So I went to the waitingroom at noon as they had requested. They had a note there from their specialist that said I had been sent there, so I was hoping it might speed things up. After waiting for an hour the nurse did a quick eye-check on me and told me that it will be at least a 2.5 hour wait, so if I want I can leave the hospital and return by 4pm. That suited me just perfectly, since I hadn't been in the city centre for a long time and had planned to go for a quite a while. So I hopped on the first bus and went for a walk. Felt a bit fatigued, and figured I could really use a cup of coffee when I noticed this tent which said something about impromptu theatre and coffee. The organizer noticed I was looking and asked me to come and enjoy the show and a free coffee, which suited me just perfectly. The impromptu performance was crap, but the warm coffee and a chair was real nice.

My dad was also in the city, so I called him and asked him out to eat - he was a bit busy so we agreed to meet in an hour which gave me time to go and check out some stores I had planned visiting. We went to eat some Chineese food as I know he likes it and I hadn't had any in a long time. Had I known the restaurant was so far away I might had refused as I was already a bit exhausted. The food was surprisingly bland, I demanded that the next time I shall pick the restaurant. Was a bit worried that I'd be late for the hospital, but figured they probably won't mind as they said the 2.5 hours was the minimum wait. Well when we returned it rained like crazy, and now they told me it will be at least 3 hours. My parents told me they would be happy to pick me up and take me home to rest, but I figured I might as well be there at the hospital - had prepared a ton of snacks and had my laptop filled with movies. Well after the 3 hours they told me there were still 4 people ahead of me, guess I was at such a low priority that all patients who came got to go before me. My snacks were also running out, didn't take into account that the Pred makes me much hungrier. Went a bought a pint of Ben&Jerrys since the kiosk only had some very stale looking bread (only one weggie option).

Tried asking if I could get a bed since I was real tired, but there weren't really any personnel around. Was wondering if the doc had went to the bar since it didn't look like there would be less patients even though new ones were no longer arriving. Well one old lady told me that the nurse had said we could use the hospital bed in the corner so I took that one. Didn't manage to sleep, but resting felt pretty great as they had surprisingly uncomfortable benches in the waiting room. Slightly after midnight the doc called me in, she was quite thorough and we discussed that it was good that I came over for a check (was a bit worried that they would just take a quick peek and throw me out and I would have spent the day unnecessarily at the hospital). It seems my double vision might have gotten a bit worse, at the edges of my vision I kept seeing her finger as two or bending into two directions. She scheduled me some tests for next Wednesday. The impaired vision is likely due to the Pred, the small amount of blood in my eyes didn't worry her - she meant that its similar to how Pred makes us get bruises easier. I asked if she saw any signs of infection in the eyes, and she didn't sound too sure but said that they should be OK. I also discussed that if the Weg would have attacked my eyes then I'd assume that my old glasses which I got last year when I was on high Pred probably wouldn't help as much as they do now, and she agreed. I also asked that is there anything one could do if there was an infection, as I'm already on real powerful drugs and she said she was thinking the same thing and there would be some local medicine one could apply to the eye, like cortisone drops. She said that I can freely come back if I notice my vision starts getting worse again, and said we'll keep my appointment for September as that is going to one of their top specialists (the doc I've seen there twice seemed to know about vasculites).

Granted the 12.5 hour wait was a bit long, but they day didn't turn out to be all that bad. I mean my son was in a high fever, so I would have had to cancel my friends visit anyway - and that's what got me down anyway since I was really looking forward to having the house by myself and just chilling with a buddy I hadn't seen in a long while. It was real nice to go around the city as I had wanted to do that for a few weeks already and it was very nice to go out for dinner with my dad even though he had to take a few calls and the food was crap. It does seem a bit silly one has to wait that long for a doctors visit, I mean why do they insist I need to check in at noon if they won't have any time anyway, but on the other hand if they think I need to see a doc then I don't really think its all that bad that I can see a good doctor during the same day. A lot of the patients who came in seemed to have much more urgent issues, like wearing black glasses and I heard one was crying in pain so I'm totally OK with all of them getting prioritised. I really loved how they told me I could leave for a few hours, since at the ENT's waiting room they were quite hesitant about letting me go get food which is so silly, I mean why force someone to sit at a bench for 8 hours. One old lady said they had promised her that they could even let her go home and call her one hour before her expected time. Was a bit bummed that they didn't say that to me, as I would have loved to go home and wait for a call as my parents could have dropped me off then.

When I left I gave my cookies and chocolates to the two pensioners who were still waiting for the doc. Those poor amateurs had no idea they were in for an all-day wait and had brought nothing with them. One of them had a two hour taxi drive home so I bet he was going to be hungry. Being well prepared I had packed my overnight bag with extra clothes, toothbrush and all since I'm just not so convinced I'm going to be sent home these days when I go to the doc. My cooler bag was even still cold when I arrived home at 1am, granted I already drank all my cold coffee drinks. Next time I'll prepare more food though, I had to go buy a lot of sweets since there weren't really any viable healthy alternatives at the kiosk. Didn't really consider the Pred makes me so hungry.

So tomorrow I'll go to the lab for bloodworks and urine tests, Tuesday CTX IV, on Wed they'll do the eye-check ups.

Today I'm OK'd to go down to 60mg Pred. yay! Hopefully I'll be able to sleep a bit better, I think I've averaged around 5 hours sleep per day which just isn't enough.