Thoughts of a carer

  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...

Much is being said in the media at the moment about vaccine passports. A few months ago the Prime Minister indicated he was against the idea that anyone in Britain should ever have to explain their medical history to go to the shops, or the pub; apparently, that is not the sort of thing 'we' do. I've got news for him. It is the sort of thing some of us have to do already, and it's thanks to the divisive scaremongering for which his government is responsible. + + + Viv has an acoustic neuroma. It's a kind of tumour in her skull base, and it causes her all sorts of problems. I won't list them all, but there are two that are relevant to the current Covid rules for going into public places. The tumour has caused severe damage to her right acoustic nerve. That's the one that connects her ear to her brain. This damage is such that she has no hearing at all in her right ear, and her brain compensates the lack of signal with loud squealing tinnitus, which makes it...