Cute Street Party Girlies (by sarah)

Jean's school did a street party she was supposed to be dressed in red, white and blue but I discovered we really didn't have anything like that so she had puprly-blue and pinky-red and glittery unicorn white!

Friday I actually sent Alaric with the girls to the village street party at the Black Horse. Jean took her union jack she'd made at school.

The Royal Wedding – I didn’t go but… (by sarah)

The Royal Wedding is currently going live on TV's and computers all over the country - I have sent my family off to a street party to celebrate it more due to the fact it is a community thing than anything else. The truth is I can not imagine anything more boring than watching a wedding on telly. If I'd been well enough I may have gone and eaten hot dogs at the pub and watched the kids parade their hats and flags but I'm not so I haven't - they've gone anyway with a slightly perplexed Alaric.

I find all the hype really really annoying and the plates and things for sale everywhere with their faces on but I think meh it doesn't happen often and I know people from other countries etc... are probably flocking to buy the stuff so that's good for our economy (at uni alot of the oriental students would buy everything with a union jack on it!).

So I feel slightly put out by all the fuss but at the same time I see people getting excited and I feel that it is not right to take this away from them. I have friends who have been sewing (and even crocheting) bunting for weeks, others who have been baking cup cakes like deamons and everyone is pulling together to do community events.

I don't have the right to rain on their parade. Which is one of the reasons that I have been saddened to see some people smirking over the fact that this or that street party looks like it might be a flop. It's not nice - people have put in a lot of work and these things can be alot of fun and anything that gets people to talk to their neighbours is a good thing.

The slightly more alarming thing is the protest - now I like protests and think we need the right to be able to protest and people have this right if they really disagree with the wedding - I can see that in a time of cut backs that the amount of money being spent on police and things for the wedding must chaff. But part of the issue I think is that the media have whirled this whole thing up with encouragement from the government in an attempt to reinstate the constitution of mariage. This means that the main point has been missed - this is Their Wedding - it is them saying they love each other as people. What they have been turned into is celebratese - idols and as such people stop thinking of Will and Kate as well... people.

I hope that bombs are not set off even just 'distruptors' as I hope people will think about how they'd feel if someone did that because they were getting marraide or having a I'm moving in with my girlfriend/boyfriend party. If people had died because of mine and Al's wedding we would have been destroyed as people, it would have crushed us utterly.

As for the issue of weather we should have a monachy at all - I think I should save that one for another post.

And what about the police aka tax payer money going on this? Well one solution that presents itself is that maybe the royal family should pay - now I don't actually know what has happened about this but to me that would be the worse thing that could happen - if they pay for the police help then the police are no longer the police - they become a private army with an agenda that is not to protect the citizens of this country but to look after the interests of the rich. As for weather they should be offered the protection at all in that case - well how would you like it if you couldn't do anything in public for fear of being mobbed to death probably by people who adore you?

I would not swap places with Kate or any celeb to be honest - even before I met Alaric I loathed that celebs have no privacy. I have enough issue with the fact that I rarely go anywhere without being recognised by someone. This can be exhusting and everyone expects you to talk to them and remember who they are as well - and that is just by being me - I am not famous I've got maybe 100 people who follow my writing and art as 'fans' and most of those I've known for years. But even I have ended up having to go to the police about stalkers because people like me too much :/

So just thinking about it - I'll not watch the royal wedding I don't know them, I don't care what sort of dress she is wearing or anything like that but I do wish them happiness and I think it is going to be hard for them to have as all those little spats couples have are likely to be plastered all over the news - the strain that puts on relationships is not good.

p.s. I do like talking to people so don't take this as don't talk to me! Just be aware I get tired especially standing up on crutches!

Womb Infection (by sarah)

This week has seen me back at the hospital with complications from the birth. Unfortunatly I started bleeding very heavily again - I thought the bleeding was stopping as I'd only 'spotted' for a couple of days but then suddenly I was bleeding again. I assumed that as the smear test had come back clear I was alright and it was just a period, I said to Alaric I just wished I'd had a chance to stop bleeding from the pregnancy before I got a period.

But then the amount of blood I was loosing increased drastically. It was now heavier than it had been after the c-section but not what I would call 'life-threatening' ie it was no were near what I was loosing after my delivery of Jean (virginal birth with complications and heavy blood loss). With Jean I only bleed for 10 weeks, you are supposed to bleed for no more than six but I'd had a bit of placenta left behind which came out and all was fine.

But that couldn't be the case with the c-section as they had had to do a big clean out why they were at it due to what they found there. I just thought that was what happened with c-sections.

Anyway - the bleeding got heavier and with a couple phone calls and several referals I got sent to A&E, I was soaking through my clothing if I didn't change my pad about once an hour and I'd started throwing up. Al phoned for me initially as I kept still saying I was fine.

Anyway I wont go into the gory details but it turns out I have an infection in the womb lining and my bodies been trying to flush it out and it was the start of my first period but my body couldn't cope and so the bleeding was really heavy. It's concerning because it wares you down. I have now been bleeding for 12 odd weeks and had four days of extremely heavy bleeding (so far) when I'm already suffering from anemia 🙁

But I am now on antibiotics and (yes again I know) and am going back for more scans and things this week. Hopefully this will have everything sorted out.

Dear NHS (by sarah)

Dear NHS

I love you, you save my life, keep my children disease free with immunisations and keep my parents going. But sometimes I think you need a big hammer taking to your structure.

The main issue I have today is appointment booking. Getting to the Drs today I booked in and found it was only saying Nurse, I did not worry at first as I had double checked when I made the appointment that I was booking both nurse and Dr. So I finished booking in on your funky touch skin panel and waited for my nurse appointment.

Getting into my appointment I find that the room is double booked and the nurse has to move use into another room she knows is free, then the smear I'm having because I'm still bleeding and loosing gloop 9 weeks after having my baby apparently shouldn't be done whilst I'm still bleeding :/

That all done along with blood tests I've had to starve for I leave - the nurse was lovely but I still felt disorientated which is why when I tried to book in for the Drs appointment I felt I must be doing something wrong and asked at reception - where it turns out I don't have one :/

Now I wasn't thinking so left thinking this was my fault until Alaric reminds me that I double checked and that he hadn't called NHS direct at the weekend when I lost a load of black jelly ribbons as well as blood because I was seeing the Dr this week.

Getting home I check and find that my doctor doesn't actually have a clinic on Tuesdays which I summise is part of where things have gone wrong.

I find this sort of error so frustrating because it shouldn't be able to happen - they printed me out an appointment slip and we noticed it had said just nurse and asked and they said no I was booked for both and they would be one after another which was why there was only one slip of paper. Now I think this was a combination of us not knowing the Dr didn't work Tuesdays and the receptionists not listening and assuming things as I had two things needing doing by the nurse. As a patient I myself made the mistake of assume the two things to be being done in ONE appointment where as they must have been thinking of it as two.

This is not the only time this sort of thing has happened either - I've had cases of letters with dates on them when the hospital clinic doesn't run, or has a day name (Monday, Tuesday) that doesn't correspond to the date given. I've turned up to an appointment at the Drs to be told I'm discharged from a clinic at the hospital I hadn't even known I was supposed to be attending but was supposed to be at a week ago. And so on... some of these things are easy to sort out and some are not. Like whilst at university I waited two years for an MRI scan to sort out my pain and muscle stuff only to find out that in agreeing to go on the pain management course had taken me off the waiting list. To be fair the Dr I had at the time was very angry that I had too wait so long for the diagnostic tests some of which I 'fell' off the waiting lists for three times through clerical error :/

Dr surgeries and hospitals still rely on post to get appointment letters too you - why they can not email, text and post I don't know - they say it's a security risk - and I suppose having neighbours end up with your post and opening it isn't?

The other thing is they are expected sick people to remember stuff which really is not going to work very well.

How they relay information, store it and use it needs an over haul, the amount of money and resources lost due to patients not turning up when they should could be drastically reduced with sending reminders. Plus it would save people having to book so much time off needlessly for appointments that then don't happen.

Plus there have been situations were what I have been prescribed by a locum at the drs surgery never getting into their records - that I find scary - I would prefer all the A&E departments, Drs etc... to be linked up - because I can't remember all the meds I've had and if I'm treated in Essex the Dr in Gloucestershire still needs too know. Obviously there might be need for nominity in say the family planning clinics and SDT treatmets and the whole issue of domestic violence and control can be thorny but there should be a way of exempting people not having it so everyones in a muddle all the time.

I was really pleased when I saw computers appearing in Drs surgeries as I thought this would help but they don't even keep all you files there accessible they still do things like printing out the old stuff and keeping it in boxes in the antic :/ So your entire medical history is not avaliable to them there and then.

This does not make sense to me.

The same as not having the medicines in a searchable data base as to who can and can't take it - rather than have the Drs having to flick through huge books.

You may think this is a mountain out of a mole hill but were the NHS is concerned an error of miss filing can cost lives as we very well know.

Science-Art (by sarah)

I have set up a Science-Art website which is specifically designed to deal with things like my paleo-art and space man picture, not too mention Cloud Computing and my sci-tech poetry and world building stuff.

It will have regular articals/ posts and be where I collect together the pictures, sculpture and the like that is to do with science.

Check it out at:

http://www.science-art.co.uk/