Tiredness is killing

Ah, it's Friday once again, the end of the week! Thank God for that! I guess everyone is fed-up of me going on about being tired all the time, so from now on, assume I am tired unless I write otherwise! Following on from that, I've just got time to write a couple of things before I sign out for the weekend - I'm too tired to write anymore! At uni, such was the lazy life I led, that whenever I had to get up early (which was extremely rare) my friends and I joked that it was all about the "thrill of feeling tired" and that is what it has been like this week! After saying I won't write about it, the first paragraph has extended to over 6 lines about it! Sorry.

Saw a patient today who I've been seeing regularly for the past month. Initially presented feeling very depressed and has just been coming back for regular chats because he has no-one else to talk to. Each time, we go through his feelings and his progress and he claims to feel better at the end of each consultation. I haven't offered any medical advice whatsoever, just been a counciller for him and he has made quite good progress. Reflecting on this, I actually feel good about that, it's feel nice to know that I've helped him get through simply by being there for him to talk to. But the one thing that nags is that anyone could've done that for him, I haven't needed to use any of my skills/knowledge to improve this patients quality of life, so what was the point?

Moving on from that, and coming back to yesterday's blog, I encountered another case which took the p*** out of the NHS system. A patient was on phenytoin (drug used to control epilepsy) for the past 3yrs and it was discovered that she had stopped it 3 months ago. You can't stop phenytoin all of a sudden, it has to be gradually reduced and that too after specialist advice. The practice spoke to the patient to ask why she had stopped taking the phenytoin. She didn't have epilepsy after all, she had made it up with a fake letter from a hospital abroad so that she could get the phenytoin for her dog! Her dog suffered epilepsy but the vet prescriptions cost £20 per month, whereas on the NHS she could get the prescription for the standard prescription fee!

I'll leave it there for this week! I'll try and talk about some important topics next week as hopefully I'll have adjusted to the fasting and hopefully would have had some proper sleep over the weekend.

Take care all and have a brilliant weekend,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?