Ouch :( (by sarah)

This morning at the slightly more humane hour of 9:45 am I went to the Drs to get more pain killers on the advise of the physio - tank me up so that I can get muscles moving and stuff agian.

I thought this would be a simple quick appointment - no! First of all no repeat prescription as chronic pain etc... puts me in a high suicide risk catagory :/ Then to being prodded and poked enough to put my left foot into spasm. Once that was over I get informed that my mysterious hernia lump thing isn't being followed up as there's no point and am sent on my merry way with a prescription for stomache linners and strong anti inflamitories.

The numbness and tingling I get which has been ignored for two years is suddenly of huge concern to both the dr and the physio - in the past I was just informed that it was due to the epidural and the sensation may never come back - the tingling and pins and needles in my hands and feet every morning occured before the pregnancy but where no where near as bad. I can't help but feel angry and sad with my body at the moment.

They asked me what I do at the moment and I said mostyly look after Jean and make websites. I actually got, 'well the back problems wont affect making the websites much.' But then I pointed out I had a two year old!

They also asked if it was affecting any pass times or hobbies - I snapped a bit at this point and said 'Well I am supposed to be a geologist.' And then pointed out that I was a climbing and archery instructor and love hill walking - I didnt even get a chance to mention the Scouts before they decided it all needs to be sorted out in that case :/

Sorry I'm not being all cheerful guys - I just feel abit like everything is against me at the moment - still if I do succeed at stuff it'll make an interesting biography 😉

Physio resumed (by sarah)

This morning at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am I had a physiotherapy appointment - the one for when I hurt my back in the autum. It turns out that becuase I am young there is still alot of water on the discs in my back making them prone to being squeezed out of place - the disc sort of popped out a bit and that was what cuased the pain. It gets worse when I sit for more than fifteen minutes or bend over too much (this is nuaghty bending from the waist rather than simply crouching) This is becuase those actions are pushing the disc back out where as the excersises I stole from my seperated pelvis excersises and walking help push it back in.

Unfortunatly the physio said that the muscles have all really spasmed around it so that I manipulation would put me out of action for too long so its the slowely slowely approach. Also apparently part of my lower spine is ridged and not flexing at all - this she said is probably just the way I am but that it needs sorting.

The stretches she did to test how bad things where tended to hurt and put pressure on my knees which lead to a discussion on that. I had been told back at Chelsea and Westminster hospital that I had refered pain from my lower back damage but the Physio said she thought there was actually something wronge with the knee joints themselves. This as you can imagine didn't exactly cheer me up. We desided that as they only hurt properlly once or twice a week unless its really cold its not currently worth worrying about.

She was suprised that I had such good range of movement considering how spasmed the muscles are and the pain I'm in but I pointed out I do my excersises still especially when things are really bad - I pointed out I'd had the pain management stuff in London. She nodded then asked me lots more questions including stuff about other joints.

So many of my joints have become unstable - though I dont really know what that means. I am in for more grulling and painful physio and this time its hourly for one excersise, two hourly for others and twice daily for yet more - plus pacing walking so as not to activate the pelvis which still decides to click painfully if I do too much - sigh.

Poor Ella got dragged to the appointment with me at stupid o'clock but went into PAinswick to photograph things - we then walked back to Cranham which I think was two and something miles but I may be wronge.

Help Appreciated (by sarah)

Seth and Ella have been helping us clear out the upstairs of our house - unfortunatly becuase my back and pelvis started acting up as I tried to do a lot of the packing up and clearing myself at the weekend and stuff.

Also Alaric has had to work and so with me being stuck in bed for the first part of today not as much as could have been done was :/

Thanks anyway guys.

No internet (by sarah)

The builders have started on the Bakery in urnest and as a result I had to disconnect the modem and now it would replug in meaning that until work has finished I am basically going to be internetless 🙁

Still work is going on apace so I is happy!

My Solution to the NHS (by sarah)

Having spent alot of time stuck in hospitals or on waiting lists I then fall off of or never got the letter that told me I had an appointment I thought I would write down how I'd run things if I had complete power!

I would allow privatee patients - but this would not entitle you to jump queues or get better medicine - all it would mean is that you'd get a private room with TV wifi etc... you would still get the same food as that should be regulated to your specific condition. (I did lots of thinking about this whilst in hospital! Especially when they forgot to fed me).

I would also use the private rooms for over spill if there were bed shortages and the pivate patients would get a refund and have to lump it.

I would try and stop the 'us and them' attitude between the doctors and nurses by making drs train as nurses first. (I know this is major over hall of our current education of medical professionals) I would also make them work on ambulances as ambulance stuff before they could qualify etc... and probably make them do 'reminder' stints after qualification.

I would make sure that any management type people have a medical back ground so that (hopefully) they will know what is essential and what is not - again being a nurse first would help with this - they would realise that pillows and blankets are actually needed.

For washing people ect.. I would encourage the spanish system of having the family do it (if they are able to/willing) and only use hospital stuff for that when needed.

I would get food preperation people to come and over hull all the wards and operating theatres so they are easily cleaned - beleive me butches have better hygien than our hospitals. In fact our hospitals or at least the ones I've been in are badly designed in this respect with lots of nooks and crannys for the germs to lerk.

I would implement the design me and hubby came up with for effiencient and hard wearing and modular (so when a bit breaks you just replace that bit.) medical monitors for oxygen, heart rate etc... This would reduce the wires and things and I would make sure there were enough of them! I would also make sure the nurses had a basic understanding of the electronics so that they know when something is broken before the accidently use it on pregnant women and panic when they can't hear the baby (fortunatly I had been in the ward long enough to have worked out which one of the baby monitor things worked and which didnt but if I had been just admitted to the ward with a problem it would have scared me as it was the poor student nurse was in a right state).

Have nutritionist and dieticians incharge of the food so diabetics didn't end up with sugar sweetened friut juice etc (happened to my dad). This would reduce the convelesance time along with proper physiotherapy and excersises regimes for people stuck in hospital etc..

As far as GPs are concerned I would have home visits back and I would have 'check ups' ie you go and see your doctor just for a chat and to mention all those little things like the festy toe nail you wouldnt normal get around for making an appointment for (and you therefore end up causulty cos its gone green and you have a nasty fever - Alaric). I would add in a big smattering of preventative medicine here including talking therapies as well as recipies for garlic consumption for blood thinning etc... - this should in the long run decrease the number of patients in a really bad state before they go to the drs and therefore would save moeny in the long run (not something that is going to interest a government who might only be in term for the next four yrs etc...).

The other thing that I think would be essential is to get rid of medical patents this way as long as there is no longer drug company monopolys and the best treatments will be used rather than the current state of affairs - of course this would mean that alot of drug trials etc... would have to be payed for by the tax payer etc... as the companies that do the research etc... are doing it purely for profiets

The last thing I would do is give hospitals the ability to choose their own contracts for repairs etc... and have harsh penalties for companies that try to screw them over - lots of money is currently wasted on building maintance that is unnessaccery.

I would have an appointment reminder system that emailed patients/phoned them a week/day before depending on prefernce. I know there are security issues here with patient records but I am confident that they are not insermountable. I also have issues with how they are digatizing the medical records but thats another story... All I can think is that I currently have over half the records from the pregnancy missing and as the hospital technically doesn't exist anymore I doubt they will ever be recovered so the only copy of alot of stuff is what me and Alaric made copies of and its not like it was minor stuff :/

Well thats all of the top of my head and there are probably lots of problems I havent accounted for etc...