“If you have any of these symptoms, consult a doctor” - well, that certainly sounds easy!

I’m trying to get my health sorted out. Actually, I wouldn’t go that far: right now I’m trying to find somebody to tell me what's wrong with me. To that end, I spent most of yesterday online eagerly browsing lists of symptoms on a host of websites. As a result, I’m convinced I have every known disease and medical condition identified up to this point in history. If I make it through to the end of this article, it’ll be a minor miracle. (It wasn't easy, but I managed to resist the temptation to spend my son’s inheritance on a host of testing programmes and herbal wonder-cures, any of which would no doubt have had me back on my feet and laughing like a drain in no time.)

Practically every online artlcle offering medical information ends with something along the lines of “If you have any of these symptoms, consult a registered doctor” or “Do not alter your diet/lifestyle without consulting a doctor”.

Are they joking?

First of all, you have to get an appointment, which, unless you have a raging infection, is practically impossible. Seeing a GP isn’t any guarantee that anything will actually happen: I’ve been trying to get doctors to take my regular bouts of extreme exhaustion seriously for nearly twenty years, and only now when I’ve been practically comatose for six months on the trot (with the odd good day here and there) am I starting to get anywhere. Because my symptoms don’t fall into any immediately identifiable category (apart from “Bone Idle, Depressive, Self-Obsessed, Time-Wasting, Fantasist Scrimshanker”) and because they don’t seem to fit the standard pancreatitis/Type II diabetes template, I’ve generally been fobbed off with shrugs and winsomely sympathetic smiles and the suggestion that I should try taking multivits (yeah, that’ll sort it out, for sure).

So you finally get to see your GP and you actually manage to persuade them that when you say you’re utterly exhausted you don’t actually mean that you’re feeling a weensie bit tired (I’ve worked hard most of my life, including 16-hour days and night-shifts and 20-days-in-a-row stints and I can sort of tell the difference), and they kindly set up an appointment with a hospital specialist, for which you have to wait precisely TWELVE WEEKS. For that appointment, you’re allotted a full ten minutes (gee, thanks), and, because you’ve written down all your symptoms and a brief medical history, and because you explain that you are not in the least depressed, and that you’re not just feeling, you know, a bit lacklustre, they decide to arrange a scan (in six weeks' time) and to set you up with another specialist – only they have to ask your GP to arrange that appointment rather than doing it themselves because the rules have changed, sorry about that, and so two weeks later you’re still sitting around waiting to hear about the appointment with the next consultant, and still feeling crap… and so, in desperation, and to pass the time, you start hunting the web for clues, and at the bottom of practically every article you encounter the advice to see a registered medical practicioner…

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

I could go private, I know – and if I was still working, I’d have no choice – but now that the gears of the vast, bureaucratic NHS behemoth have finally ground into action of my behalf, I’m terrified of doing anything that might cause them to grind to a halt again.

I’m smart, I’m educated, I speak the lingo pretty well and I have a fairly forceful personality. I even have a GP friend advising me on how to get the best out of the NHS. What do all the people suffering from non-urgent, hard-to-diagnose, yet distinctly debilitating medical conditions do who don’t enjoy any of these advantages? Suffer, I suppose.

I know there are people reading this who are medically far, far worse off than I am. Believe it or not, I’ve been fairly sanguine about my various health difficulties over the years (mainly because I’m rather pleased to still be alive, and because I was able to retire before my health could seriously affect my ability to work). Having worked for the BBC for twenty years, I know how sclerotic vast bureaucratic organisations can become, especially when dealing with non-urgent matters. And I do understand that there have to be checks in place to weed out people with vivid imaginations and too much time on their hands claiming to be at death's door when there's actually sod-all wrong with them. And, of course, a retired man feeling exhausted isn’t exactly as urgent a problem as a child with cancer, a car accident victim, or a woman with a heart attack (or acute pacreatitis). I get all that. Nevertheless, I’m surprised that a genuinely unwell person has to fight so hard to get our health system to accept that there’s something wrong with them, and that it then takes so long to even begin to figure out what that something is.

I suppose my problem is that I watched every episode of the television series House, and have therefore become used to the idea that all hospitals are equipped with crack teams of emotionally-damaged but utterly brilliant diagnosticians ready to swoop on any patient with seemingly inexplicable symptoms. (Mind you, as all the patients in House had to almost die at least three times before their medical problem was identified, perhaps it’s just as well I didn't find myself being afforded that sort of treatment. Of course, I'd love all the attention, but not so much the almost dying bit.)

The good thing about all this is that the two doctors currently dealing with me - GP and consultant - seem to be fully on board. The problem, I suspect, is largely systemic (whatever that means).

Anyway, I reckon I’ve narrowed the cause of my current malaise down to three potential suspects, and I shall be interested to see - sometime in the far distant future - whether I’m right or not (I'm hoping it turns out to be the one that's easily curable with a few pills.)

End of self-pitying moan. I promise not to bring up the subject of my health again for a while: just needed to get it out of my system. (You can post rude comments about my galloping self-absorption and general lack of moral fibre - but nothing sympathetic, please!)