Wow damn! THAT did not take long. With my docs surgery they open at 8am, although thats very new, formerly it was half 8. But the phone lines are ALWAYS jammed, within seconds of their opening and the ONLY way to get an appointment via phone is to ring, and if its not immediate in going through to the que, rather than just getting an engaged tone, is to hang up andbe 8 press redial, every time, hang up, dial hang up dial hang up dial...........
The only way to RELIABLY, be certain to get, an appointment there is to drag one's arse out of bed qnd get there by at THE LATEST, maybe ten minutes before the older opening time, which gives a good chance, or for certainty, get there 15-20 minutes beforehand and wait until the doors open to be in the very first couple of people through it. That way I can ensure an appointment with my favoured GP, the senior partner of the practice, there used to be one other guy who was just as well-educated, learned and shared in having, like my current favoured main GP, an absolutely excellent bedside manner
Might not necessarily comply with a given request if he thinks it wrong to do so, and upon being presented with literature detailing whatever, he won't ignore it just because he already came to a decision. Willing to examine such, and to change a decision like that when, or if there is indeed sufficient justification for doing so. Not arrogant like some doctors either (as in '*I*, not YOU! am the doctor here! I know better than you do, and I'm always right' is an attitude SOME, crappy doctors do have, but this guy, he talks WITH you, not AT you/TO you. And he isn't full of himself in a way that means he just won't alter a decision based on initial impressions, if then presented with good, solid logical medico-scientific evidence and justification. If its what is best for the patient, and he CAN do it, he DOES it.
Decent guy too, kindly. And he actually cares a lot for his patients. So did the other guy,but he left years ago, sadly suffering from severe depression. Real good man he was, I liked him as one of the two GPs there, including the other guy I always (try to) see now. But he IS difficult to get an appointment with him, as he is such a damn good doctor that EVERYBODY wants an appointment with him, thats one of the reasons appointments are taken so fast, within seconds to a minute of the lines opening and one must walk up there and make an appt in the flesh. A painful, pretty miserable prospect for me unless I have some pain relief to take, at least just a single dose, enough to cover the walk there and walk back (about ten minutes for most people, about a half hour or so for me) unless I can get on the bike and race it up there. But even then, still, its far more pleasant an undertaking to get there on the bike, and under the influence of sufficient analgesia to dull, at least, if not to eliminate it altogether (I would not ride a bike on a dose sufficient to yield that level of pain-freedom. It would be too dangerous. Well, I'd ride one off the roads and streets, out in the woods whilst out to scrag a few nice tasty wild fungal delicacies, but theres no traffic there, and few, few people. And if I did gouch out and take some free low-altitude flying lessons, the worst thats likely to happen is not injury, but falling off and taking a (literal) dirt nap. I.e, a nap, in dirt, not the terminal kind. Or at the absolute most serious outcome potentially possible, being stung by nettles or torn up a bit by bramble cane thorns.
Could be a lot worse. (Like the time as a kid, I wasn't so tall as the huge stands of bracken and male-fern; and taking a walk with a childhood friend, plenty of high-spirited highjinks
and fucking around. Took a running dive, like my friend did, and leapt into the bracken, manytimes until, not realizing, the target area we were going for, actually concealed a ditch full of stagnant water and nettles. Probably a lot of deer-shit too:P
And ended up right in over the top of my head, AFTER standing up, having made a headfirst leaping dive into those dense ferns haha.
Or the time bike riding in the same woods with my ex fiancee, both of us on y-butyrolactone, and as such, very drunken and incoordinated and wobbly. Drunk-driving a pushbike through the empty woods at night. Lol, fuck only knows how many times we went over, until getting off and walking home with the bikes, as our G-tarded state wasn't in the slightest inclined to permit us to get away with anything else and remain upright
But I won't take a full on dose of pain meds, either prescription, over the counter, or fresh from the skunk-works; and then continue on to ride the bike anywhere BUT those kinds of un-inhabited, trafficless, mostly people-less, or at least they are thinly enough spread that no matter how pasted one may be, one may still avoid them without effort at all. on a half to 1g of morphine, IV, that would be simply enough, suicidal.
(not that I actually sleep, maybe 7 to 8 nights out of any ten consecutive nights. I'm usually up and awake all night, for the vast majority of most days and nights.)
