Money for jam.

The receptionist can set the tone of the practice she works for. 

Last Thursday, at the endocrinology centre I attend, there was an angular, grey, fifty-five plus supercilious tone, with a brusque Hawthorn - refined, possibly British-Australian - accent.  The eyes, peering down through half-cut reading glasses, remained fixed on the computer screen.

Having announced my arrival, took a seat and waited.

It's my third visit with this particular endocrinologist.  She's tall, slim and fair.  Today she's wearing a black, back-zipped, flared pant teamed with a sleeve-less bolero style top over a black camisole.  There's plenty of time to observe all this as she leads me into the room, indicates that I should take a seat, sits and smiles at me.  White, long, somewhat prominent, good teeth.

She continues to smile, like she's really happy to see me, or she's not sure what should happen next.  I've encountered this before here and I'd already determined that I was not going to 'lead' the discussion.  Nor blather on to fill a somewhat awkward, albeit congenial silence.  (Don't you love these little mind games?)

I smile back, shrug, look beyond her narrow shoulders at the moody sky and rain spattered window, wondering if I'll get caught in the rain on my way home.

I tell her I haven't brought in any blood glucose data because I couldn't find the appropriate dongle.  (What's with that word anyway?)  Instead, I hand over my blood glucose meter and she busies herself backtracking through a few recent readings. Uh-hmm.  Silence.  No feedback.

"Which pump would you recommend?'  I interject, knowing the four year warranty on my Animas 2020 will expire soon.

"Medtronic," she says unequivocally, smiling and nodding.

"Any reason?" 

"I find it's easier to access the patient's data."  Still smiling.

"So it's about you rather than me," I say.  Because after four years I'm quite adept at interpreting my own data and I'm the one who has to live with it day by day.

"Oh, I think you'll also find they have the best after-sales support."  Smile.  Teeth.  Medtronic have really nobbled the consultants, I think.  Must be superior marketing.

"But Animas has been amazing.  I couldn't possibly have had better support."  I'm thinking of helpline calls I've made that have been 'life-saving' when I'm melting down; long chats with the young girl in Sydney,. herself on a pump; loan pumps when I'm overseas and a brand new pump, no questions asked, when mine failed.  Being Type 1 D and on a pump is practically part of the job description at Animas.

"Well, of course, it's up to you."  Still radiant smiles and then silence, which I'm determined not to fill.  We look at each other.  I can't stand it any longer.

"So, what was my last A1c?"  Which is really the only reason I'm here.  I can get scripts written at my local bulk-billing - that is, no payment - clinic.

"7.7."

The previous result was 7.8.

"Oh well, I'm heading in the right direction."  Given the stress and sickness I've endured for the past three months I'm thinking that's not too bad.

Quiet again.  I wait.  Bit awkward.  White walls, desk, bench, cupboard, scales, sink.

"Do you want to test my blood pressure?" I ask.  I know the drill.  She wraps the cuff around my arm, presses a button, but doesn't tell me the result, and I don't ask.  "My weight's been pretty stable," I add, which prompts her to suggest I get on the scales.  We both peer down at my feet before she returns to her seat and writes a note.  I already knew what I weighed. Apart from a few extra grams for clothes, my weight hadn't changed since that morning.  What am I doing here?

"Do you need any scripts?" she asks.  Hurrah.  She hands them over along with a pathology form for my next visit.

"Could you write me a medical certificate?  Had to take a day off work today."  Despite only working three days a week, I had to take the day off because she only consults privately one morning a week.  Fair enough.

"Okay, see you next time."

"Thanks!"

Back out into the ice-cold reception area and I'm not talking about the aircon.  I've been with the endo for ten minutes, tops.

"That's a hundred dollars for today, thanks," says Mrs Personality, lifting her eyebrows in my general direction and reaching for my credit card.  "Cheque, credit or savings?"

Think it's time to review my diabetes management options.  Any suggestions?

Stranded in Saigon

Went out for a 'shit walk' in Saigon this morning, for about two hours. There's nothing wrong with my bowels, it's just the environs of Saigon are less that appealing at the moment. Dirt, stench, broken pavements, constant traffic noise. Beep beep and more beep.  I've learned to cross the roads like a native. Basically, don't look, just walk steadily across. If you look, you might panic and try to dodge. Not a good idea. Motorcycles, cars, buses tend to avoid the pedestrian. I say that yet sister, Reggie, got a nasty bump from a motorcycle when she was walking along the pavement a couple of years back.

Saigon is actually a fascinating place, as is the rest of Vietnam. That's why we're back for a fourth visit.  I'd highly recommend it, and could just about suggest a great travel itinerary for anyone who's interested.  The food is brilliant, and cheap.

This trip, however, has wiped any smug travel smart-arsed-ness right off my dial.  Have already said how bleak you feel when you've done something really dumb that was avoidable.  Well, it's gotten worse. 

I'm focusing,  in my mind's eye now, on a man on a skateboard this morning.  He was resting his pelvis, where his legs used to be, on the board.  He was propelling himself with a short piece of dowel with a handle on it.

Who am I to complain?  Always someone worse off.  And we're not in a tsunami or anything.

But we're dealing with our own little bit of shit due firstly, to 'our' carelessness - not mine; Al's. (Just sayin'.)  Secondly due to Tet.

After we'd reported the loss of our passports to the police in Hoi An, and obtained the required 'letter' we rang the Australian Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.  An English speaking woman there told me to get to HCMC ASAP because it takes 48 hours to get an emergency passport and exit visas.  We are due to fly out of Saigon on January 27.

We visited Sinh Tourist - best travel agents BTW, with offices in the major tourist places - and were told that we couldn't fly south, nor could we catch the train, due to having no passports.  We had to brave another 'sleeping bus'. (Only try that if you're young, flexy, thin and have a bladder that can endure. It's lots cheaper than flying though.)  We also found that the buses were pretty fully booked, due to Tet travel, so we had to wait for three days for seats.

Another 20 hours on buses. Awful.

We arrived in Saigon on Friday at six. Of course the Australian Embassy would be closed for the weekend. Stymied again, we tried to make the best of it; find our 'happy place' which usually involves a walk, a look-see round a local market with squirming live things in shallow bowls and copious amounts of alcohol. (It has a calming effect.)

What we weren't expecting was that the Australian Embassy would close for the entire duration of Tet.  It's possible that it may open tomorrow, but chances are it won't open until January 27, our departure date.

And what I personally wasn't expecting, was that the retina in my left eye, like its counterpart on the other side, 12 months ago, would partially detach from my eyeball this morning.  Didn't see that one coming.  At least I know what's happened and that I'm not having a stroke or a diabetic retinopathy bleed.  Didn't know that when it happened last time. Quite hair-raising in the list of scary stuff that can happen to you if you're getting on in years and you happen to be short-sighted.

Have to say that my resilience is amazing me. And there is a certain symmetry in matching scrawls on my eyeballs.

Fingers crossed that our luck will change and the Australian Embassy will be open tomorrow.  

Christmas Cheer.

For some unknown reason, we had our Xmas breakup at the local lawn bowling club - the last bastion of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and/or Catholic at leisure, maybe. No idea what to expect, apart from the stereotype of the elderly Aussie lawn bowlers' hangout.

Signed in - Fraudster, C/- The Windsor, Melbourne.  My nostrils were assailed by something foisty, faintly mothbally, and something else; essence of je ne sais quoi.

'Don't like the smell.' Fraudster curls lip, sneers a bit.  'Smells of old.' I'm sitting there at noon on Thursday before Christmas, kitted up to out-do a Christmas tree.
'Quite like it,' says Work Husband, guarding his pot of beer.  'Reminds me of my great-grandfather's house.'

The rest of the staff arrive.

'Don't forget to sign in.'

We sit in a bar around capacious ten-seater Formica topped round tables.  As people make their way across the enormous wooden dance floor, some of them trying out a few tap steps along the way, their faces, too, take on that look of searching for the source of the odour.

The brick bowling club dates from late 'fifties or early 'sixties.

'Perhaps someone could pop back to school to get some music,' a teacher suggests, given the echoey bleakness of this old people's place, bedecked with pennants from bowling comps past.  But that wasn't to be.

'We're here for a spit roast.  You can bowl later if you want to.'  That's our officious, put upon staff association leader, who'd organised the venue and catering..  (A coup was mooted by some of the young things last year, but ultimately no one either cared that much come the new year.  Or dared.)

I sipped my 100 ml of Chateau Cardboard wine and tried, unsuccessfully, to savour the ambience, like waiting for a game of bingo to commence.

We lined up like refugees for our 'meals'.  It was the usual spit roast fare, or what was left of it by the time I got up there, not being one to enjoy queuing for fifteen minutes in a pair of, for me, moderately high heels.  It was nutritious, I suppose.  The beef end was quite tender.  I don't eat much.

Then the floor show:

An aussie gent, sixty-something, Ted, in washed out striped polo shirt and shorts, unceremoniously held up a used Bandaid - sticking plaster.  'If any lady's lost the Bandaid off of her nipple, I've got it here.'  Embarrassed laughter ensued briefly.  Is that what the old 'ladies' do to prevent high-beams penetrating their bowling shirts?

Unabashed by lack of appreciation for his jest, Ted held up the wire stopper from a bottle of champagne.

'How long's this wire?' he shouted.

'What do you mean?' called one of my colleagues.

Ted frowned, a bit put out.  He spelled it out for the idiot.

'If you unravel this wire, how long is it?' Jeez, dumb teachers or what?

'Why?' called another temeritous soul.

Finally he explained that it wasn't a trick question, but a competition.  Ah!  The correct guess would win a bottle of wine.  Next question:

'How many hankies high is a horse?'  Huh?

'Men's or ladies'?' called a female teacher, getting into the spirit of it.  He reached behind the bar and produced an ironed, folded men's handkerchief.  Ostentatiously, he shook it out, grabbed it by two diagonally opposed corners and held it up for his captive audience.  Can't remember the answer.  I'd downed three 'cardies' by that stage.

I approached the bar.  Ted was the barman now, floorshow being over.

'Diet coke, please?'

'You don't look like you need a diet coke,' He narrowed his eyes; leered at me. Perhaps I only imagined him licking his already wet lips.  Wink.

'Ahahah!'  Hilarious. 'Thanks, but I'd like one anyway.'

'But you don't need it!'  He cast a raunchy eye over me, grinning lasciviously.

'Oh!  Ha ha ha, too kind.'  I tittered  'Can I have a diet coke, please?'

'You don't need one, love.'  Same deal.

'Look, I actually have diabetes.  Can I please have a diet coke?'

At that he changed tack; beckoned me along the bar, away from the others waiting for drinks.

Here we go, I thought.  Wants to share his own diabetic trials, or those of his dead grandmother.  Go with it.

Rictus smile on my face, I indulged him.  He waved me closer, the better to hear his confidence.  Okay.

With one elbow on the bar, grinning, catching me in an eye-lock, he recited some doggerel.  For about two and a half minutes.  A long time for me to smile and occasionally shrug politely, to feign interest.  Wasn't really focused, given 300 ml of chardy, that early in the day.  But the protagonist of the poem, a dog, was 'piddling' here, there and everywhere.  Meanwhile, a heavily made up, coiffed bowling club lady, ceased polishing the bar, to lend a delighted ear.

The rhyming punchline of his recitation, which he'd waited perhaps forty-five years to deliver?  'That dog's got diabetes!'

Unbe-fucking-lievable.

'Can I have my diet coke now?'

'No, you can't.  We've only got Pepsi Max,' he said, grinning like an imbecile, pleased as punch.

Merry Christmas.

That piece of doggerel?  The piddlin' pup.