Dementia - Paying the Cost

Everything I've heard / read seems to miss the point. We supposedly have a NHS , free at the point of need, to people who are ill or injured. Dementia is an illness. Why are we discriminating against sufferers? If you are in a coma you don't have to pay for personal care - it is part of a very expensive package of care. Either we are even handed & have the traditional NHS principles funded from taxation, or we have a proper discussion about everything the NHS provides & what should continue to be funded & how. Personally I think the latter is the only way forward, but politicians are too cowardly to do it. They want to be re-elected.

My Father & Mother in law had Vascular Dementia. They were both difficult to care for. They both had very fixed personalities which exacerbated the difficulties.  Both ended up in hospital & died for reasons other than the dementia. So you could say we were lucky I suppose. It didn't feel like that. 

I also had friends who had Alzheimers - a totally different ball game. Really impossible for close relatives & friends, who were elderly themselves to cope with. Yet that is what is expected. The burden on carers is unacceptable. You simply don't understand until you have done it.

If we have a proper discussion about how & what we fund through taxation for the NHS, the issues will be difficult & complicated. Obesity, Infertility, Bed Blocking because of lack of Social Care, Treating Lifestyle Choice illness such as drug addiction & alcoholism, or Lifestyle Choice Sports Injury. I could go on. These will all be contentious & difficult to face up to. People & politicians simply don't want to do it. It's too hard.

But we have to, because making one group of elderly people, who are ill, pay for their care is unjust. It is simplistic & unacceptable. We should all be better than that. If people have a medical condition, whatever it is, & need care, at least the medical care should be free. 

It might happen to you or your loved ones!

 

Technology & Social Media

"The computing power of the modern phone is greater than that used by NASA to send men to the moon." "We hold in our hand the ability to access the world's knowledge." - With acknowledgement to Sandi Toksvig.

What do we do with this modern marvel? We are so self absorbed & superficial that we post on Social Media that we are drinking coffee. We post innumerable selfies, which only a miniscule number of our nearest & dearest would be in the least bit interested in. We post links to dodgy websites. We post cute photos of animals doing funny things. We do mindless quizzes. We play computer games. We allow adverts to colonise our page.....

I have no doubt that we who are alive today in the developed & developing world are very lucky. Our lives have been enriched & enhanced by man's technological development. We have the capacity to change the world for the better. What do we do with this amazing gift - instead of using it for good we trivialise & demean it.

I see dozens of  people glued to their phones every day. Are they extending what they know? Are they mobilising action against injustice? Sometimes yes, but mostly no. Are they communicating important information - mostly not.

The only light I see on the horizon is the fact that in awful, (in the true sense of the word), events like Manchester mobile phones are indispensible.

We really should value technology & learn to use it wisely & for good reasons. We shouldn't allow ourselves to become dependent on it to the exclusion of actually talking to other human beings. If, for some reason it is taken away from us when we are wholly dependent on it, as in the recent NHS hack, what the hell will we do?

Accidental Injury - 2

It's 11 weeks since my accident. I'm more or less back to what passes for normal. My left arm is still painful when I try to do some specific movements like taking a top off, but I'm back to swimming half a mile 4-5 times a week & can do back crawl now.

I still can't remember anything at all about the day of the accident until late evening when they were going to discharge me into the care of my daughter. (She says I was still doo-lally then!) I do think my memory generally is worse than it was. Before if I forgot a word it would generally come back to me fairly quickly. For example, yesterday I tried to think what Naan bread was called all afternoon. It finally came to me watching TV in the evening. The data is there - it's the recall that's the problem.

Finally, 11 weeks after the accident & over 9 weeks after I first contacted them, Saga's legal insurance underwriters have made a decision about allowing me to sue the car owner using my local solicitor. She can go ahead & pursue the matter with a good chance of success. I don't have to use the insurance panel solicitors in Bristol. Thank goodness.

It is completely beyond me why making a fairly simple binary decision has taken so long. It has needlessly increased the amount of time I have had to spend chasing them & added to the uncertainty & stress.

Oddly I feel sorry for the car owner, because I imagine she will have assumed that I have dropped the matter. This may come as a bit of a shock.

Travelling - The Hebrides.

I've just returned from a trip to the Hebrides. Generally speaking I don't much like organised tours, but my independent trip with friends got postponed, so this was the alternative.

There is something that reaches deep into the soul about wilderness areas. Vast expanses of land, sea & sky with hardly any human habitation, or indeed humans, to mar the wonder of natures creation makes one very reflective.

The contrast with a coachload of people, mostly elderly, being moved around like a parcel with a running commentary is obvious. The practicalities of getting a big group of people, with varying degrees of mobility, on & off coaches, ferries & small boats & in & out of hotels & cafes are also obvious.

My preference would always be to chose my own itinerary, to go at my own pace, to stop where the spirit moved me for as long as I wanted. Or to move on. You can't do that if you are travelling with more than one person. Or if you have to book a place on a ferry or a B&B in advance. I also like to chose whether to make conversation or not & with whom. I'm not good at listening to other peoples trivia - (I know that sounds pompous). Possibly the best way to see the islands is with a camper van & there were certainly quite a lot of those.

I wouldn't have missed the Hebrides, both Inner & Outer, for worlds. I simply hadn't realised the huge variation there is in character & landscape. It is really interesting to experience how different life on a remote island can be - (especially when the tourist season is over I imagine). Humans have a great capacity to adapt to very different circumstances. In areas like this you must live close to the natural world all the time - you can see the weather coming & much of it is very challenging. Your perspectives are completely different in every sense of the word.

The Islanders have something very precious which we in cities have lost.
 

Not the Big C - Whew!

Saw the proper consultant yesterday who dispelled some of the inaccurate info I had been given. Apparently it isn't that unusual to get cysts after the menopause as the Radiologist had told me. I won't need to have a CT scan. The scan & test info they have got is enough to be reasonbly confident that the cysts will be benign. Obviously they will do biopsies to check.

The best course of action, given the size of the cysts & in order not to have even a slight possibility of Cancer, is to have the Laparoscopic surgery & remove everything. So that's what will happen within the next couple of months. I wonder if they can do a bit of Liposuction while they are at it.

So I can go on my hols to the Scottish Isles without a care in the world. Hope the sun shines & the midges don't bite!

Cancer admin?

Tuesday am
I've been pro-active & emailed the Gynaecologists secretary asking her to send Friday's appointment details by email as I never got a letter about Monday's appointment - just a telephone call. (The letter arrived this morning).

I also emailed my surgery to ask them to check that the appointment had been made. It hadn't! The practice secretary has now made one, but it's in the same place as yesterdays, so I'm not convinced that it's right. The consultant I saw yesterday said the Gynaecologists Friday clinic is at one of the other Oxford hospitals. So another phone call to try to clarify whether this is right - Just an answerphone.

Wednesday pm
No response to the phone calls or emails. No confirmation letter or email. I'll just have to turn up & hope that it's the right clinic if nothing arrives. It's all just so time consuming, frustrating & wearing.

Thursday am
Finally got through to a person, the consultants medical secretary, who was very helpful. I have got an appointment tomorrow & it is in the same place as the one last Monday. She said that a confirmation letter will have been issued, but may not actually be sent in time before the appointment. Given that when the letter about Mondays appointment arrived it included a medical history questionnaire which was 2 sides of A4, that seems to be an avoidable failure. Why don't they send the confirmation & questionnaire electronically? Most people have an email or mobile now.

Also I haven't had text reminders for any of these oncology appointments either. Every other medical appointment I have I do get a reminder.

I think once you get to see a medic they are very professional, if busy. The problem seems to me to be that there aren't enough admin staff & some are only part time. Additionally the communication between clinics / departments isn't efficient. So you get the sort of cock ups I'm trying to deal with. It seems unbelievable in the 21st century that communication isn't electronic & therefor fairly immediate. The last attempt at a unified NHS computer system failed & wasted loads of money, but that is what they need & they will have to do it sooner rather than later.

Still optimistic all will be well. It might b.....up my holiday in the Hebrides though. How on earth do people who are working, or not computer literate, or who still think doctors are Gods, manage in situations like this?

Patients really don't need the added stress.

Ovarian Cancer - Maybe

I've had the blood test, (ca125), that shows a marker for cancer, but I don't have the marker.
http://www.targetovariancancer.org.uk/information-and-support/what-ovarian-cancer/diagnosis-and-tips-seeing-your-gp/ca125-blood-test
That apparently doesn't mean that I don't have cancer & if I did have the marker I don't think it means that I definitely would have it. So not conclusive at all.

Today I went to the Cancer & Haemotology clinic & saw a very nice Italian doctor. The clinic was extremely busy - Busier than any other clinic I've been to. I had to wait over an hour for my actual appointment & people were being called all the time. The staff are continuously busy, it must be exhausting.

The Doctor went through everything very thoroughly. "Cysts" 5-6 cms, so bigger than I thought. On both ovaries. The surgery will be keyhole (Laparotomy / oscopy?) Apparently they take the ovaries in a bag & pierce the actual "cyst" so it's small enough to pull back out of the incision, but can't contaminate any other part of the body. Amazing. What use do I have for ovaries? A biopsy will tell whether they are benign or cancerous. A general anasthetic & I'll probably be in hospital overnight because of my age.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Ovarian-cyst/Pages/Treatment.aspx

It turned out that I had been referred to the wrong clinic, so I have to go again on Friday to see the consultant gynaecologist. I think this is more a courtesy thing, so I get to meet the actual surgeon.