The Blackout That Wasn’t.

 Picture a perfectly normal evening, supper, a bit of telly, a book. No alcohol. Bed at a normal hour, between 11 and 12, lights out and snuggle in. By 1.30 am I knew I wasn’t going to get to sleep without help so I got up and found a couple of sleeping pills. “Best go for a pee”, I thought then, "otherwise I might have to get up again before long".

That was my last conscious thought.

Next morning I woke up normally, got up, went downstairs, and proceeded with what I do regularly every morning before going back upstairs to make my bed.

“That’s funny,” I thought, "crumbs in the bed?”

a) I don’t eat in bed, and

b) when would I have eaten what I don’t eat in bed?

My eye caught the bedside table, where I saw a tin of stale crackers and an empty sherry glass. Eh? How did they get there? 

There have been occasions when I’d go downstairs during a sleepless night and have exactly that, some crackers and a small glass of sherry.  But downstairs in the warm kitchen, not upstairs in bed.

NOT upstairs in bed. So when did they get there? And how?

Answer came there none, no matter how hard I tried to recall the events of the previous night. Nothing, an absolute blank. Not even a partial recollection. A complete blackout.

For the next few days I puzzled and puzzled, even going so far as thinking of a TIA (mildish transient stroke) or some such. I didn’t seem to have any further symptoms apart from being just a touch worried. Lately I have been having lots of headaches, a bit of pain here and there, more and longer lasting bouts of depression than I like. But nothing I am not used to.

I decided to consult my GP, by phone. Initially, all consultations are currently by phone. My GP heard me out, asked a few additional questions and came up with an instant diagnosis. 

"It’s the sleeping pills”, he said. “ you took two when you normally take only one. Besides, these particular ones (Zopiclone), nasty things they are. I personally don’t like to prescribe them”.  He hadn’t, it was another practice doctor. “Don’t worry,” he added, “there is no cause for alarm, I don’t even need to see you. Had I taken two sleeping pills I might have lost a few hours myself.”

I am glad he was so certain, I had indeed been worried for several days, feeling uneasy. But doesn’t that beg all sorts of questions? 

Why prescribe dangerous medication? I might have fallen down the stairs during my nightly wanderings. An episode like that is frightening, how can he be so certain that nothing more untoward had happened? How do I find out that he is right, take another two pills some other night and see (or rather not see) what happens?

Any ideas?

What is WRONG with these people!

Receptionist: Hello, good morning, may I confirm a few details first?
Me: Certainly.
Receptionist: Name? Could you spell that?
Me: Certainly. (I spell my name.) 
Receptionist: That’s brilliant, thank you.
(Brilliant? It’s brilliant that I know how to spell my name?)
Receptionist: Address? Post Code?
(Again I comply, singing out address and Post Code.)
Receptionist: Excellent, that’s great, thank you.
(It’s excellent that I know my address? What kind of moron do you normally deal with?)  

Replies to her question as to who my doctor is and which surgery I use meet with unqualified rapture on her part. She is beside herself in praise of my intellectual acumen.

Finally, she hands me a form and invites me to sit and wait.

I say 'thank you', as good manners require.

Receptionist: NO PROBLEM.
(What? Who said anything about ‘problem’. Of course, there’s no problem. Wouldn’t ‘You’re welcome’ have been more appropriate?

I’m next for the scan; a young man calls out my name; first name only, pronouncing my surname is beyond his capabilities. I walk into the room where the huge scanner lives.

MRI technician: you can put your bag over there, pointing to the floor next to a table with a small machine on it. I comply and look a question at him about where best to put my coat. He points to the same general area. There is no chair in the room.

Me: okay if I put my coat over the machine?
MRI technician: GO FOR IT.

Go for it? GO FOR IT? I am raving. Speechlessly raving.

Did you miss me?

I certainly missed you.

Those of you who sent little reminders and friendly messages : thank you very much indeed. Those of you whose blogs are blind or non-existent and who have a no-reply-email-policy thank you anyway although there is no way I can get back to you. Perhaps you don’t expect me to?

That lingering little virus I mentioned in my last post turned into a full-blown and very nasty chest infection, with lots of symptoms and unpleasant complications. It’s all over now and I am back in the land of the living. And sane. A high temperature plays havoc with your perception. If I hadn’t been so weak I’d have directed a serious rant at author David Nicholls for making the male protagonist of ‘US’ into a wet blanket whose family walks all over him. As it was I spent one whole night fuming and that even before I’d finished the book.  In the clear light of day - several days and a reduction in temperature later - I saw that my rage had been a tad misdirected.

Apparently, it is a well known fact that carers succumb to illness the moment the cared-for recovers and that is exactly what happened to me. Good old NHS. I was a costly and labour-intensive patient for more than three weeks and all tests and treatments came free. I wasn’t even charged for plentiful sympathy from all health practitioners involved!

A funny thing happened. One of the complications was that I became intolerant of the prescribed brand of antibiotics. I turned spotty and red all over. You could have used me as a beacon in the red-light district! Guaranteed to brighten the gloomiest dive!

Beloved is lots better. Had he not recovered as well as he has after his dreadful spring and summer he’d have had to go into respite care. None of our many (six) assorted children offered any assistance at all; I am not really surprised, they all live a great distance away and lead busy professional lives. The solution for us was to pay for help; luckily, finances allow us to do that and we shall keep it that way. It’s so much easier to tell an employee what you want them to do than to ask family for favours.

The only creature in the house who benefitted from the situation was Millie. Almost daily kind friends and neighbours took her for hour long walks; she enjoyed gorgeous autumn weather while I could only gaze longingly out of the window at splendid hazy mornings and sunny afternoons. The picture above was taken on one such morning, when there were still leaves on the trees and the hillside opposite was draped in floating mists.

2015. I want it hung, drawn and quartered and any remains burnt on a funeral pyre and scattered to the four winds. When I mentioned that I can’t wait to be shot of it somebody said “Don’t, you’re wishing your life away.” Absolutely true. But there have been days since May when I would gladly have swapped non-existence for the frightening and miserable times we endured.

Up and Down. . . . .

....up and down, that’s how it goes.

A bit more up than down just now, although I have long lost count of the number of times I’ve wailed :

“Will this nightmare never end?”

Every time I think, “yessss, we’re getting there!” something new and unexpected happens. Would you believe me when I tell you that Beloved took to falling out of his bed every night for about a week? I am glad to say he’s decided to stop and stay in bed rather than go-crawl-about on the floor, running into the dog sleeping on her bed along the way and settling down for a little cuddle, before having another go at heaving himself up by painfully and laboriously clinging to any piece of furniture he was finding himself next to. He insisted that he’d fallen on his head once or twice; I should have believed him right away, he was silly enough for that to be true. On one occasion he went to bed with a bit of food stuck in a molar, he said; nothing would dislodge it, not flossing, sucking nor poking with a toothpick. But falling out of bed did it, he said; it was the first thing he noticed on landing on the floor.

Falling out of bed he hurt himself, scraping the skin on his shoulders, his neck (aha, he must have landed on his head!) and arms. creating small wounds, which bled and necessitated visits by district nurses to patch him up. District nurses are confident, capable, competent and friendly in a matter-of-fact way people; I am very grateful for their services. Unfortunately, they also tend to boss you around and refer you to all sorts of other services. We are now well and truly part of the ranks of the great unwashed, needy and vulnerable, who are considered to require the aid of untold agencies and their representatives. The trouble is, they all need to ‘assess’ us and our case and that takes time. Form-filling is a tedious occupation - more so for the ‘filled-in’ than the 'filler-inner’ - but it obviously pays their rent. I shouldn’t say that, they are all so earnest and well-meaning and I should just be thankful and shut up but I’ve always hated being patronised. But the young tend to do that, don’t they? So does anyone in the field of social care. I can only assume that most of their ‘clients’ are beyond working things out for themselves.

There’s another reason I should be grateful just now. Yesterday week ago I took a bad tumble on a mossy and damp part of the drive and really badly hurt myself all down my right side, ribs, shoulder, leg and ankle. Bruised ribs and a swollen leg don’t make for agility or even basic mobility. I could barely care for myself, much less Beloved. Isn’t it always so, once you’re in deep doodoo, something happens and the doodoo becomes a giant midden! The pain is less now but I still can’t walk Millie. You should see me getting in and out of the bath! Bare bottom on Beloved’s newly acquired bath board, gently swinging first one leg then the other up and over, feet anchored on the bath mat and, ‘Houston, we have lift-off!’ Except lift-off is perhaps too strong a word for my slow ascent to verticality (? is that a word?).

We now have a piece of paper stuck to the front door, inviting all and sundry to Ring the bell and come in. Door open. It takes ages for me to get to the front door or the landline phone so callers of either description might as well make use of this policy. Just as well we have few axe murderers in Valley’s End. And nobody carries a gun around with them either.

The first district nurse who called on Beloved after I had hurt myself commiserated by saying :”At least you don’t have the time to sit down for long,” implying that limping around on a stick was a better remedy for my aches and bruises and swollen knee than putting my feet up in relative comfort.

Ah well, there’s compassion in the world after all.

The only creature benefitting from all this is Millie; she’s never had so much exercise. Her social life is increasing faster than mine is decreasing, and that’s saying something, since mine has already dwindled to nil. Millie has acquired lots of new best friends, all willing to take the ‘poor dog’ walkies.

And Beloved is getting better too.

What’s HE Doing?

Thanks Hilary

The waiting room in the skin clinic was quiet; people were  reading, staring out of the window, occasionally shuffling their feet and drinking water from plastic cups filled at the water fountain. Although the clinic was busy, there were plenty of empty seats and the atmosphere was peaceful and patient. Everybody was middle-aged and older except for one young mother and her son, a little boy too young to be able to read but old enough to look at pictures and recognise what they depicted.

I had my Ipad to read; there was one empty seat between me and the little boy and his mother. The centre table held a pile of magazines which soon engaged the child’s interest. He fetched one magazine after the other and plonked them on his mum’s lap; once he’d collected the whole pile he asked mum to open them and to look through them page by page. So far so good, he was perfectly quiet and didn’t really disturb anyone else, except those who might have wanted to glance at a magazine themselves.

Now comes the bit I found to be worthy of comment: the magazines had pictures, the usual stuff,  people, cars, houses, etc. The little boy pointed to each picture in turn and said “What’s HE doing”, the emphasis on the ‘HE’ regardless of the subject.  Again, that in itself is no great cause for concern but to me the mother’s reaction to his unchanging question was. Invariably, patiently, kindly, she answered him by telling him that 'the car was shiny, the man smartly dressed, the house big, the lorry articulated', etc. etc. Never once did she do what to me would have been the most natural response, namely to invite the child to explore the picture with her and for the two of them to work out what was happening in it.

After about the 20th ‘What’s HE doing’, I muttered under my breath ‘You tell me, mate’. He heard me and very briefly looked at me, but quickly turned back, continuing as before.

Is learning really just being told what’s in front of you or is a great part of it discovering things for yourself, with the help of someone else naturally, working them out, browsing, getting them wrong sometimes but persevering nevertheless. It’s a long time since I had small children but I can’t remember ever just stuffing them with ready made answers to their questions. Not that they would have appreciated this, they probably complained that I ‘made a fuss’ and 'talked too much’.

There is this lovely story about David Attenborough  -  Godfather of Natural History TV  and one of Britain’s National Treasures  -  as a young boy finding an animal bone in the garden and taking it to his father, a GP, who pretended not to recognise it. Instead, they pored over zoology and anatomy books together. “They shared the excitement of discovery."

If one of the little people in your household shows open curiosity and a wish to explore, indulge them, and gently lead them on the path of discovery. You might even learn something new yourself.

Flu Jabs and The Golden Years

Shropshire Star - Flu Campaign

The Surgery waiting room looks different; normally,  people sit on upright benches around three sides, with two carvers along the third wall, easy to get out of for the arthritic amongst us.  Today, the toy table and baby chairs have been moved from the centre of the room and extra chairs, carvers and dining chairs, have been lined up in two rows instead. It looks like a makeshift cinema or lecture room, or maybe a charabanc outing.

When we arrive at just before two pm, the room is almost empty. The receptionist giggles at us :”read the leaflet and roll up your sleeves.” It’s flu jab day and we have come for our annual vaccination against the debilitating winter bug. It’s free for oldies and the chronically sick. We qualify on both counts. I’ve brought my IPhone to read Mark Haddon’s ‘The Red House ‘while we wait for one of the nurses; it’s a brilliantly claustrophobic novel. Haddon’s forte is drawing children and young adults, his adult characters are slightly bloodless; all suffer existential angst in their own way.

I don’t get very far, the room fills and the chairs are taken. Everybody knows everybody else. Greetings are called, chairs moved, news exchanged. Nobody is sick, all are here for ’the jab’. Somebody complains that they haven’t seen me for ages. “We often see J. but we never see you; how are you?” The atmosphere becomes that of a social club. Nurses come and call people by first names, two by two, into the treatment rooms.  There is banter and laughter.

“Do you realise that they’ve booked the Ramblers’ Christmas lunch for the same day as the Senior Citizens’ lunch?” The voice is excited and concerned that they might miss a social occasion. It’s hard to believe that everybody here is over 60 and therefore officially ‘old’. Luckily, like so much in life, ‘old’ is relative. Some weeks the Ramblers walk for ten miles over difficult terrain, in all weathers. Boomers, bolstered by pensions, holding on to savings and brandishing freedom passes, cluttering up surgeries for free treatments, in possession of ample free time and adequate health and fitness, all of them owning their house, this is a generation which has it all. No wonder the hard-pressed young cry ‘robbers and thieves’.

Old age pensioners are a new demographic, a group which is getting steadily larger. We swallow up scarce resources, creating problems for national expenditure. The average life expectancy is around 80 in places such as Valleys’ End; I know plenty of 90 year olds too. Scrolling back 2000 years, life expectancy was 25, in Roman times you might get to 40 and the medieval peasant who survived into adulthood didn’t get much farther than that. Now ’50 is the new 40’ and as 60 years olds we do not consider ourselves old, if we think about it at all.

We’ve all been told to sit and wait five minutes after the jab, to make sure we’re okay to walk home. Hardly anybody does. We are perfectly capable to decide such matters for ourselves. Self-assured? Bone-headed? Full of vim and vigour and joie de vivre? Of course we are.

Update: Keep Taking The Tablets

The receptionists at the private hospital barely looked up from their computers.  The one I chose stretched out her arm and grabbed the forms with my personal and payment details.  “Do you have your card? I need to swipe it.  No money will be taken but your card needs to go through the system.” She handed me a receipt for £0.00 and waved me away. “Take a seat”. She still hadn’t looked at me.

Mr. Mistry was a nice Indian doctor. The higher up the medical food chain you are the less fancy your title. A consultant, an expert in his very particular field, with years of experience, is plain Mister.  Mr. Mistry is a cardiologist; I liked him and was willing to trust him. He read the GP’s letter, my notes, flicked through the test results and turned his professional gaze on me.

Less than an hour of questions and answers later he was ready to give his conclusions. I’ll live. No operation necessary, no drastic treatments needed, an increase in beta blockers will probably do the trick. AFib is very common and although ablation has become fashionable, there are unpleasant side effects and the operation is not always successful, nor is it without its dangers. I am wholly relieved; the idea of having a bit of my heart burnt off was not something I relished. Now I know, and spending whatever it’s going to cost me was worth it. He answered all my questions patiently and exhaustively. For me, knowing is half the battle won.

I’ll go back to the trusty old NHS with its friendly GPs, nurses and receptionists for medication and, if the condition at some time again necessitates urgent treatment or hospitalisation, I’ll know that the NHS will be there for me. And I won’t have to pay a penny.

I’ve been gardening all day today; I am tired now but  have managed to keep elation and excitement within sustainable bounds. Mustn’t overdo the happiness. I’m still allergic to it.

You Can Pay? At Your Service, Ma’am. Riding the NHS Merry-Go-Round

For eight years you’ve been suffering the same health problem. Once a year, maybe twice a year. Not always to the same degree of seriousness but frequently serious enough to necessitate hospital admission for a night. Each attack frightened you but you always recovered. You have had many kinds of test, all of them thorough, highly involved and using advanced equipment. All of them expensive, although you were not asked to pay for them.

After eight years you have grown tired of the lack of progress. Nobody ever followed up on the tests, although each time you were put on a waiting list. Lately you were told that the time for ‘Plan B’ has come, but Plan B didn’t materialise. Instead you went on another waiting list.

Once again you found yourself in your GP’s surgery, complaining. “We can do nothing”, the GP said. “Once you’re on the waiting list you have to bide your time”. Ringing the hospital’s booking office didn’t help. “I can confirm that you are on the list, but I don’t know when you will have reached the top (or bottom) of the list. Try the consultant’s secretary.” The consultant’s secretary couldn’t help. “Yes, I can confirm that you are on the list. Ask your GP to write and state that your condition is worsening. That might expedite matters.” The GP said: “They always say that, but they take no notice. They get these letters all the time. I’ll write, but I can’t promise that it’ll help.”

“How much would a private consultation cost?” you asked on Tuesday.

Your appointment to see the consultant for as long as you need is on Thursday; letters have been written and are awaiting delivery; you have been given copies of all the relevant test results, neatly packaged, and waiting lists have shrunk to the point of non-existence.