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

Got a phone call this afternoon from the vascular surgeon's secretary, they've had a cancellation for the ultrasound I need on my legs to check on the blood flow.

If you see a blur whizzing around the Bolton area tomorrow morning, it's only me rushing from the Royal Bolton Hospital to the centre of Bolton for my medical for the ESA I'm forced to claim

Goodluck with it, sorry to hear your not so well as you were
Here ahve an and a that oughta help

Ta chuck, don't worry, I feel a fraud, that's until I try to walk any distance over about 200 meters or use my left hand

Good luck!: join the club; just been Medically Assessed today, after having endured 3 weeks of de-coking, totally boring nose, throat, lungs, liver & just about any part they could reach with tubes & sharp pointy things.

The scan was certainly the least traumatic part & afer they released me from captivity (yeah, it was complete with having to wear a mask & not leave Isolation Room!) they are still baffled as to what's wrong, since "Nothing Abnormal Detected" despite me coughing up vast quantities of blood!

Dear sweet Doc today spent at least 2 minutes avoiding any sort of contact , mental, physical or emotional, merely asked "how far can you walk?"; i was sorely tempted to answer "as far away from you as possible, but bloody slowly & only on a flat dry surface" (rare as hen's teeth in Ireland!)

I doubt very much i will get Disability Benefit, or even Social Welfare based on this; let's hope you have better luck!

zdt

*Assessments, don't talk to me about assessments*

Marvin minute over

The kept asking me about my favourite TV programme & couldn't get his head around the fact that I watch about as much as certain MPs don't claim expenses

The scan went well today apart from the trainee frightening the out of us all by thinking my bladder was something nasty! Strong pulses down to mid thigh and all points north.

I didn't realise that you'd moved over to Ireland shows how long I've been out of touch.

I'm like you, walk slowly and best on a flat surface. Of course the hospital is built on a hill with the main entrance at the top and the department that deals with the vascular ultrasounds at the bottom I'm just hoping that we can sort something out with my legs before we go on holiday in July as we're going home to Wales where it's occasionaly dry but about as flat as my chest.

Ja, i was only saying today how weird it is that so many of "us lot" seem to be having Assesment stuff/de-coking, hospital "careers" etc; maybe the boggers have some kind of International Agreement: "if we cant fix it, rip it out, try & drive them demented, lock 'em up, throw away the key....why they don't just line us up & shoot us as "non productive members of the planet" surely has to be the next logical step up the (yes, wet, slippery slope to the Deciding Officer's Official Office)*extra Brownie points for being aggressive, deduct 200 Euros for Not being a conveniently certifiable Victim mentality.

Plan B for me is to keep trying for jobs like creating nesting sites, counting orchids & hunting for derelict cottages i can renovate to a certain extent whilst squatting on my nice lightweight fithy blue stool, bogger it, if thehy haven't managed in 53 years to certify me insane, it's unlikely they can do so now!

What really pees me off is that i've worked legally since age 12, paid taxes to whichever country i toiled in,am fully qualified teacher, especially in 3rd World countries, not asking for more than subsistence allowance etc, survived invasions, Civil War, earthquakes etc but now i actually DO need Benefits, i'm treated like a stateless, helpless old maid.

I was released from Hospital at 2pm, Peter drove me to the clothes shop, 'cos the nice nuns had given me a voucher for warm clothes, i was still bleeding from having stitches & drips pulled out; we parked in the Disabled bay & got charged 50 Euros "no official sticker"; no way could i have navigated my way across crowded street in that state & Appeal was the next day "make sure you have all paperwork ready";, ie: don't sleep, then the bogger doesn't even look at it!

NHS? Don't make me laugh; i am supposed to be depressed!!!





zdt

and now the DWP have lost my last sick note ity and I can't get an appointment to see the to get a new one until Tuesday because of the Bank Holiday on Monday .

On the bright side, in the constituency next door, the 'man in the white suit' is preparing to stand in the next election against someone whom I've met and really don't like Almost worth moving a couple on hundred metres down the road

Burocracy isn't it great.
My two best recent bits was the E-Mail request from my energy supplier telling me I had to give them an uptodate meter reading. This I recieved whilst away, and the time frame they give you to furnish them with the reading was not long enough for me to do so once I got back home
The second is the Student loans company who've yet again sent me out the forms to fill in, to defer my starting repayments, with two weeks to return it to them in, fill them in etc. INcluding getting them stamped by benifits people.... Well it would* be two weeks but with the bank holiday weekend its oviously less time, plus I'm away this weekend busy, from Monday away to my dads until after the following weekend... drop everythign stop everythign, just to tell them information they probalby already have anyhow
Also nice to see they've ignored my constant requests to send me out the forms in a format that I can read, namely Braille...
I might just call them tommorrow instead and demand they resend the forms out and extend the period in which I have to fill it in
Good luck dealing with the DWP.... They really do generally tend to be most incompetant at anythign they have to touch

I reckon between "us lot" we could staet a small, but effective Revolution against Brewery Ocracy. With luck, men in White sutis will at best, take us away, suitably >Straightjacketed & feed, clothe & debauch us in warm, free accomodation for the rest of our lives.

Failing that, we will have to *sigh* organise road blocks etc composed of allof Us Lot who are classified as "handicapped " or, worse "not handicapped enough"; which might be quite good fun, i suggest we start investing in The Manufacture of Corsetry Designed to Shock as a start.

Tomorrow i get to see the Community Welfare Offer Sir, who has the Power to decide whether or not to give me a few quid to exist upon for the next week (repeat ad infinitum & find means of getting there....)

GW, have they decided yet when/how/whether to detach the bits of leg they probably want to experiment upon yet?

2legs, don't forget "Braille" & "Flail" are rhyminginging wurds & have a go at Dyslexia/Autism: Outright S/M & Danger to Mainstream Society, plus the manusical stuff is always a great welcome facor in disruption of Mental Hospitals; last time i got my mandolin smuggled in & led the patients around the entire place in a Conga screeching &All along the Watchtower"...they let me out the next day.

P just got a bill from electricity Board for around 1000 Euros, which is odd, since he has been de-cnnected from them for years & uses Solar power instead. However, i did "hello; i am P's Accounts Officer" phone call & he may eventually get paid for his work of October, November, December with luck!

We are plotting a mini-trip in the van before going on European Tour to release Yoda, but this may get screwed up if the boggers insist i somehow manage to travel miles without Pubic Transport every week in order to collect their sodding handouts.

Finally got Medical card, which, if i read it right, should entitle me to new eye stuff, so reduce tpoos; P has euro Med card, 'cos he's German; i am not entitled to that 'cos i lived in France: go figure!!!



zdt

Don't know as yet Terri, I think they'll probably try drugs first although I am already on a statin. Just as long as they don't want to put me back on the one that had me convinced that there was a batallion of soldiers marching up the stairs to arrest me because I'd had a crash in the Grannymobile .

I'm all up for a protest, but methinks it'll be the slowest march in history, with plenty of little 'sit downs' along the way

And now they've mucked up the assessment & stopped payment Didn't score enough on the assessment even though the had completely ignored what I'd told him about walking capacity & that I couldn't dress myself or re-adjust nether garments after a trip to the loo.

I can't pick things up and move them either if I have to use both hands 'cos one of them doesn't work.

There's an appeal gone in so the very nicve lady on the other end of the phone said my money would be re-instated whilst the appeal was heard. I then get a letter telling me they are investigating a possible overpayment so would be withholding payment while that was investigated. What the did I pay my taxes & stamps for for the last years!

I just hope that if it goes to tribunal it'll be after the 27th July 'cos I'll have my arm in a cast then. Approx 6 weeks after that, the cast comes off & I'll be fit to work again, the PAD and diabetes I can cope with.

This is what you get for being a good soul & working hard, when you need help you can ing well take a hike