Mine are about to become apparent.  Starting with ‘Speak up when you hear utter nonsense’.  Having lived for ages and survived all sorts of world threatening events, I now feel beholden to share a little of my accumulated wisdom.  In some countries, and you may not know this, older folk are seen as a valuable resource for their knowledge and not despised as Babyboomers who had it all. And FYI we are only one of the users of social care – over 40% of the cost is spent on younger people, so even that’s not our fault.

Let’s start with taxation.  I recently had a row with someone who thought all the ills of the world would be solved if we taxed billionaires more heavily. (No hint of student-level political thinking there then). How many are there in Britain?’ I enquired.  Answer was a totally random guess at 3000.  Real answer is 150 and remember that this is people with assets of a billion pounds, not annual income.  If they each paid tax of 1 billion a year (which wouldn’t happen as their actual income would never be that much) would we then live in a land of milk and honey?  No, sweetie, we wouldn’t.  It would JUST, JUST pay the annual running cost of the NHS.  This year.  Next year it will be more.

If everyone stops using fossil fuels will it result in world peace and clean air?  Sadly not because all the countries that make their living from flogging oil and coal – America, China, Russia, most of the Middle East and Australia, would take a fairly dim view of trying to make ends meet growing kale and avocados and probably start a war.  Geopolitics, people.  Pick up a history book.  The Kremlin has actually issued an edict, number 208 in case you missed it, stating that one of the major threats to the Russian economy is, drum roll, green energy. So they won’t be voting for it,

Electric cars, by the way, are run on electricity and that isn’t made by pollution-free unicorns. Electric vehicles are considerably heavier and more damaging to the roads and you might want to check out just what heavy metals are used to make their batteries.  Which have to be disposed of fairly frequently.

If you stop eating meat and fish and dairy products will you live forever?  And yet again the answer is no.  Because you won’t have put 2 seconds of thought into the implications.  There is a reason we have incisor teeth and long intestines; we need them to digest the foodstuffs we need to stay healthy.  You will end up suffering from horrible diseases caused by deficiencies of vitamins such as B12.   Have you even heard of vitamin K?  That’s the one that stops you bleeding to death during childbirth and is not largely found in plants.  Of course you can take supplements but it requires you to be aware that you need to.

Over the years I haven’t come to grief because of a nuclear attack by the then USSR, I haven’t died from not drinking 2 or 5 or 20 litres of water a day, I didn’t succumb to bird flu or the millennium bug in computers and I certainly have never taken 10,000 steps in 24 hours.  Made up nonsense for the most part.  The world, which mass panic says is going to come to an end through global warming has, in fact, survived no less than five ice ages and we are still in the tail end of the last one.  Did we ever have protesters trying to stop the world cooling down?

Far from being an Age of Enlightenment this is a time of extraordinary ignorance.  Nothing, nothing is as straightforward as you think.  Do some reading, do some research, ask some questions.  It suits some people to keep the world in a state of fear.  Trust me if you trust anyone.  There is no monster under your bed.

Now clean your teeth and go to sleep.

Be still, you beating, fearful hearts.  Not my last words, thank goodness, but, just this once, someone else’s.  Yesterday I went to not one but two farewell events.  The first, in my role as Head of Empathy (Oh do stop sniggering at the back.  I didn’t notice your name on the application list.) was to bid a happy retirement to one of the nicest women on the planet, without whose support and encouragement I would have retired myself long since, into a corner, sucking on a blanket.  Possibly in the dark.  She would be surprised to know that but never underestimate the influence of your kindness on others, which she undoubtedly does.

The second occasion was a funeral, not you might think the happiest of subjects for a Christmas blog but, as that say at call centres, ‘Bear with me’.  The star of this show, as he had been the leading light of his own extremely long life, was the best example of ,pardon the pun, a dying breed – the totally bonkers English eccentric.  Tales of his extraordinary doings went back to when he was a five year old in China and had been reported to his parents for dangerous sailing.  Those were the days!  I bet he wasn’t even wearing a life jacket.  Or sun screen.

His life appears to have continued in exactly the same way for over another eighty years.  In his final year, knowing that time was running out, he was still gallivanting about the globe, visiting ever more remote islands, perhaps in the hope that he would finally meet someone who hadn’t already heard his latest dreadful joke.* Singular.  He was a thrifty man.

Funerals of the very elderly can be ill-attended affairs but not this one.  It was a mark of the man that the church was packed to the rafters with people of every age.  Top of the billing must go to his son who brought the house down with his eulogy, a brilliant word picture of a father like no other.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house but we were crying with laughter.  What a legacy to have left such wonderful children.

We left the church as a photograph of him was projected onto a screen, taken on a glorious summer day in his garden  as he walked away from the camera in a battered sunhat, his ancient dog on a makeshift lead.  And to the sound of Rod Stewart singing, what else, ‘I am sailing’.  Bon voyage to an exceptional man.

*His joke, which his wife sent me when when I was in hospital, went as follows:

Horse, to the one legged jockey, ‘How are you getting on?’.  What a missed opportunity for a career in a Christmas cracker factory.

How many times have I started this blog with the word ‘Thank God that’s all over’, often on December 27th?  Now two major unpleasant events are behind me; the operation and the election.

Years of training mean that I have developed a Pavlovian reaction to the latter and find myself incapable of sleeping through it.  I spent the night switching between the ITV and BBC television coverage with Radio 4 on in the background although there should really have been a major spoiler alert when the exit poll was revealed.  The only way back from that, in terms of entertainment, would have been for it to be hopelessly, comedically wrong but it wasn’t.

Cut to six hours of talking heads.  Alan Johnson was a highlight, spilling forth every thought he had ever had about Mr Corbyn and his policies, something he had clearly been longing to do for years.  (There seemed to be no shortage of Labour politicians willing to do that.  Now.).  A welcome sight was Robert Peston, there as the thinking woman’s crumpet in contrast to Andrew Neil who should really, really think about a future in radio.

Whatever you personally think of the result, and I certainly won’t bore you with my thoughts, it lifted the spirits to discover that although our country has changed beyond recognition in the last fifty years, it is still impossible to sell extremism, be it right or left wing, to the Ordinary British.  We remain, it seems, creatures of the central path, don’t mind if I do, it’s turned out nice again, shall I put the kettle on, and thank God for it.  It is what makes us the best place on Earth, except for the weather.  Obvs.

Finally re-joining fashionable society, I was out and about yesterday, lunching with the Humble Little Sisters of Strawberry and at a carol service later, talking to an Italian banker, who one might assume was against Brexit but not a bit of it.  The only thing he was opposed to was the dithering and he was extremely happy that the way forward was now certain.  As is the rest of the world if one can judge by how the pound strengthened in response to the news.  I asked him to comment on a friend’s fears that it was about to go horribly wrong, there would be shortages and  food riots within weeks.  Ever the perfect gentleman he replied in Italian but I think it translated as poppycock or something similar.

So pause for a minute, gentle reader, whether you like it or not we are finally back on terra firma and we can take a moment, or a fortnight, to relax and enjoy the festive season.  I certainly intend to make the most of a festival I came all too close to missing.   Happy, happy Christmas everyone.

As Elton John might have said but I’m not sure I’d go as far as saying ‘better than I ever was’.  Give it a week.  Or two.  Possibly four.  Learning to be patient as well as ‘a patient’ is uncharted territory but having berated so many people on the subject over the years I will have to grit my teeth and at least give convalescence a chance.

Post-operation I was on an absurd high for about three days (Note to self: what in God’s name is in an anaesthetic?  Is it available on Amazon?) and within hours I was proof reading the homework of a Ghanaian nurse.  Drugs being what they are, there was a horrible crash back to Earth on day four which was spent in floods of tears, despite the efforts of pals who turned up with a bucket, a plastic jug, a filthy length of garden hose and the irresistibly tempting offer, declined, of an enema.

The Sunset Care Home was altogether more fun.  The check in questionnaire contained enquiries such as ‘Can you manage your own teeth?’.  ‘Usually.  When sober’.  There was a special form on resuscitation – did I want it?  ‘Certainly not’ I replied without hesitation,  an answer which seemed to surprise them despite the majority of inmates appearing to be there as  result of an ill-judged ‘Yes’ in earlier life.  Who turns down the chance of a swift exit after sixty?  Only the wildest of optimists I imagine.

On the down side there was no en suite fridge so the champagne had to be chilled in the garden.  One visitor arrived with a bottle of vodka, an ice bucket with ice, tonic, lemon and a knife.  Mention that girl in dispatches, Colonel.  Another one tripped on her way in (so stone cold sober) and broke a toe.  A third decided it was time to remove my stitches, worryingly called staples, shades of shenanigans in the stationery cupboard, and took me to the nearest pub for a little nerve calming  Rioja (for both of us) before whipping them out.  It’s a wonder I wasn’t expelled which even for me would have been a rather impressive addition to my CV.

Now back at home let me set you a task for the weekend.  (Obviously you too will already have binge-watched ‘The Crown’).  Try to go about your daily life without bending over, something presently forbidden for me.  Try putting on socks, or plugging anything into a low socket, picking up post, emptying the dishwasher.  The reader coming up with the longest list gets the staples and the extractor.  Something, like your health, to cherish.

 

I don’t know if it’s the time of year or the medication but I find myself in a maudlin mood, often standing still at the window,  mug of tea in hand going cold, watching the endless piles of sodden leaves whirling about on the lawn.  I realise it is the first year I haven’t worn a poppy or gone to a service to plant crosses for my grandfather and brother.  Isn’t it time to stop killing each other to resolve our differences?  Just a thought for Remembrance Day.

There are many downsides to the pain control – it makes your mouth and your eyes bone dry.  It makes you constantly tired, not just physically but weary in spirit.  Every action requires enormous effort and I know each one is eating into my daily ability to do anything, making me irrationally angry with time wasters and stairs and unnecessarily heavy doors.

My operation is on Thursday and given how long I’ve lived with unbearable pain I find myself absurdly nervous about replacing it with New Pain, one I don’t know how to pander to,  one I haven’t made deals with, one that may not leave me alone for minutes on end.  Stockholm syndrome. I will miss you Old Pain.  We’ve learned to rub along.

I’ve started packing my hospital case starting, (come on, it’s me) with the champagne and glasses.   No drinking out of tooth mugs on my watch.   An extension cord and adaptor.  Perfume.  Chocolates.  Clearly I have no intention of going with the suggested list of ‘comfortable slippers’ and a ‘warm dressing gown’.  As if!

The house is covered with Post It notes about heating, the dishwasher, the keys and the cat.  I’ve written and stamped the Christmas cards.  Ocado has a list of vegan food to be delivered at intervals.  I’m still undecided about whether I should go the extra mile and leave out my will, and the plot number in the Sussex graveyard.  Hardly a sign of confidence in the surgeon.

Now it’s just the waiting to get through.  I feel like Blackadder in the trenches, fiddling with bits of kit and snapping at Baldrick, eager to get it over with, reluctant to get going.  But no-one else in the regiment will be coming with me this time.  It’s a solo sortie into No Man’s Land.  Not, on reflection, the best of odds for coming back.

Bayonets ready?   There’s the whistle.  Let’s go.

 

Not that it is a lifetimes ambition but at last Boris Johnson and I have something in common.  A week is a long time in politics but it is, if anything, an even longer time in pain.  A co-sufferer described her pain as ‘a constant companion, like having an unpleasant relative to stay’.  Indefinitely.

I bought Bill Bryson’s new book yesterday and it has a whole chapter on pain.  It is acute when you hit your thumb with a hammer but it is chronic when it is  like a burglar alarm going off in your nerves and not stopping. Very neatly put Mr B.

Several thousands of pounds since my last blog  I now have a diagnosis and a black and white picture of the middle of my spine.  There is an expression that says you should stop digging when you are already in a hole, clearly  unfamiliar to my GP who, following a telephone call from none other that my local MP, could not get on the phone fast enough to say now that we (I didn’t notice any ‘we’ when it came to payment) have the MRI she can fast track me to NHS surgery.  Obviously I have been too subtle about my loss of confidence in their ability to find a drink in a brewery.

So I am booked into a private hospital for four days next month.  After the investigations I was told there was good news (Nothing life threatening) and bad news.   I have to have a lumbar laminectomy.  (Look it up but DO NOT tell me what it says).   I asked the surgeon about the chances of a negative outcome.  ‘About one in a thousand’ he replied and even I didn’t feel it fair to put him on the spot and ask if he was on operation 999 at the moment.  Another doctor once told me that the possibility of my child being damaged by an MMR inoculation was one in fifty thousand.  ‘That’s great odds if you’ve got fifty thousand children’ I replied, ‘but I’ve only got one’.

Best news of the week is the post-operative care. ‘You won’t need much’ said the surgeon, ‘You could just book into a nice hotel’.  Not, I venture, advice you would get in the NHS.

Hopefully I am off to a posh care facility afterwards, with an in-house hairdresser and a drinks licence.  I look forward to welcoming you all there but don’t bring grapes unless they have already been decanted into liquid form in a bottle.  This is gonna be a party house, people.  Be there or be square.

I had occasion to say to a doctor this morning ‘If a vet treated my cat like this, I would go round to their surgery with an axe.’  I just hope that wasn’t too subtle for him.  My leg is still not better and having seen doctor number 8 last week, I begin to despair.

What has roused me from the Slough of Despond to incandescent rage this particular morning is that for the second time it has taken a week to renew my prescription.  Given the misery that I endure WITH the pills you may imagine what is to be left without them for a week.  After the Bank Holiday debacle I went to the surgery in person with every single detail written out and the packets that the pills had come in stapled to the paper.  Did they turn up in the three days I was promised?  Don’t even bother to answer.

Do I actually need to remind these people that they are not working for Ocado and substituting back rather than streaky bacon in a delivery.  You are dealing with actual human beings in pain who have no alternative.  How can they be SO incompetent and carry on working?  Twice!  Horse whipping is too good for them.

I have finally succumbed to the lure of private medicine.  Two months into my ordeal and still no scan or X-Ray or indeed anything that is a stab at a diagnosis.  I resent having to do so but at least there will be a nice waiting room and coffee and the people working there will pretend to give a toss.

As soon as I am better I am going to establish an organisation like the RSPCA but for humans.  We are a nation of animal lovers but people are subjected to cruelty and neglect that would have you locked up if you did it to a chicken.  Anybody with me?

Back from Ireland but still in pain.  My travelling companions, nurses of the old school, immediately threw my walking aids out the window along with most of the medication which, whilst it caused initial panic on my part, did prove to be A Good Thing.  It turned out that far from helping, the drugs were doing bugger all except making me dozy and depressed.  Now I’m awake, cheery and in agony but as they were quick to point out, two out of three ain’t bad.

The trip did not start well, despite a chum delivering me to the airport and sparing me the vagaries of public transport.  I had been promised ‘Special Assistance’ which meant that a wheelchair would be available at check-in, no-one thinking to tell me that check was a good ten miles from the drop-off point.  My enquiry when I finally reached the Aerlingus desk was met by a brusque ‘It’s upstairs’ from a hatchet faced ogre, clearly enraged that her lengthy career as a KGB interrogator had led nowhere.

‘Upstairs’ meant another ten mile walk and long standing up waits at security and passport control.  Thank God that I was then in Duty Free where the sorry sight of me induced a kind soul to give me her seat behind a makeup counter.  Revived, especially by my purchases which my angel of mercy assembled, I managed to hobble the final five miles to the Aerlingus gate where I was bollocked in no uncertain terms by another of their charmless employees for being late!  I will spare you my answer, suffice to say that it will be sometime before she treats anyone else like that. Possibly never.

Ireland is a delight and you realise within seconds that ‘Father Ted’ was not a comedy series but a fly-on-the-wall documentary.  Every single person we met reduced us to helpless laughter in seconds, even on the rare occasions when stone cold sober and topping the pops was our first hostess, Patricia, a woman who had snogged the Blarney Stone on more than one occasion and whose life mission was to feed you to death whilst talking.  Never mind ‘Just a Minute’.  Just a couple of hours without hesitation or repetition would be nearer the mark and not even a challenge.

What a contrast to England.  The highlight of this week for the newly housebound was a visit to the dentist, always a surprisingly jolly outing because of the lovely people there.  The hygienist was about to polish my teeth when I asked in mock alarm if the toothpaste was vegan.  She rolled her eyes.  Apparently there are people who will now not allow her to floss their teeth because there is beeswax on the string and that is a no-no for your committed vegan.  I hope it goes without saying that anything plastic is frowned upon.  (Bamboo, FYI, being the way forward).

One patient has even gone so far as to complain about the choice of reading matter in the waiting room so they have had to replace ‘The Times’ (Too right wing) with ‘The Guardian’.  It’s a WAITING ROOM sweetie, not your own home.  I’d have rolled up a copy and used it as a weapon before giving them a root canal treatment without benefit of anaesthesia but that’s probably why I’m not a dentist.

I would say you couldn’t make it up but how sad is it that you don’t have to.

The pain in my leg must have been feeling a little lonesome after three weeks so it bought in a friend; a head ache.  Not literally, you understand.  A mere headache couldn’t make itself known above the barricade of all the (prescription) drugs I’ve been taking; this is more of an exhaustion of the brain.

A lot of my usual brain capacity is taken up with raw agony but until it happened I had no idea of how mentally exhausting being disabled would be.  Immobility requires almost constant thinking, something I have generally tried to avoid. For example in the absence, so far, of a Stannah Stair Lift, trips between floors have to be given a great deal of thought.  What will I need to take with me that might conceivably be needed in the next two or three hours, because there can be no question of unnecessary extra journeys.  I have taken to keeping a set of house keys upstairs so that I don’t have to run down (In my dreams) and open the front door.  And spoons by the coffee maker.  And both land-line and mobile phones permanently to hand. And a pen.  And my diary. (Cont in Page 94). All of which wouldn’t be a problem if I had a spare hand to carry everything and if the weight of the stuff didn’t make the pain worse.

I can still drive but only to places where I can be sure of a parking space and a short walk.  Ironically I have an appointment with a consultant specialising in Skeletomuscular issues – only another eight weeks to wait for that – and was warned in the letter that parking was not readily available near the hospital.  Just what the patient on crutches wants to hear, as it happens.  I am also curious as to why they need to know my preferred gender status and religious beliefs but if that helps to find a diagnosis ….  a three page form of those doubtless vital questions needs to be filled in and taken with me.  Of course it does.

I am planning to fly to Ireland shortly and it suddenly occurred to me that there was no way I could make the usual five or six mile walk between check-in and the departure gate, my current walking limit being about 50 yards.  Several dozen emails and phone calls (The average waiting time is now 48 minutes) later and I have been promised a wheelchair at both ends of the journey.  Sluice Nurse did have a bit of a moan about it, she being the pusher rather than the patient, but I pointed out the up side.  We can buy industrial quantities of stuff in duty free without having to worry about carrying it and we get to board first to stash it all in the overhead lockers.  There is always an upside and optimists apparently live longer.  Let’s hope her negativity doesn’t strike her dead before the return journey.

Let me leave you on another up note.  The following text from Useless the Younger, now permanently morphed into Jacob Rees Mogg, on hearing of my continuing ill health.

”I am sorry that your leg is still causing you such distress. Eat some sweets. I often find that helps”

Just a slightly cryptic clue that my wretched leg continues to be a problem even after seeing four doctors, visiting two hospitals and getting eight prescriptions.  Every single person I discussed it with (Other than those medically qualified) asked what to the ignorant might seem the somewhat obvious question about x-rays/scans, neither of which had ever been suggested during consultations, some of which didn’t even feature an actual examination of the offending limb.

Being of an organised disposition I rang the surgery on Thursday, four days before one of my many prescriptions was due to run out.  I was told to get my local pharmacy to request a repeat.  I rang the chemist, they rang the doctor and I rang the chemist again to find out how things were going.  ‘It will be here on Tuesday’ they said, ‘ what with it being a Bank Holiday’.  My judgement clouded by pain I optimistically rang on Tuesday to discover that no repeat prescription had arrived.  The chemist rang the doctors, I rang the chemist and they announced with an air of victory that it would be there.  On Thursday.

Obviously I should have remembered that we are renowned as a nation of animal lovers.  People, not so much.  When my cat was ill I went to the nearby 24 hour vet.  Sadly animals get ill out of hours and on Bank Holidays, which is clearly yet another way in which they differ from humans.

Following  a stern talking to from my big sister, a woman you wouldn’t want to trifle with, I decided it was time to put on my tiara and remind them who they were dealing with.  Sometimes it is the only way forward.

The next Doctor was another locum and very charming.  And again no question of pestering me with a needless physical examination.  I related the sorry history of the prescription (He didn’t even have the wit to blush with shame) and said that I would like fewer drugs and something more along the lines of a diagnosis.  What exactly is wrong with me?

He smiled ruefully. ‘That’s the million dollar question’ he said.  ‘And I think it’s rather your job to answer it’ I replied, giving him the look I normally reserve for unrepentant mass murderers who I’ve taken a dislike to.

So three more prescriptions and a promise (!) to arrange for an MRI scan.

I think he may change his mind about choosing  for medicine when he finishes his ‘A’ levels and opt for accountancy.  If he’s recovered by then.