In which he falls afoul of bureaucracy.
Feb. 3rd, 2006 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drcuriosityI haven't posted much here of late, mainly because the publicly noteworthy events in my life haven't been particularly happy. So, now you get it all at once...
December 23rd, or thereabouts: Wisdom tooth pressing against next tooth over. Painful. Local dentist is contacted, but is away on holiday until the 10th.
Shortly after Christmas: Things certainly aren't getting any better. Referred nerve stuff causing the right hand side of my face to twitch occasionally, and blurring vision. I contact the Dental Oral Health Centre at/near Christchurch Hospital, and book an appointment to see them. Try to keep the site clean as best as possible with saline, clove oil, etc.
January 5th: Go to that appointment. Wait two hours, finally get seen. Get x-rayed, and told pretty much what I already knew: teeth have to come out. Apparently due to the shape of my jaw, this needs to be done by an oral surgeon rather than just pulled directly. I'm given a short course of antibiotics. Oral surgeons are apparently away on holiday at the moment, so I should wait and hear from them. It may take two or three weeks to get it fixed.
January 10th: Private dentist comes back from holiday. I'm first told that he doesn't take new clients, then it's established that there is a referral process, and my sister and aunt have both had work done by him. After describing my problem though, they say that it's beyond what they can do, so I'll have to wait. The nurse has just recently had oral surgery done herself, and she had to wait three months for a specialist, so three weeks is apparently Good.
Some time around then: I finally find out that the academic extension on medical grounds that I had applied for has been granted. The letter was sent out to me before Christmas; it never arrived. Apparently now that I have that, I can sort out the fees extension process.
January 18th: Go to see people at Registry about fees. They tell me that I can't get the new period of my degree covered with a mere extension, and that I have to apply for a post-dated medical suspension instead - completely contrary to what I'd been told in the Faculty of Science's offices. I send an email to the Student Advisor who I'd been talking with there. She says she's going to try to sort things out.
January 21st: Punched in the back of the head by a drunk (long story) - didn't feel like much at the time, but the inside of the tooth starts bleeding more often again so it may have knocked a crumbling bit of it loose, or something.
Around January 23rd: Call up the Dental Oral Health Centre again. They transfer me a couple of times, and eventually I get someone on the line who has my details and they're going to do what they can, and they're going to send something out to me shortly.
January 27th: I finally get a second opinion chest X-ray that was scheduled three months previously, to follow up on the inconclusive results of the one done in September which was ordered in July.
January 29th: Non-bureaucracy/health-related, but my father's 14-year-old cat passed away. He had had thyroid problems and began losing weight dramatically, so my father took him back to the vet and found that he was suffering from multiple organ failure and would die painfully within a week if he wasn't put to sleep. He died peacefully. We miss him.
February 3rd: I call the centre again again, asking to find out when they're going to see me because I still don't have anything from them and my gum is starting to grow back over the broken, bleeding tooth. They've lost my referral card. I try to explain the urgency of my condition, and am told "Well sorry, we don't do urgent here." They're going to find my details and call me back. As soon as they do that, I'm headed in to
university again to sort out seeing my GP about the X-ray, and if I get there before 4:30 when everyone seems to go home, see if I can wrestle some information out of the science faculty.
Oh, and amongst all this, I've been trying to get university work done - writing video analysis tools, trying to figure out which statistical techniques I should be using for a user study, and trying to make sure that all the scattered hardware for my experiment stays accounted for during renovations in the lab. The glass screen is currently in the hallway and the webcam is on my desk, but at least now the frame, back board, LED panels, mounting brackets and projector are all in the same physical proximity. Still need to track down the IR filter plastic and wide-angle lens, get someone to help assemble and test all the bits (our IT support guy is currently in hospital), and then maybe I'll be able to make some real progress.
I've also discovered that I can grow around half an inch of beard in a month if it's too painful to shave, but that with a bit of effort I can trim it back relatively evenly with scissors, even if I'm working mostly on my sense of touch when it comes to stuff that close.
There have been some happy things in my life here and there too, including: visiting friends, opportunities to cook nice food for people (and be cooked for), a relatively peaceful home life and a phone call with a dear friend of mine in the U.S. So it's certainly not all bad.
December 23rd, or thereabouts: Wisdom tooth pressing against next tooth over. Painful. Local dentist is contacted, but is away on holiday until the 10th.
Shortly after Christmas: Things certainly aren't getting any better. Referred nerve stuff causing the right hand side of my face to twitch occasionally, and blurring vision. I contact the Dental Oral Health Centre at/near Christchurch Hospital, and book an appointment to see them. Try to keep the site clean as best as possible with saline, clove oil, etc.
January 5th: Go to that appointment. Wait two hours, finally get seen. Get x-rayed, and told pretty much what I already knew: teeth have to come out. Apparently due to the shape of my jaw, this needs to be done by an oral surgeon rather than just pulled directly. I'm given a short course of antibiotics. Oral surgeons are apparently away on holiday at the moment, so I should wait and hear from them. It may take two or three weeks to get it fixed.
January 10th: Private dentist comes back from holiday. I'm first told that he doesn't take new clients, then it's established that there is a referral process, and my sister and aunt have both had work done by him. After describing my problem though, they say that it's beyond what they can do, so I'll have to wait. The nurse has just recently had oral surgery done herself, and she had to wait three months for a specialist, so three weeks is apparently Good.
Some time around then: I finally find out that the academic extension on medical grounds that I had applied for has been granted. The letter was sent out to me before Christmas; it never arrived. Apparently now that I have that, I can sort out the fees extension process.
January 18th: Go to see people at Registry about fees. They tell me that I can't get the new period of my degree covered with a mere extension, and that I have to apply for a post-dated medical suspension instead - completely contrary to what I'd been told in the Faculty of Science's offices. I send an email to the Student Advisor who I'd been talking with there. She says she's going to try to sort things out.
January 21st: Punched in the back of the head by a drunk (long story) - didn't feel like much at the time, but the inside of the tooth starts bleeding more often again so it may have knocked a crumbling bit of it loose, or something.
Around January 23rd: Call up the Dental Oral Health Centre again. They transfer me a couple of times, and eventually I get someone on the line who has my details and they're going to do what they can, and they're going to send something out to me shortly.
January 27th: I finally get a second opinion chest X-ray that was scheduled three months previously, to follow up on the inconclusive results of the one done in September which was ordered in July.
January 29th: Non-bureaucracy/health-related, but my father's 14-year-old cat passed away. He had had thyroid problems and began losing weight dramatically, so my father took him back to the vet and found that he was suffering from multiple organ failure and would die painfully within a week if he wasn't put to sleep. He died peacefully. We miss him.
February 3rd: I call the centre again again, asking to find out when they're going to see me because I still don't have anything from them and my gum is starting to grow back over the broken, bleeding tooth. They've lost my referral card. I try to explain the urgency of my condition, and am told "Well sorry, we don't do urgent here." They're going to find my details and call me back. As soon as they do that, I'm headed in to
university again to sort out seeing my GP about the X-ray, and if I get there before 4:30 when everyone seems to go home, see if I can wrestle some information out of the science faculty.
Oh, and amongst all this, I've been trying to get university work done - writing video analysis tools, trying to figure out which statistical techniques I should be using for a user study, and trying to make sure that all the scattered hardware for my experiment stays accounted for during renovations in the lab. The glass screen is currently in the hallway and the webcam is on my desk, but at least now the frame, back board, LED panels, mounting brackets and projector are all in the same physical proximity. Still need to track down the IR filter plastic and wide-angle lens, get someone to help assemble and test all the bits (our IT support guy is currently in hospital), and then maybe I'll be able to make some real progress.
I've also discovered that I can grow around half an inch of beard in a month if it's too painful to shave, but that with a bit of effort I can trim it back relatively evenly with scissors, even if I'm working mostly on my sense of touch when it comes to stuff that close.
There have been some happy things in my life here and there too, including: visiting friends, opportunities to cook nice food for people (and be cooked for), a relatively peaceful home life and a phone call with a dear friend of mine in the U.S. So it's certainly not all bad.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 01:43 am (UTC)I hope you get seen soon.
*tight hugs*
no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 02:07 am (UTC)Damn
Date: 2006-02-03 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 04:27 am (UTC)Also, sorrow for the loss of precious kitty.
:{
no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 07:47 am (UTC)Sorry to hear about your dad's cat, too. Your dad is cool, and, well, all cats are cool.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 10:46 pm (UTC)