January 4th: David Jason

Fourth day and the New Year resolution to doodle a face a day continues. I drew this yesterday sitting on a train into Chester or sitting in the Café Nero beneath the city wall. The response to my blog post before Christmas made a difference. Yesterday my sister took the steps to see a consultant privately. I’d previously discovered the Doctoralia website and used it to find the best expert on her particular condition. Last Wednesday, we booked an appointment. It’s a stunningly good service that’s easy to use and pinpoints the experts in your region. We booked a noon appointment, travelled all morning to get there, only to discover that the hospital didn’t seem to know anything about the Doctoralia service or, at least, didn’t have the mechanism in place to turn virtual bookings into real bookings at the front desk. It wasn’t looking good but we were glad when we learned the doctor would see us.

We had to wait until he’d seen his other patients but eventually we were called in. We entered expecting very little but I’m happy to say that we left feeling very different. Bad experiences has taught us to expect little from doctors but we emerged shaking with delight. ‘Christ he was brilliant,’ my sister whispered as we walked to the front desk. I thought the same. After years of being told that my sister’s pain isn’t significant because, to quote other doctors, ‘there are no organs there’, we were shown diagrams of what was there and it was explained what her problem might be and what steps we can now take to help her. She’ll now have tests and we’ll go back for the results but, without going into too much trouble, one of her problems might be caused by other doctors changing her medication to a cheaper form of the drug she’s been prescribed to help her pain. We’ve now taken steps to remedy this and I hope we’ll see an improvement. I just wanted to write a little something to thank the people who gave me feedback either in the comments or via email. It’s good to know I have readers who follow much of the nonsense I write or draw but it’s even better to know you read my rare wanderings into the realm of the serious.