Thoughts of a carer

On 18 April I posted an entry on this blog reporting how I felt that the needs of the elderly, disabled and infirm are not considered properly by government, and, perhaps as a consequence, by society at large. Three more examples have become apparent since I wrote that post. Councils allowing pavement obstructions  The Hertfordshire Mercury has a story  about the problems faced by a blind woman now that councils have allowed cafes and pubs to put customer seating on some of the pavement space in our town centres.  This has the effect of narrowing the available space for passers by, at a time when we are being told by government to keep two metres away from strangers.  The lady concerned has a similar opinion to mine of our PM: “I wish Boris Johnson could meet some visually impaired people so we could explain how difficult it is for us at the moment.  Sadly we seem to be ignored and don’t have a voice loud enough for people to hear our daily struggles." I have co...

The problem of innumeracy today  In some ways I was lucky. I may have had what today's generation might think to be a ghastly childhood, but I did get some opportunities that seem rare today. One is in education: the chance to learn mathematics and science from teachers who actually understood their subjects. The above may sound bitter, it may sound like a swipe at modern schools. Maybe it is, but I have helped two youngsters - one my own son, another the daughter of a friend - with their maths one thing they told me was that their teachers did not seem to know what they were talking about. (In my son's case, it was post-GCSE, at the start of A-level, when he was being taught the basics of calculus - differentiation and integration. He didn't get it. He asked the teacher to explain, who couldn't, at least not so that my son could understand. In fact, the teacher's stock answer to most queries seemed to be 'look it up on the internet'. (Maybe that invention, ...

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...

I have a band around my right wrist. It has on it the words 'Medical ALERT! See Medical Identity Card'. In the case of my mobile phone I have a medical card, and it records a couple of important things about me that I believe any medical practitioner should know before treating me. One of these things is an allergy, and if I were to be given medication containing the substance to which I am allergic, the consequences could be unpleasant, to say the least. + + + Viv also has such a band on her wrist, and has a similar card. Not so long ago she had a minor operation, and, a couple of days later had what could be described as a 'funny turn' that we believe was probably related to the stress and/or anaesthesia of the operation. I called an ambulance - she'd also had the AZ Covid jab a couple of weeks earlier and the stories about that and blood clots were among my thoughts - and the ambulance team did a great job of settling her, but agreed that she should be checked at...

I am a carer. Much of my time, and many of my interactions with officialdom in all forms, relates to the person I care for. That does not mean I don't have my own issues, which often take a lower priority than perhaps they should. + + +  I have had issues with a gastric ulcer in the past; I have been recommended by the GP to take medication, as needed, to keep on top of it. I had quite a stock of the tablets so haven't needed to have a prescription for about a year, but the stock is now running low and I need some more. At our surgery, like many others, the process to speak to a doctor is to phone them at 8am to get an appointment. This results in something of a lottery, for there are limited phone lines to the surgery and you inevitably have to dial many times (I think it was 8 or 9 in my case this morning) before you can get through to a receptionist.  I managed to speak to a receptionist around 8.50 this morning. She said that, because it related to a prescription, I needed...

It's nineteen minutes past midnight, and I'm writing a blog entry. There's a reason: two days after her eye op, Viv and I find ourselves in the middle of an unpleasant experience, and it's not made better by NHS bureacracy.  + + +  We all hear that the NHS is under great strain. That there are few empty beds. So why isn't there more focus on getting patients to the right hospital for their treatment? The reason I'm up now, writing this, is that Viv had a bad seizure earlier in the evening. It started when we were lying in bed, watching TV, with familiar sounds, the smacking of her lips. It was then followed by her struggling to speak when I asked her whether she was alright; I then followed my standard routine when this happened, of finding some honey and giving her a quarter of a teaspoon: every time we have faced this problem in the last three years - perhaps thirty or so - this would bring her round within seconds. This time it didn't.  She improved sligh...

  Yesterday, Viv and I were on our way out when the postman called out from the other side of the street. 'I've got a parcel for you', he announced. He fetched the parcel and I put it safely in our hall before we continued on our way, for it was a parcel I'd been waiting for. + + +  Around fifty-five years ago Viv, then at primary school, had to travel from her home in Welwyn Garden City to London, for appointments at Moorfields Eye Hospital. Her mother took her on the train, buying her a pack of Toffets at the station from a vending machine on the platform while they waited for the diesel hauled train. She used to enjoy these journeys, for the train was formed of British Railways Mark 1 suburban carriages, with comfortable, if dusty, six-a side sprung, comfortable seats in warm, unconnected compartments. Inside one of these, passengers would talk to each other, and there would be no gust of cold air at stations unless someone within that compartment was getting out, or...