On doctors

You know what I hate about going to the doctor's? Lots of things, actually.

The first is that you're usually sick when you go. Unless you're feeling hale and hearty and are just asking to have your passport application signed or something like that, it stands to reason you're probably going to be ill. But conversely, what I really hate about going to the doctor is the way that my symptoms seem to have an annoying habit of going into hiding when I actually get in there.

Lately, I have been coughing something ferocious. A couple of weeks back when I saw my brother and his family, my sister in law was complaining of an ear infection. I seem to have almost no resistance to Portsmouth germs, as when they're sick I usually follow a few days later. And sure enough, I noticed a familiar pain, right on time. I ignored it, like I do most things, and after a while it became a sort of sore throat too, along with the customary blocked nose.

Still, nothing I can't pretend isn't really there. I'm quite skilled at that, pretending. Then came the cough. Which has led to coughing fits in the middle of the night where you wonder if they are going to end before your oesophagus splits, and that taste in your mouth almost as bad as caffeine-free diet coke.

Grudgingly, I accepted that if left alone a chest infection was more likely to develop into something nasty as it was to magically clear up all its own. So I booked an appointment.

I might complain about the NHS, but I am wholly against the idea that the wealthy should get a better standard of health care. I am also glad that I can call in the middle of the day and get an appointment to see a doctor after work the following night -- and have a choice of appointment times. I am also glad that I don't have to pay to see a doctor.

Naturally, I have been finding it hard to sleep and continued coughing all day -- except today I was slightly glad that I wouldn't feel like I was wasting the doctor's time. Walking down the corridor to the doctor's office, I fought the urge to cough (I worried it would seem like I was doing it for attention, or laying it on a bit thick "oh, I'm so ill>"). Once in the office, the need to cough has gone. I explain my symptoms, the doctor listens to my back in various places, listens to my chest, asks me to cough while listening to my chest, and eventually concludes that she might be able to hear something, so I could have a chest infection.

Where the relentless, choking, racking, coughing fits are when you need them, I don't know -- but they certainly weren't in that office, and she probably just thought I was a hypochondriac and gave me a prescription just to get me out of the door.

I expect the doctors earn commission on prescriptions.