benjaminpmoore

Ekcetera

So that's it, all over. The final day of November, journals end, blogs cease, novels are finished and, presumably, people shave of their moustaches. Did I spell that properly? I'm not at all sure.

So I'm mulling over what to do with my last entry. It's been an interesting month, the Jimmy Saville Scandal and the resignation of the BBC DG have given me things to talk about, as well as Raven passing out in Iceland and our consequent visit to A&E. I'm still sort of dealing with the fallout from that and it reminds me of the last time Raven was so seriously incapacitated by ill health that I had to do a load more work.

But I'm leaving that, because I think there's an I couldn't care less article in there somewhere. Never fear, the story will be told in due course. Which leaves a gap for today. So decided not to do a summing up, and not to tell you what's going on at the moment, and I can't be doing with bitching about something on the last day, so what the hell and I going to say?

Well, just quickly, today is national carers day. Here's a link to the page on the Website of Carers UK, the charity principally involved in the event: http://www.carersuk.org/get-involved/carers-rights-day

So how can I persuade you, in the few minutes before I finish my lunch break and go back to work, that carers need rights? What do I, and we, do? Well you know that. We look after our friends, and our relatives, who are mentally and physically (sometimes both) disabled. We give them varying ranges of support but many of us are either living close by and spending all of our time popping over to them (rather than spending time with our own friends and family) attending to the needs of the person we care for, or we are living with that person and picking up the pieces 24 hours a day, with nowhere to hide. You will hear over and over again about how much money we save you. You're welcome, by the way, but what does that mean? Well it means that if we weren't doing what we do, then the NHS and Social Services would have to do it (and, in many cases, do it badly, I fear) and it would cost the treasury a tidy sum. So what we're asking, no, sorry, what we're telling, is that we need support, advice, guidance and expertise to perform our role.

Any time now would be good.

Just had a call from a friend of ours. She just phoned to tell me she has visited R and that she is doing okay. She left R with another friend, so she has company, which will keep her vaguely sane until I allow her out of the house, and also someone to make sure she is alright. This is reassuring for me, as you can imagine, since yesterday I had to phone the aforesaid friend and ask her to drop in to visit R since she wasn't answering the calls I made to check that she was alright.

Did anyone latch on to the bit about me not letting her out of the house? Well look, I don't make a habit of this, you know. I have taken great pains in recent years to stress that I will guide and advise, but that she is her own person and must make her own choices. This s partly so that she can't seek endorsement from me for any decision she is unsure of, and partly so that I don't get too controlling.

These are the sort of circumstances where I break my rule. In the first place I religiously enforce anything the doctor has told her and in the second place I protect her from her own view that she's fine now (she isn't) and that she ought to be doing her chores and that she wants to be outdoors because she hates being indoors all the time because she gets BORED.

The downside of this is that the only way to stop her doing stuff is to do it for her. So I've spent half my lunch break out shopping, I got to work just on time (late) after running around trying to get some pills from a chemist for her without success, then I shall finish my job, do some more shopping and go home, where we shall squabble over whether I am prepared to let her cook tea.

Then, when she's better, she will get back to complaining that I treat her like a servant.

So anyway, I'd just finished off my journal for yesterday. Then I scribbled away at my submission for this week's post in a failed attempt to have it ready before deadline day. Then I turned of my netbook and packed it away and headed downstairs to the toilet before returning to the shopfloor. I was halfway down the stairs when the phone rang and my boss called to say it was for me. It was a paramedic to tell me my wife had fallen over in iceland and cut her head. They were going to take her to the hospital in about ten minutes and could I tell them her address because she couldn't remember it at the moment.

I told my boss. I looked at him, he looked at me, finally he spoke first and asked me if I wanted to go. I wanted to go. He said that was fine by him, and the nice new chap who was here doing lunch cover was available for the rest of the day so I was able to dash off with conciense clear. Fortunately R had fallen just round the corner from me, so I was able to get to the ambulance with a couple of minutes to spare. The two ladies were very kind and sat me down in a chair at the back. R was still somewhat confused so I filled in details here and there and helped her remember what she'd been doing this morning by prompting her with things I knew she'd done or been going to do.

It didn't take long to get to the hospital although I was slightly surprised to discover a queue of paramedics with their charges waiting in a corridor. One elerly lady struggling to breath and looking quite grey arrived after us but was fairly promptly rushed through to resus. In due course a lady arrived and dispatched all the patients off in various directions. We ended up in a cubicle where a sister (they have sisters in hospitals again!) came and looked at Raven and scribbled some notes. It is on these occasions that I am required to remember ALL of her medications. Other than that I am afraid I wasn't much use. I felt a bit tired and was consious that I had little to say that could help or reassure her. Everyone was very nice. One lady came in and cleaned our cubicle, another came and offered Raven food (which she declined) and brought us both cups of tea. An orderly attended to Raven whenever she needed anything and answered our questions as best he could.

Aftee a long while (during which, it turned out, they had been keeping an eye on R to see if she developed signs of concussion or any other head injury- no danger of brain damage) a very pleasant doctor came to see her. He listened to her heart and washed all of the gunk and blood out of her hair with bottles of pure water. He glue her wound and told her that he was going to write to her doctor for follow-up treatment regarding why she fell in the first place. To her considerable relief he was happy to let her go home with some advice about how to procede with her care.

He told her not to have any alcohol that evening. Still, at least he didn't keep her in. Hey ho.

Hello people. Today I thought I would tell you about my restaurant idea. Don't ask me where the hell this came from, because I can't remember. And please consider this to be a patent.

Here is how it works: on the face of it you walk in to a normal restaurant and are seated by a waiter, who brings you a menu, from which you order. In due course you will be served but you will not necessarily recieve what you ordered. So you could order a steak sandwhich and be presented with a prawn cocktail. And you will have no cause for complaint, this is how the restaurant (and I spelling that right?) works. Anyway, you pay for what you ordered, rather than what you are served, so you might end up getting a bargain, or you might end up paying over the odds for something less than you wanted. Them's the breaks. Actually, that's now what we're calling the restaurant.

Don't worry, your health has been taken in to consideration. If you request vegetarianm or vegan, or dairy free, or whatever, our highly trained chimps will ensure that you are not fed anything unsuitable. And you can also reduce your risks if you're dull and happy to pay a bit extra. You can either except the random throw of the dice for any item on the menu at regular cost, or if you wish to pay an extra 10% on your price you can limit your options so that you will definitely get something from sweets, or starters, or light bites, or whatever. There are other rules. You have to pay double if you fail to finish the item you have been served, unless you can provide a doctor's note. If the thing we were going to give you in place of the thing you actually ordered is off the menu for any reason you will informed and will have to order again. There is also a specials board, but you can't see it. It is just a list of additional items that you might get served with over and above the viewable menu.

There are many other permuntations to consider, obviously, but that's what I've got so far.

What do we think?