mobbsy

Ha, posting all that earlier helped unstick me a bit.

I phoned Dynamic Health, they have moved me to the Huntingdon waiting list (and I have warned my boss I may need to take more time off for appointments as a result!) and confirmed they're now starting to see referrals from early April, so hopefully only 3-4 weeks before I hear from them? *fingers crossed*

I filled it the GP's triage form with a request to see someone about my second shoulder, and whether it's possible to get a steroid injection early before it freezes, they've texted to say a GP will look at my case on 2nd July and may call or invite me to come in. I particularly love that it will be two weeks before they get back to me when the course of naproxen they prescribed will run out in 4 days, but hey, could be worse. If it actually helped noticeably I'd send an admin request for more to keep taking in the meantime.

I've got an email back from the Spire saying they can't give me a table of expected costs as it depends on the consultant, so I think they're out in favour of Bupa if I do go private, but I'll hold off on that for another month and see if I hear from Huntingdon!

And I've booked another session with my private physio for Friday, in case she can give me some more useful tips for the meantime.

That's a technical term. Addenbrookes have a helpful page on what it is and how it's treated

https://www.cuh.nhs.uk/patient-information/frozen-shoulder/

I've already got as far as painkillers, exercises and a steroid injection, none of which have helped much, and I'd like to look into hydrodistension, which my GP told me at the time of the steroid injection would be available via Dynamic Health, and suggested I self-refer immediately, because the waiting list might be quite long.

So I've been double checking my physio referral. I've checked the dates, and somehow while I submitted the form on 13th April I only got an email to say they'd received it on 23rd April, and then a text to say I was now on the waiting list on 5th May. I've also double checked the FAQs, and basically you definitely have to go through this process for any musculoskeletal issues which might need further treatment before you can see a consultant. And finally the current waiting list for Cambridge is about 35 weeks.

https://www.dynamichealth.nhs.uk/appointments/waiting-times/

In the meantime I contacted Cambridge Spire (who a friend was treated with via their insurance) to see if I could get a price for how much it would cost to be seen privately. They tried to ring me once, arranged by email on the Sunday 9th of May to call me back on Monday, and then vanished. Someone (two different someones) finally called me back yesterday, having found the open enquiry down the back of their ticketing system, and they sent me a list of four consultants working out of the Spire Cambridge Lea who do this sort of work, with initial consultation appointments available in the next couple of weeks, who take self-pay patients. Initial appointment is £200-£300. It wasn't entirely clear how many steps there are after that, but £350+ for the MRI guided treatment (and possibly separately more for the MRI itself?) and then at least a follow-up appointment. And probably physio, but they didn't say how much that would cost. But I was thinking we're adding up to around a grand. This looks like the most likely of the consultants:

https://www.spirehealthcare.com/spire-cambridge-lea-hospital/consultants/mr-niel-kang-c4719317/

(One didn't have an option for self-pay, and the other two didn't specifically mention frozen shoulders)

And then Ruth mentioned Bupa, so I looked them up, and they have an actually useful table of the costs for hydrodilation (also known as hydrodistension, the specific treatment I'm hoping to have), and that would be £1200. Which is maybe a bit more, but at least is a concrete number. I've asked the Spire if they have a similar table anywhere!

https://www.bupa.co.uk/health/payg/muscles-bones-joints/msk-physician-consultation/msk-injections/hydrodilatation-high-volume-injections

So now I'm wondering exactly what to do. I think the first instance is to ring Dynamic Health and say I'd be willing to be seen in Huntingdon, instead of Cambridge, if it really does get the waiting list down from 35 weeks to 13 weeks, but when does that start counting. And then maybe speak to my GP, because the *other* shoulder is starting to hurt, but hasn't yet lost any mobility. Maybe they can do a steroid injection at this phase, and it might head it off? I don't know.

I have about 15 minutes before I need to go to a school meeting, and I haven't updated in ages so:

Hockey

The inaugural season of Kodiaks 2 finished mid-May: we played 20 games and won 1. It was a bit last minute, but we managed to confirm enough ice time to continue with two teams next season, in time to submit our intention to the league by the 31 May deadline. Trials are next week and the week after, the WNIHL annual meeting is in early July and the next season starts in September. We had end-of-season awards, which I was late to due to having a pre-existing booking for formal hall with uni friends, and as manager I got a lovely personalised mug with a photo of the team from our last game, along with a card that made me all mushy and sentimental.

My summer training is still four times a week: uni x2, Warbirds and Kodiaks. Though summer ice for Kodiaks means we have to get a minimum signup from players and coaches to run, two weeks in advance, so it doesn't always happen.

Since the season end, I've had a couple of games with Warbirds, and a friendly with Huskies against Warwick Panthers. Warbirds won one and drew one, Huskies won. That's a nice feeling.

Media and culture

I finished all available seasons of Ted Lasso and very much enjoyed it, looking forward to the new season dropping later this summer. Tony and I have started watching Spider-Noir (we chose to watch in colour, and I am loving the colours). I've started watching Dollhouse with Owen, which is very very 2009.

A conversation about hockey musicals led to the discovery of "Score! A Hockey Musical" which can be watched on YouTube, but I cannot recommend the experience. The music is catchy but the lyrics are dreadful, not even "so bad it's good", and the musical itself can't decide whether to be serious or slapstick.

I thought idly last week, we haven't been to the ADC in a while (I only managed a couple of the plays on the list I made in March) and discovered an amateur production of Come From Away on last week and this. I took Charles last Saturday afternoon (the Huskies game was in the evening) and am meeting a couple of hockey friends to see it again tonight. It's still a very good musical, this is a very good company, it was nearly sold out when I got tickets and deservedly so. I cried, and will probably cry again tonight.

Mickey Barnes and Timo join an expedition to the planet Niflheim, hoping to outrun a murderous loan-shark. The hapless Mickey signs up as an "Expendable", not realising this means he will have his memories uploaded to a computer and then be made to do all sorts of hazardous work, getting cloned/printed afresh every time he dies. He rapidly makes his way up to Mickey 17 before being abandoned in an ice ravine...

The expedition is led by a feeble but egotistical white supremacist whose followers (who make up a sizeable chunk of the expedition crew) wear red hats; and that is about as subtle as the politics of this film gets. It has a number of Points To Make, and it does so with some vigour.

A bunch of the plot doesn't hold up if you look at it hard ( spoilers ), and sometimes the plot was deeply predictable ( spoilers ). There were bits that were too cringey for me, but I have abnormally low tolerance for cringe.

But I think my main problem with Mickey 17 was that I didn't find myself caring about the plot very much - something about the whole thing kept breaking my suspension of disbelief, and I found myself thinking "this is a very silly movie" rather than getting caught up in what was happening. Possibly because too many of the characters' choices seemed inexplicable? Anyhow, my least liked of the Hugo films this year so far (and there's only 1 left).