Ready For Bed

I went off to the CMHT this morning via the local Tesco Express so I could buy plenty of tissues for my cold. My nose seems to be constantly running one minute and then a few minutes later I am completely bunged up. And I don't think that I have sneezed so much for a long time. This is a real humdinger of a cold and it couldn't have come at a worse time.

I arrived at the CMHT at 9.45am for my 10am appointment, and was told that the HTT team were running a bit late and that I wouldn't be seen until about 10.15am. It wasn't anything more than a bit of an annoyance as I didn't have to do anything else today. A member of the HTT that I had not met before came to see me in reception and said that he just wanted to read through all my notes before we had a chat.

Normally there are only one or two other people with appointments at that time on a Monday morning, but today there were about a dozen and it meant that rooms were at a premium. We went in one and were then asked to move out of that so we had to go to another room, this time in the annex at the back of the main building. We settled down for our chat and talked quite a bit about my interview tomorrow and what the job will involve. Most of my appointment ended up being on the subject of patients having access to their medical records and how this should and could be achieved. Then we discussed all of the other presentations that I have done on this subject and who they were for and then passed on to my trip to the House of Commons next week. We did eventually get on to the real subject of my appointment, which of course, relates to how I have been over the last week and how I am coping with life in general.

The end result of all this is that I have been discharged from the HTT/Crisis Team and I now have an appointment with my new consultant psychiatrist next Monday. I haven't met him yet but I have been told that he is very nice and quite young. So next Monday morning I shall be making my way over to the CMHT again, but this time not to see the HTT, it will be the first of what I am told will be regular meetings with my new consultant psychiatrist. So watch this space.

When I had set out from home this morning it had been a very grey morning. By the time that I left the CMHT a fine drizzle was falling and it was sufficient for me to get cold and damp on my walk to the bus stop. Fortunately, almost every bus stop in my part of London now has a shelter associated with it so I could at least stand in the dry while I waited the few minutes before the first of my buses home arrived. When it became time to change buses it was raining even more but the stop that I alighted from was also the stop where I had to wait for the second bus for my journey home. I had to wait about five minutes before my bus came, but again I was under a shelter and by the time that I arrived at the bus stop nearest home, the rain had stopped, so the short walk home didn't mean that I got any wetter.

Once home, I slapped a pasta ready meal into the microwave, zapped it for the required four minutes and then sat down to enjoy my nice hot meal. then I wrapped myself up in a couple of blankets and laid down on the settee to half watch television and play Mah Jong on my Nintendo DSi. I may have dozed off for a few minutes a couple of times, but other than that I have been awake all day, which is a bit of a surprise as I only had one hour of sleep last night.

Now I am ready for bed and I plan to get myself snuggled under the duvet and read for a while before trying to get to sleep. I'm not sure how successful I will be as I am definitely suffering with this cold and my anxiety level is very high. Having a job interview, followed shortly afterwards with a psychotherapy session is not what I would normally plan for my day, but it has to be done and I'll have to do my best. The alarm is set for the indecent hour of 6am so that I can get myself up, showered, dressed and make sure that I have everything that I need for the day, before leaving the house between 7.30am and 7.45am. Whether I have the time, or the inclination, for any breakfast remains to be seen.

I shall report on how my day went tomorrow evening, when I may even resort to an alcoholic drink or two to get over my taxing day.