I thought that I had better put a quick update here on the medical/eyedrop situation.
First of all, thank you for all the concerned and kind comments. We find it all a bit overwhelming sometimes when we vent our spleen publicly and then get so many lovely comments.
And I am sorry to hear that so many of you have also had to fight for what is/should be ours by Right.
Yesterday we picked up the last stray bottle of eyedrops – and a Complaints Form. This mornings’ task to fill it in take a copy of it and then deliver it to the GP Surgery.
I do not want platitudes and apologies, I want to be able to access the NHS System without having to fight every inch of the way.
Covid has underlined the many problems facing us and the NHS and I understand that the system is struggling with this new World just as much as we are but we all need to work on sorting it.
Halfway through my Other Half’s treatment when the Specialist were rushing around trying to organise an emergency operation for him, and succeeding, operating theatre, surgeon and team all in place for later that day – they came to us and said “We are sorry we forgot about Covid! We are only Eye Specialists and you will have to have a Covid Test and wait 72 hours”
And we did and did not blame them for their lapse but we need this to work both ways. On the door of our GP Surgery are many notices, the one that stands out goes along these lines, the gist of it because I can’t remember it exactly ‘Please treat our Staff politely and with respect they are doing their best in these strange circumstances’. And I desperately want to say and haven’t yet, is there a corresponding notice on their side of the door saying ‘Please treat the Patients politely and with respect they are doing their best in these strange circumstances’.
Since April/May, since lockdown really, about 7 months. My Other Half has been having trouble with his right eye.
He complained of a kind of double vision, intermittent at first, we rang the GP but they weren’t helpful and to be honest we were not good at explaining.
So in the beginning of lockdown as it was worse we took him to Eye Casualty at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and due to the pandemic we were not allowed in with him so we posted him through the door and went away and worried for a couple of hours.
We picked him up “Nothing to worry about, a Visual Migraine”, we were doubtful but relieved and went home. We have dealt with his migraine for 60 years but we were willing to believe them, maybe. We were fools!
Time moved on and with terrible pain and no satisfaction we ended up back in Eye Casualty after our own Optician aborted the normal eye test wrote a letter to the Hospital and sent him (They still wouldn’t let me in) to Casualty on a Saturday afternoon. This time they diagnosed a Stroke! Too late to save the sight in his eye but now a detached retina as well, and pain which in spite of scans and injections and lasers did not really go away.
7 months down the line, we have learnt a lot. I now insist and have to argue every time we go to the Hospital that I go in with him, averagely about once a fortnight and take notes of names, instructions etc. There are things that they forget to say, they presume you know, that you can only get a hospital prescription from the hospital pharmacy! We only got that wrong once but it caused several hours of the family running backwards and forwards to get his medication and there were other things.
And more injections and lasers and a whole cocktail of different eye drops, and a discussion with about 5 specialists about what to do next. They are still trying to work out what would be best but have finally managed to control to some degree the swelling at the back of his blind eye which causes him such agony with another mixture of different eye drops and have sent us away until January or until he is in pain again – whichever comes first.
We have decided that the mis-diagnosis in the beginning is past and all the shouting in the world won’t fix his eye now
But now we are here 14th/10/2020 and we are still having to fight for what we need.
The letters from the Hospital to the GP lag, because we go so often and there are many, and all the way through the hospital have changed the medication almost every time because we have been on a trial and error basis.
This has mostly been ok because the Hospital have given us the prescriptions (Mostly), but now we are cast adrift so to speak on the mercy of the GP and we need more eyedrops, 3 different sorts once a day and one different one twice a day and it is crucial that we don’t miss any and we are running out.
I rang the Surgery last Friday and after some delay because they had lost the permission forms that we had filled in, in June and handed in that enable us to speak for each other (We went down and gave them another copy) and explained. They assured me that they had the latest hospital letter and knew what to prescribe. We discussed it and I said what she read out didn’t sound the same, letter or medication, she assured me that it was.
48 hours later because you have to wait that long, I went and got the eyedrops from the Chemist and the Pharmacist checked through with me what we should have and what we actually got and one of the drugs was wrong and one unobtainable for about a fortnight.
At our GP Surgery you have to queue and discuss your problems with the receptionist in the carpark and for 20 minutes she listened and looked up our problem ( the queue of people suitably distanced behind me growing), and she explained to me that the prescription was right and I told her what the pharmacist had told me. And I mentioned about the other drops that he couldn’t get. She said I would have to sort out finding drops that the local pharmacist couldn’t get myself and to try at least 5 others. and to wait in the carpark whilst she consulted someone else about the wrong prescription.
I went and whilst I waited consulted a different pharmacist who confirmed that what they had prescribed was not right and also instead of going around to all the local chemists for the eyedrops that he hadn’t got either that I go home and look on the computer.
Eventually after a while the Surgery decided that I was right and they had looked at the wrong letter and told me that so many letters was confusing! In our initial discussion I had pointed out to them that this might have been the problem.
So today we can pick up a different, correct prescription for the originally wrong eyedrops and after another silly conversation at the GP’s receptionist about having to wait another 48 hours, which we cannot do, pick up the missing eyedrops from a different Chemist.
And what would have happened if I hadn’t checked and just put the wrong drops in, at best they wouldn’t have worked but eventually have left him in pain again, or they would have made things worse and either way we would have faced another emergency trip to AE.
A copy of this or a precis of this is going on a complaints form to the GP.
I consider that we have had poor treatment from the NHS over the last 7 months and the picture at the top is to prove that he “Attent Dead” to quote a favourite author.
So at that point I thought we had finished this saga, but no there is another chapter!
Today 14th October he went to pick up his eye drops, the ones from Barwell, that no-one else has in stock. A slight glitch because the Pharmacist needed a Hospital No. that wasn’t on the prescription, but she sorted that by ringing the GP and then she only managed 2 boxes, enough for 40 days, instead of three on the prescription because they are out of stock. Who knew? However she gave him an IOU and told him to come back in a fortnight.
He then went to our own Chemist for the mis-prescribed correction, they knew nothing and hadn’t heard from the GP.
I rang the GP, apparently for no good reason except that is the way they always do it – sometimes, they didn’t electronically send it but waited for the Chemist to pick it up late this morning.
Why didn’t anyone tell me this when I was talking to them for several hours yesterday afternoon?
As you can imagine my patience is by now wearing a little thin, however I managed to keep things together whilst I had a very rambling conversation with the woman who runs front of house at the Surgery. She did her best but as always is the case, she wasn’t in yesterday and listened, sometimes and gave polite platitudes and left me feeling just as angry. She did say she would run it all by the Doctors themselves, in her defence!
So now we are setting off for the Pharmacy again, fingers crossed and calling in a the Surgery for a Complaints form to attach this monologue to.
I don’t want an apology, I just want better service please.
Years ago Katy my Daughter made me a book of poems for my Birthday.
Chosen with love and assembled with love and given with love.
How well she knows me.
I love words, books and poems and keep teetering heaps by the bed. Ever changing piles, top to bottom, ever revolving, after all you never quite know what your mood will be and somewhere in the heaps will be the ‘just right’ thing.
And lately because the World has turned and life is uncertain her anthology has surfaced again and the poem at the top of this post is so apt for the now, so I thought that I would share it.
5a.m. has turned into my ‘Witching’ and ‘Worrying’ hour and I bet I am not the only one.
Tiny little Uranium Glass bowl, stunning isn’t it?
This is the same bowl but in daylight, surprising eh!
Very deceiving some things, the first picture was taken under a UV or Black Light, which shows the uranium that they mixed into the molten glass. And well over a hundred years old, Victorian right down to its frilly feet.
The story goes that experimenting to find a good green colour the glass makers chanced upon this lovely yellow and the Victorians loved it and bear in mind that they didn’t have UV lights they bought it for its cheery colour.
It was/is called Pearline and people collect it now for its uranium glow and have cabinets made with lighting so that they can sit and admire the green glow.
We are often asked if it will make a geiger counter click, and yes it will but really only as much as…
I am having a bit of a melt down about on-line shopping. Not that I am trying to buy from Mappin and Webb’s Christmas advert in 1907, although maybe that would be easier!
Why are some site’s so clunky and difficult to navigate? I know that I am not very good at this but for goodness sake, I need simple.
We ordered Duvets from The Woolroom and it was easy and they are great and on the strength of that have ordered two more things, one to be delivered to a different address and it was all simple and straightforward and they arrived and it was good. And I would heartily recommend their service and goods.
And in other news, my stationery order is – who knows where! My new handbag has vanished! And as for my Groceries – huh!
And my Daughter tells me that she can’t understand what the problem is.
This picture is from 1872 American Magazine titled Harper’s Weekly. Predominately American but the articles in it cover the whole world and this print is from a series of about London. Things haven’t changed a whole lot it appears.
These pictures of London were by Gustave Dore and Blanchard Jerrold, who co-operated to produce and publish a controversial, in the eyes of the Establishment, book about London. The ‘Worthies’ of society felt that the book focused too much on the poverty and vulgarity of the City.
See any parallels here?
Out of sight, out of mind!
There was then it seems, just as now plenty of injustice and poverty to comment upon.
However they drew and published what they saw, and to be even handed, although I haven’t put any of the pictures of the Upper Classes in this post, they put them all in their book.
1872, not that long ago in terms of Generations, it appears that our Civilisation hasn’t moved on greatly since our Grandfathers and Great Grandfathers time.
Tiny little Uranium Glass bowl, stunning isn’t it?
This is the same bowl but in daylight, surprising eh!
Very deceiving some things, the first picture was taken under a UV or Black Light, which shows the uranium that they mixed into the molten glass. And well over a hundred years old, Victorian right down to its frilly feet.
The story goes that experimenting to find a good green colour the glass makers chanced upon this lovely yellow and the Victorians loved it and bear in mind that they didn’t have UV lights they bought it for its cheery colour.
It was/is called Pearline and people collect it now for its uranium glow and have cabinets made with lighting so that they can sit and admire the green glow.
We are often asked if it will make a geiger counter click, and yes it will but really only as much as most if not all of every day things, one of the examples used is a carrot, or even ourselves, almost everything does!
A strange and horrifying story goes like this – A woman had a huge collection of glass collected over a lifetime, hundreds of pieces. One day she learnt about Uranium in glass and after a few days she sent a message to her fellow glass collectors – We, my husband and I have cleared out all of the Dangerous Uranium glass – we took a dustbin around and smashed every piece so that it could no longer be a danger to us or our family!
The outcry was such that the site that she messaged crashed and it took several days for things to calm back down to normal. She must have destroyed a fortunes worth of antique glass all because of ignorance!
If there was that much uranium in glass maybe Governments should be powering space ships with it, and they aren’t.
This proves to me that a ‘little knowledge can be a dangerous thing’ and that not everything is maybe as it first seems.
I really like this little Carnival Glass jug. It was made by Brockwitz, Germany and the pattern is called ‘Curved Star, and it has floated around our kitchen table for the last couple of months. It is bright and cheery and use-able but chipped as you can see and that is why it hasn’t been put away.
We have a box for things that are damaged, every now and again we put them out the front of our Antique stall, marked A/F – As Found! And sell a few, usually at a loss but I feel that it would be a shame to throw away a thing that is over a hundred years old and still fit for purpose.
I think what I am saying is – things don’t have to be perfect! And following that thought we are all different, people don’t all have to be ‘uniform’ and the same.
For goodness sake be tolerant of each other, which one of us can say that we are perfect!
So having finally gotten around to remembering to write, if not spell I thought that I should perhaps keep the momentum going, at least for a while.
The weather is horridly grey and rainy today, so jobs indoors for us. We have finally worked out some sort of system for cataloguing all of our Carnival Glass. At our current rate of progress it will take about 12 months I reckon!
And a little excitement in our ‘Lockdown’ lives today, we have to go to the Opticians, normally a chore, today an expedition into a strange new world.
It is good to get out again into the real world albeit carefully. It is not good for us old people to get to insular in our safe little bubble. It tends to make for tunnel vision, a common thing in people who don’t get out there much.
Take the Carnival Glass bowl in the picture on this post. It is called ‘Brooklyn Bridge’, the people that made it over a hundred years ago made the first few batches without the inscription between the Airship and the Bridge.
They knew that it was Brooklyn Bridge and the glass bowl made for the 25th Anniversary of its building. They only had to look out of the window and the bridge was there. It wasn’t until someone said ‘Well what bridge is that then’? That it occurred to them not everyone knew what it was, so they changed the moulds and now the writing says “Brooklyn Bridge”.
But what a perfect example of living in a bubble, you have to live in the whole world not just in your own little circle. Otherwise you tend to miss the obvious, and a lot of life and what is the point in that!
Although, actually because they did it then, even for just a short while, if you ever find one of the original bowls without the words, it would probably be worth a fortune now!
You would have thought that being old and locked down due to plague for months that I would have had spare time to sit here and write a few lines a day but truly since the first few weeks of ‘lockdown’ I have been so busy, just don’t ask me for a breakdown of what with.
The first few weeks, were a sort of a living nightmare, we just couldn’t believe what was happening and then in our little safe bubble, in a way we began to think of ‘us and them’. We ranted at the radio and TV but got on with our lives, albeit in a shrunken world.
Terrible news came and made us weep, the virus crept close and threatened those that we loved and altered the patterns of our friendships and even our family events but we in our little island, carefully built around us by our family stay safe. And in the slowed down world filled our days with different sorts of things, a reflection almost, from our long ago childhood lives a different slower world then
Forced to change, we garden and cook and read, and sort and have found what is important to us now.
Don’t misunderstand, we miss our old Antiquing lives, standing Fairs, we miss travelling and we miss all the friends that we have made along the way and the friends that we haven’t met yet. And when we can we will stand Antique Fairs again because we miss that part of our lives.
But we have learnt to be more relaxed about life and take small pleasures as they come.
I am sorting my old newspapers, I have hundreds, from 1800-ish up to the Millennium, so for the picture heading I have chosen a nice cheery headline.
Part of my busy – is that we are selling online, a steep learning curve for a technophobe. We are part of an online Antique Co-operative. #MidcenturyandAntiqueUKCooperative and on my own selling page on Facebook #SuegrayAntiquesandCollectables, might like to take a look. There are beautiful things, not all mine, other Dealers and friends.
I have a little list and I am hoping to win the lottery then maybe I can fill some of the spaces that I have made in my house over the last few months will be filled again with some lovely things!
Tiny little Uranium Glass bowl, stunning isn’t it?
Tiny little Uranium Glass bowl, stunning isn’t it?
Boxofmisc 