Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign

English: NHS logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My last two non-joke posts provoked some interesting comments, to my surprise. The surprise is not that they were interesting (do I not have the best, most intelligent readers in the world?  I do; and I do not want to end up needing the NHS in an urgent manner by accidentally suggesting otherwise).

My surprise came from the idea that the NHS is not necessarily a good thing. The NHS is a more than a good thing: it is a great thing.  But it is not a perfect thing.  It may have appeared that I was criticising the system and not the system practitioners; I wasn’t.  I understand that there is a finite pot of money and tough decisions have to be made.  It’s just easier if the tough decisions affect other people’s husbands.

I’ve paid for medical care (fourteen years in South Africa) and I’ve had it for nothing.  Trust me – free medical care is better.  You still have the two-hour wait in the doctor’s waiting room, but there’ll be some pennies left in your purse at the end of it.

I exaggerate: since my local surgery introduced an electronic reception board, the wait is usually brief.  And the greeting is friendlier.

The NHS may not be a perfect system and it may mean unpleasant people man the phones, but it is disinterested medical care.  Not disinterested in its patients, despite my moaning; but disinterested in its willingness to help as many people as possible, no matter what their financial circumstances.

Our financial circumstances are not great.  The NHS doesn’t mind that.  In the last few months I have had free emergency dental treatment, free doctor visits, a free mammogram and free antibiotics.  

Take a look at this:

This is the Hub’s daily tablet intake.  Fourteen tablets for his various conditions. Tablets are not cheap.  That’s what I’m told – we don’t pay for them.

The concept of free medical care is a foreign one to many of my readers but, believe me, I’m grateful.  We are grateful.  We were grateful when Spud had an emergency appendectomy.  When Tory Boy had his adenoids and tonsils removed.  When the Hub was given every test possible to diagnose his health issues.

Pound for pound, we have the best medical care in the world.  I find it incomprehensible that there is opposition to the idea elsewhere. Without free medical care, I could have died from blood poisoning brought on by oral infections which would have gone untreated because I could not afford to visit a dentist.

The NHS asks nothing of me except a portion of my taxes once I’m in a position to be taxed, and to tolerate the occasional moody receptionist.  I would tolerate a thousand moody receptionists.  It’s a small price to pay.

I’m A Tad Grumpy

No TV cop shows were spoiled in the making of this post.

English: Stepping Hill Hospital Viewed from the railway bridge on Bramhall Moor Road. (Photo credit: Wikipedia  © Gerald England)

 

The dreaded ‘T’ word has been deployed – I think you know that means I’m seriously put out.

I sat at the computer for all of five minutes this morning.  The stupid chair and rotten cramped desk made my legs ache just by looking at them.  I decided to catch up with one of my favourite cop shows instead.  A character I like died saving a character I dislike.  Great.

By this time it was nine o’clock so the doctor’s surgery was open.  I waited all day yesterday and heard nothing.  No wonder my legs ache – they’ve been supporting an over-extended bladder for 24 hours.

I phoned.  Scary Receptionist wasn’t there but she had passed the details on to Uninterested Assistant Practice Manager, who ‘hadn’t gotten around to phoning’ me yet.  UAPM told me it was the Trust’s fault: they changed the ‘boundaries’ of who could have the flu jab so, even though the NHS literature says everyone with a neurological condition can have it, they mean everyone with a neurological condition who the local Trust says can have it.  I can try phoning again in early December to see if they’ve got any jabs left, but I’m not holding my breath (except to count to ten while I remember I’m supposed to love everyone, even those who work at my local doctor’s surgery).

My only comfort is that the Hub will get the flu which, because of his weak nervous system, will turn to pneumonia, causing him to be hospitalised, ruining our Christmas and costing the NHS a thousand times more in ICU fees than it would have if they’d given him the absolutely vital flu jab in the first place.

Strangely, the Hub doesn’t find that the least bit comforting, but what does he know?  He’s sick.  He is still not fully recovered from his bug and it’s been more than two weeks.  He is weak and has hardly been out of bed, never mind the house.  He went out on Sunday for thirty minutes and that knocked him flat. He’s thinking about trying to get up again today.

All joking aside, if that’s what a bug can do to him, imagine how the flu could affect him.  No wonder I’m grumpy.  I don’t want Christmas ruined.

After the waste of time that was my phone call to the doctor’s, I tried going back onto the computer to complain about it to you.  No internet for over an hour.

‘Tad’ doesn’t even begin to describe my mood today.  Well, it wouldn’t, would it? It’s a noun, not an adjective.

I would like to make one thing clear: I might complain and the Hub might get really sick but the NHS is still wonderful and one of the best healthcare systems in the world – and free, most of the time.  If the Hub does get pneumonia, they will care for him and it will cost us nothing.  So it won’t bite into my Christmas Present Budget.  There’s always a silver lining.

We have an excellent hospital in Stockport.  You may have heard of it, it was in the news: many patients were poisoned last year by a member of staff.

Related articles

• Stepping Hill poison probe: “I will kill again” message left on mirror in Stockport hospital (menmedia.co.uk)
• Stockport poison probe hospital Stepping Hill is given a clean bill of health (menmedia.co.uk)
• https://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/when-is-m-e-not-a-neurological-condition/

Me & My Manky Teeth

I wasn’t joking the other day – if it wasn’t for modern dentistry and our wonderful (absolutely no irony intended here) NHS, I would look like this:

I have always had manky teeth.  I blame the parents.  They didn’t make me brush my teeth as a child, and now I’m reaping the reward.  It has nothing to do with my intimate relationship with chocolate, of course.

I have had five oral infections in about seven years – all leading to horrendous but necessary treatment: teeth pulling, poking around with sharp sticks, and an intermittent speech impediment.  Yet I brush my teeth at least twice a day.

Woot canal tweatment looms on Tuesday, now that the antibiotics I’ve been taking for five days have calmed the infection in my tooth-that-isn’t-a-tooth-so-much-as-a-massive-filling-with-gums.

Don’t worry – it won’t affect my blogging; in fact, it does me a favour – it’s been a while since I shared a horror story with you.  Something to look forward to.

If I had been born over a century ago, I’d probably be dead.  Not because of ancient dentistry: anyone born over a century ago is probably dead by now.  It’s simple mathematics. 

But I would probably have been dead at twenty from my first infection that led to root canal treatment that gave me a dark front tooth that made me look like Posh Spice because I never smiled in photographs.  Even now that the tooth has been veneered – although it tends to come off when I eat toffee lollies – I still smile with my mouth closed for photos.  Check out my old ones and you’ll see.

Tory Boy might have killed me as well.  It wasn’t dentistry that saved me that time, you’ll be disappointed to hear; but Dr Faktor in Park Town, Johannesburg, who saw me the week before my due date and booked me in for a caesarean eight days later.  He saw me again on my due date; told me TB was still breached (breeched?  I’m never sure: either he broke our contract or he came out wearing trousers); to go home; relax; come back tomorrow for the op.  No op = a baby coming out sideways = let’s not go there.

The Hub took me out to eat and to a movie: Look Who’s Talking.  I never give birth now, without thinking of Bruce Willis.

I bet he has good teeth.

Cover of Look Who’s Talking

 

My Dog Is Sick; My Son Never Returns My Calls; My Tooth Fell Out; But Worse Than That: The Internet Is Down.

Image via Wikipedia

I’m writing this in Word because the internet keeps going down.  You’ll be reading it live online, of course; lucky you.  What’s so great about you that you get t’internet and I don’t?  Life just ain’t fair sometimes.

You’ll see by my first paragraph that I get a little grumpy if I don’t get online the minute I want to.  It’s like a drug.  Is it possible to mainline online?  Somebody better fix something sometime soon or someone’s gonna be bashing computers against someone’s head in a frenzy of withdrawal symptoms.

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Toby seems to be on the mend!  Hooray!  My posts will stop sounding like eulogies.

He ate a little chicken last night; some more this morning; some more after that; some more…you get the idea.  He’s taking his tablets, drinking tea, and looking a mite perkier.  My bad mood has lifted like someone took their foot off the internet wire and fixed the blockage (it must be lumpy ether; what else can it be?).

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Tory Boy: the incredible vanishing son.  Says he needs your help then leaves you hanging, worried sick that something has happened to him because why else would he say ‘Look at this for me’ and then not send the thing to be lookited, not answer emails, nor his phone?  It was only once I sent a text threatening to visit him that he let me know he wasn’t lying in a hospital bed, beaten to within an inch of his life with no id because it had been stolen by the beaters and there was therefore no way for the hospital staff to contact his frantic mother.  I only worried because he said ‘Look at this for me’ and then nothing.  If he had said ‘…,’ I’d have known not to worry because I never do when he ignores me for weeks at a time, never calls, texts or emails.  It’s a mother’s lot to be irrelevant; I get that.  But don’t let me think I’m relevant and then ignore me – you might as well put a gun to my head and tell me to choose between Maltesers or the internet: the resulting spin would make a tornado look like a gentle blow on a puppy’s ear.

*

So my tooth fell out again.  Not my tooth, actually my front left veneer.  It’s now the third or fourth time.  The dentist, who keeps a spare appointment just for my teeth emergencies, tried another tack.  She sand-blasted the back of the veneer, roughed up the front of the tooth, and cemented them together.  I wasn’t sure if I was at a dentist’s or a builders’ convention.

After two hours of starvation I tested it on a packet of Chewits and it’s still there.  I may have manky teeth but I’ve got good NHS. 

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Coming Soon To A Blog Near You: The Greatest Quilt Ever Made!

(Once the Hub uploads the photos)