My immune system is trying to eat my spine. Yes, I have Ankylosing Spondylitis. I take Yuflyma – a biologic treatment. It slows my immune system down and keeps the disease from progressing. That’s all – slows it. If I stop, it starts again.
Then someone screwed up.
You see, the specialist will only authorise the repeat prescription if – and only if – my blood tests are up to date. Just in case something goes wrong and tries to kill me. There are two or three that they check.
Well, it turns out one of those tests got lost in the post or something.
Did someone ring me up to ask me to do another one? No, of course not.
Was a letter sent to my GP (CC to me)? No, don’t be daft.
Did they wait until I was due to inject, had none and phoned to ask what the flippin’ heck was going on? Yes, how did you guess?
Did they then take almost two weeks getting the paperwork for the test to me? Why, yes, they did.
Is my disease active again, causing me pain and flare-ups more than once a week? How did you guess?
I love the NHS, don’t get me wrong. The NHS has literally saved my life. Social healthcare – free at the point of use – should be the standard the world over. Even so, this lack of coordinated communication ticks me right off. I pay the price in pain and a degraded spine every time this goes wrong.
So, yeah, my pain has been worse of late. This week, I will have the blood test. After that, they will get daily calls until my medication is released and with me. I might also complain. I’m British – we don’t rush these things. We complain on our blogs or social media and then get on with it.
