Author: Santipolo

I currently own and run outmedia
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September Health Update

I got a letter today from the specialists in CFS (condition I have) and it effectively said, after a year of waiting … hey, waits for our appointments are really long, here, have this leaflet!

Guess I have to love that I have the NHS here but, the slogan is … free at the point of need.

Except, this used to be the case at inception in 1948. Over the years this has been eroded down to ‘if you live in the right place, at the right time, and have some money, it’s free at the point of need’

The reality is, it’s now rarely entirely free. Gone are the time when the local doctor did house calls or would see anyone the same day if they turned up at the surgery. Many patients give up trying with many surgeries adopting the rule that all patients regardless of urgency must call at 8am and when the appointments are all gone, try again the next day. The result of that is, those who may be really weak don’t get appointments whilst the reasonably fit do. Indeed, potentially someone with cancer symptoms doesn’t get seen for weeks whilst they are beaten to the appointments by those wanting a few days off work. It’s totally crazy.

No medical service should rely on luck to get seen. No wonder Emergency departments are always full, all those who cannot get to see their GP!

Then we have hospitals. Originally, most were just a short walk or bus ride away from their hospital, for those who drove there would be parking onsite or nearby and it was free.

Not any more, for many it can take hours on public transport and most car parks charges start at £3+

Anyway, enough generic chatter about the state of the NHS in 2022!

I was struggling prior to getting covid in June this year (22). Covid itself wasn’t really any worse to me than a cold, I have felt much worse for sure. However, once I checked as negative the real problems started.

  • My temperature won’t regulate, I get hold and cold regardless of the outside temperature or my body temperature. It is 20°C in here just now and I am sweating like it’s 30°C.
  • My stomach cramps and I have to ‘go’ quite suddenly and it makes a mess
  • My stamina has taken a nosedive.
  • Eyesight really is very changeable
  • Chest pains

None of those has got a solution from the GP. Some they say ‘long covid’ which is effectively the condition I already had so, just adding some more symptoms.

With my chest pain I am waiting around 3 months for a thorough scan. For the tummy they plan on shoving a camera up my arse but, I got at least 3 months before they give me an appointment and who knows how long that will be?

With stress my energy level drops rapidly. Any sort of stress. It is why I try to impress on others , if I ask you a question, answer me. Being fobbed off raises my stress. I am also finding myself acting as an inbetweener passing messages on for people who could just speak directly to each other. Each time this wastes even more energy I cannot spare.

You must understand, I don’t get energy like ‘normal’ people.

Let me give you an example:

On Monday I can get up at 8.30am and when I wake I feel like it is 2am. I will then push through the day trying to keep going but, my mind is so active with the things I couldn’t physically achieve that I cannot then sleep until I wear out my mind.

My mind is used to life feeling like it is 2am, it never gets better than that and so, it’ll likely be literally 2am (or later) before I get to sleep.

Tuesday I am up at 8.30 but it feels like 2am, yes, I feel the same as I did before I went to bed. I will push through the day but hit a problem I was not expecting at 10am. By 11am it feels to me like it is 5am and I didn’t sleep yesterday either. I push through but, I am not able to concentrate on anything and everything bothers me. Pain, talking, listening, light, sound, everything. I go to bed around 2am

Wednesday I wake up 8.30, it feels like 2am for the first half hour and then I feel that 5am feeling creep in over around 5-10 minutes, it’s very clear to me when it is happening. I barely function on any worthwhile level and concede to a nap at 3pm. I wake at 4.30pm feeling like it’s 3am

This just keeps going on and on, one similar situation after another. I honestly cannot remember what it feels like to be actually properly awake.

Throughout this, I look normal. People life at my failed attempts to talk, some joker may ask if I have had the one too many. Yes, that’s so very funny (not). Others will ask what is bothering me like, if I can find that one thing it’ll all go away. They mean well but don’t actually understand it. many will have known me how I used to be and won’t accept this change, they keep burying their heads in the sand waiting for me to just be ‘me’ again.

What I need is actual physical help. If I look like I am struggling you can betcha I was struggling way before that.

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Dictator

What makes a dictator?

Could anyone have seriously thought that in the 1930’s a tiny ex military man, not a very successful one at that, would take the world to war?

Would anyone have thought Ferdinand Marcos would have denied his citizens in the Philippines the right to an election?

No, no one thinks these things generally because they are not the sort of thing that happen in our country, whichever country we live in

Few have started out planning to cancel our democracy. They get to the point where their actions are such that giving up power and the protection which comes with it becomes too terrible to contemplate.

What is it which changes a democracy into a dictatorship?

It is the absolute belief that the need of the party is greater than the need of the nation. Though, the leader will always say they are taking measures to secure the needs of the nation and protecting them from the dreadful possibility of someone else coming to power and messing everything up.

How difficult is it to convince the nation that the others are so terrible that the incumbent has to stay in place?

Very easy indeed!

There is an expectation already in place that the leadership of the country are inherently going to work for the best interest of the country and, though we know they ‘all’ lie that these untruths are needed in the interest of national security.

Our current leader, Boris Johnson ( #boris ) is a typical Brit. Somewhat eccentric, a little barmy but, a loveable rogue and, says the many, that’s OK. He himself stated in an interview a few years back that the way he operates is to create so many stories, so many scandals that it becomes difficult to keep up with it. During the confusion he can do just about anything he wants as the people can no longer tell the truth from the lies.

Almost since Parliament began has been a thing called the parliamentary code. It is a rule developed to ensure that when a minister lies, they must resign. It forces a certain standard. The minister has always had the option to decline an answer and, indeed, to step around the question on the basis of National Security as Margaret Thatcher often did during the Falklands war. But, that code of honour was there to protect us from a minister, even a Prime Minister who would seek to subvert truth for their own personal gain. Boris Johnson, this Prime Minister has done this, he has lied to parliament. 

Any other minister would have been honourable, held their hands up and resigned but this is not how the current resident of Number 10 Downing Street thinks.

What he has done is to change those rules. He can now not be investigated unless he approves it and when he is found guilty of lying to parliament, it is him who decides the punishment which is no longer resignation, it can be as basic as an apology much like all those he has issued with regard to the parties he attended.

When a person in power starts stripping away the safeguards which could stop them being in power it is a fast downward slope. His party have already been changing electoral boundaries to make it more likely their own candidates will win in a General Election. But, there remains still the chance that the people might still find a way to rise against that.

With the war in the Ukraine raging said to last another maybe even two years, I can hear it now. Boris announces that in the interest of effective government at a time of international instability, he has suspended the general election until further notice and yes, he has that power.

Let me have this little bet with you …

In two years time the Government of this United Kingdom will announce exactly that. In the interests of National Security at a time of International instability, elections are hereby terminated.

That is then ‘it’, we are no longer a democracy. The Conservative Party have an 80 seat majority and will be able to pass any law they like unchallenged in any meaningful way.

That is my little bet with you, there will not be a General Election in two years time. If I am wrong I will resign apologise

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Who would be Queen?

Camilla

Camilla

I respect that the current Queen has the right to an opinion but, to go against the general feeling of the country, is that OK?

It is the problem with not having a constitution and just going by the way we’ve always done it, there really are no hard and fast rules to dictate what is right and the will of the people and what is wrong and not the will of the people because, what we think does matter even though the monarchy is not a democracy.

Many of us will feel that it sets a terrible example where the next monarch so openly had an affair throughout his marriage and then goes onto become the head of a Church which still says divorce is wrong and adultery is a sin. To be in charge of that one must at least give the impression of being squeaky clean.

We were all but promised when Diana died that Camilla would never be Queen and yet, here we are.