Visit to the Doctor

I wasn't feeling well since yesterday. Every time I moved or lay down I felt vertigo. It's happened before and the culprit is usually a viral ear infection, which resolves on its own.  But this was a bit worse than normal. Anyway, my point is not to moan about my ailments; rather I thought it would be an opportunity to describe a visit to the doctor, NHS style.  First of all, everyone has to register with a local GP; literally local within your post code, no going cross town because you want to.  So as I wasn't feeling well, Martin called first thing at 8:30 in the morning and I got an appointment for 10:30. This is a relatively new practice and not oversubscribed, so it's usually easy to be seen on short notice.  I arrived, notified the receptionist and sat down.  That's it. No insurance card, no co-pay. Just sat down.  A few minutes later Dr. Brannick pops his head out of his office and calls me in.  No sitting expectantly for 20 minutes in an examination room waiting for the doctor to breeze in! Fortunately our doctor is young and very personable and he laughs at patients' jokes.  After a brief chat he says I've got benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, which is some inner ear crystals getting loose and causing havoc.  "There's medication you can take," he said, "but it can make it worse."  I replied, well, that's a real strong ad slogan - "here, take this and you'll feel worse!"  Dr. B leaned back in his chair and had a long laugh at that, no doubt appreciating the irony.  He then explained there was something called the Epley maneuver that might help, so up on the table I went for that. (It's on youtube, if anyone's interested.)  A few minutes later, we were done. Off I went, still feeling dizzy, but reassured that it should resolve on its own.  Of course, the NHS isn't all hugs and laughs, but I'll save those stories for later.