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Met a fellow T2 waiting for a bus at the hospital!

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.

Lanny

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
The only mini bus that goes into the hospital grounds, since paying ticketed entry & parking, was 11 minutes late that takes you to the bus station in town.

Got chatting to a fellow passenger, the only other one, in the queue. She was a pregnant lady with an eastern european accent. She refrained from asking about my origins, as SOME do assuming I don’t live here, & I did her the same courtesy of doing the same!

The Causeway Coast part of Northern Ireland is a bit of an oddity in that it’s not 1 Borough Council or 1 County. It’s really best described as a Tourist area! It’s little towns in the north east all within about 20 miles from the coast & centred around the World Heritage site of The Giants Causeway! Because of the winding around the coast county lines, the towns are in 2 counties. The bigger towns have their own borough councils that include some of the smaller villages close to them!

Because of this, official red tape can cause problems as the Causeway hospital officially serves 2 counties. This poor lady had just come up, on the bus, from 40/45 miles away & only had 2 minutes with the doctor. Who said she could be seen at the bigger main hospital for County Antrim that’s much closer & easier for her to get to! It sure put my little bus journey of 7/8 miles in prospective! We both agreed that THAT should have been sorted out before! On the odd occasions when I’ve had to go to that hospital, officially my county, I’ve had to take 3 buses each way & takes some planning as it’s a mix of local buses running frequently & express buses only 1 every 2 hours.

The doctors do the travelling around to hospital outpatients to see their patients for checkups & we, the patients, only have to travel to their hospitals for actual operations!

The lady, Polish I think, was a T2 for 4 years diagnosed during her first pregnancy. We chatted about our diabetes & our diets: she’s diet & exercise only! She dosen’t test, not allowed to, & could feel her BS levels dropping sometimes, when I mentioned my improvement that meant hypos & lowering doses of insulin. I told her that I’ve been carrying around two mint humbugs in my pockets when I go out! She thought that was a good idea!

The late mini bus duly arrived & we went our seperate ways. It was a pretty interesting little chat with a fellow T2 diabetic! 🙂
 
What a journey for that poor lady! 😱 :( Did you tell her about the forum? 🙂
 
In Northern Ireland the health services are very limited. There isn’t a pancreatic specialist anywhere, despite the Irish affection for alcohol. So to get proper treatment, it’s on the ferry to get to Liverpool. It’s a bit like Highland Scotland, but at least we’ve got Glasgow.
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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