just roll on with no need of a ramp. Which is exactly what happened.

And off we set for Brighton.  An hour and a half later I rolled off again, consulted the map app on my phone and set off for the 15 minute journey on Mabel towards the hospital. This was the one bit of the journey that proved to be a bit hair-raising.  The pavements were really narrow with little or no margin for error and the first one I encountered beside quite a busy road, had an alarming slope towards the curb, which is not one of Mable’s favourite things.

Added to which there were no let down curbs on two of the roads I had to cross but thankfully a curb at that point was rather worn which meant I could drop off it without too much of a bump and get up the other side.  I arrived for my appointment 25 minutes early and then settled down to wait.

And wait.

And wait……… Dr Nesbit appeared out of his consulting room and immediately apologised for the delay. It had turned out to be ‘one of those days’ with all sorts of unforeseen things happening. Unfortunately this unforeseen thing happening wasn’t written into my contingency plans, and apart from anything, all the journey plans and help at stations (which I would need back at St Pancras to board the train – and Canterbury West to get off) would be completely thrown into disarray. So I had to say to him that there was no way I could over run my schedule and he fully understood and wasted no time in getting down to the reason I was there! I will now be brief and just say that he was extremely nice, and of all the consultants I have visited he is the one I found most approachable and kind. He appreciated the letter I gave him from my NH consultant in Canterbury to my GP, which was written in the style and format doctors understand. Therefore he did have an immediate grounding of my case.

I explained to him why I had made an appointment to see him (see my former post) and I made it quite clear I did not expect him to wave a magic wand, or shunt, but I made a point of raising the negative oligoclonal bands, and whether the problems I had with my eyes back in 1986 were possibly the beginnings of MS or not.  So with the 30 minutes I had with him he was able to assess my physical state and see the whites of my eyes, and I left promising to send to him the Radiologist’s report that I had neglected to get. I had the actual MRI scan on disc but I had forgotten that the consultants appear to rely on the Radiologist’s interpretation although I did end up leaving that scan disc with him. Since then, I have spoken to the Radiology department at Kent and Canterbury Hospital who are going to send said report to my GP so I can then collect it and send on to Doctor Nesbitt!  Since returning to Kent, I have been in touch with both his secretary and accounts manager to request that perhaps we could complete the consultation before I pay his bill!

To return to the other half of the day, the journey, I then got back to the station by using the bus service, which was as brilliant as my friend Sean’s in Petham, And I just got back to the railway station in time for the train.

I wasn’t particularly happy negotiating the sloping pavements with inhospitable kerbs.

A man appeared at St Pancras with a ramp and another speedy and on-time journey got me to Canterbury West where I was met by another nice man with a ramp!  Day done.  I slept quite well that night!