Thoughts of a carer

  'Health is more important than Finance' How far does that apply? The UK, already suffering ‘lockdown by stealth’ after pronouncements by various media-appointed ‘experts’ on what is going to happen,  is now apparently on the verge of a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown to ‘Save the NHS’. What about saving the economy? We are led to believe that everything must take second place to Public Health, no matter what the consequences - to the point where the government does not even undertake an impact assessment before bringing in a non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) recommended by a scientific advisor. But there are costs - we have seen them over the last couple of years; huge government borrowing (which we shall all be paying back over the next fifty years or so), a broken economy (inflation moving up - RPI now 7.1%, interest rates are going up too), society seems to be falling apart (for example - tragic deaths of children who missed the protection a normal education could provide...

  It’s affecting my mental health! I wrote a few weeks ago about the effects that caring for Viv has had on my mental health. One of the biggest problems is dealing with the huge behemoth that is our National Health Service; people who have few interactions with it may find it easy, but Viv has a medical record file that stands six feet tall or more, and that causes problems. + + +  I had one of my breakdowns this morning. About 8am I ran around the house, screaming; banged my head as hard as I could against the downstairs loo door; ran out into the garden, even though I was only wearing nightclothes at the time, swearing at the top of my voice (and it's a cold, grey December day) December, and then ended up sat on the stairs, weeping.  The cause of this drama? Viv had mentioned that her hearing in her left ear was worsening. She’s totally deaf in her right ear, due to a tumour, and it was loss of hearing that first identified that, back in 2014. The saga we have had sinc...