h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A mixed day - the morning was an absolute drag and the afternoon was enormous craic.

I was persuaded by my Pain Clinician to attend a "Pain Management" morning.

Now: word gets around about these Pain Management jaunts within the disabled community. We're physically disabled, and/or in chronic pain that's all. We arn't hard of thinking.

We've figured out the difference between acute and chronic pain, and most of the people *I* know have done loads of reading up about their various problems, so much so that they *possibly know almost as much as the experts do about what research has been done, and speaking personally, I usually make sure I'm first in the queue if I hear of a treatment that I feel may possibly help me.

I wouldn't include me in the heading of "Expert Patient", mainly because if I see too many "Ologies" in an essay I come over all perculiar.

And all of us with chronic pain recognise there's a process... whichever route you take, you eventually accept the pain ain't going to go away, so you have a choice - give up, be passive and take the nice tablets... in other words abjurgate responsibility for ones welfare and then moan like the clappers nothing's being done for you...
OR...
you accept the situation and make sure you make the best of it; it's a matter of trial and error as to what works because pain is subjective.

So I was dubious when I was asked to go to one of these letures, voiced them, but agreed to go with an open mind.

And I honestly did.

I had a bit of a grumble to myself that the venue was off the beaten track, but told myself not to be such a grump. When I finally got there... guess what? It's up a flight of stairs.

Ah. That's intelligent, thinks I..and then said "You go in with an open mind, right?"

So I booked in, and was told in a funerial whisper that refreshments were availiable - I'm sure she had qualifications hanging out of her ears and knew her stuff, but I wonder if anyone's told her that you don't have to do the "Does she take sugar?" routine to a disabled person? I swear to god she was fresh out of college and probably hadn't had more than a period pain in her life!

We got the intro talk, and the same lass couldn't work the slide show/ powerpoint presentation. So the Pain Nurse took over and told us all about how there's really very little that can be done for chronic pain, despite research... although there are exciting new ideas they are looking into We were given a very long potted history as to the (apparent) procedure that Primary and Secondary Care follow before those in chronic pain are put back into community care.

We then went on to the Nature of Pain, with an explaination of the autonomous nervious system.

Looking at the Agenda, I could see that we were then going to go onto How Our Pain affects
(a) us
(b)others around us

and then onto helpful hints and tips like regular stretching, gentle movement, not becoming stressed, Learned Behavioural Response and Cognitive Therapy, pacing ourselves and so on and so on.

These things have all been covered in the excellent self help books I've either been recommended by professionals or friends, or have found out for myself. I was ahead of the possee ANYWAY because of H2 -there are quite a few of chronic pain sufferers here, and I may seldom have joined in with the conversations, but I've read and learned a lot; so much so, that the knowledge has become almost second nature.

After another break we were to have a lecture on positive visualisation/meditation, and the last three quarters of an hour were taken up by the one T'ai Chi teacher in my area who is recommended by the local Pain Clinics to give a talk...and pick up a few more clas members, I suspect.

I've attended a few of his classes and... yes, T'ai Chi is cool... but I don't like him personally, nor the way he teaches. I just wish I coud find a teacher I gel with.

So I wasn't too impressed by the whole thing, and when the group was asked "Does anyone want to leave yet?" I said yes please, politely gave my reasons for leaving early, filled in the feed back form...

and left.

The plus point - the ONLY plus point, as far as I was concerned, is that on the way back to the station to get home there's a whacking great Garden Centre that just begged to be mooched around.

Hyancinths were going cheap there; which is quite rare, because most of the ones I've ever encountered are pretty mute

So by the time I got back home, I wasn't really looking forward to doing my bit for the election, which was a couple of hours of Telling - which means I was one of those people who lurk around outside the local Polling Booths asking to take a note of the voter's electoral numbers before they go into vote. I was well out of sorts and shtomped down to the local polling station with a heavy heart.

I thoroughly enjoyed it!

In my constituancy there were only 4 parties standing, and of them 2 of those parties were represented. Doesn't matter what colour rosette I wore, and frankly it doesn't matter what colour the other woman did, either.

We really did have a laugh; I think I've met yet another new friend since I moved "here", which is great. I certainly felt we were on similar wave lengths, which means, really, there were 2 rather eccentric ladies cackling together like two thirds of a coven and generally just enjoying what we were doing....

- we held the voters dogs' leads (with the dog attatched, obviously) whilst they went in to put their X on their bits of paper.

I got harangued by an old bloke who said "Oliver Cromwell would be spinning in his grave if he saw the state the country was in"

I did manage to keep a straight face though and so did Mrs Woman sitting next to me as well.... until he was out of eye/ear shot, of course.



There's nowt as queer as folk, there really isn't.

There was a really steady stream of voters, far far more than I'd imagined there would be and not just the middle aged and the elderly, there were loads of first time voters,too.

According to the figures I took, it averaged out at around a voter a minute.

That's a lot of people for such a small area, I think

Parents brought their children along with them, and one young couple brought their 5 day old daughter along with them whilst they voted. My admiration knows no bounds for her mother; 5 days after giving birth, the last thing I'd have wanted to do was sacrifice valueable nap time to vote!

And a couple of the local councellors joined us, from the 2 parties represented, and the craic was mighty; I haven't had such a laugh with comparitive strangers for an awful long time... one of them brought us both a coffee in from town, which was welcome.

So... I've discovered politics are fun!

And one of the councellors was highly fanciable I wonder; is that a politically correct thing to mention, on Polling Day?

Glad the turnout was good, that's what has worried me, more this time than ever. Didn't manage to persuade PHM to go this time so I think it will be a Postal vote in future for him He had two lifts offered door to door and back too

It sounds as if you had a fun time,the days are gone when nobody spoke

Hope your broadband and phone is sorted properly soon.

Had a busy day, must

Websailor

Was very busy here too at the poling station.... Went over about 6.30 and we had to queue for at least half an hour