Mar 24

 Health has taken half a step back today. Still ok. But. Rougher. Woke up with red eyes, dark black bags under them. Uh huh.

Went for a walk yesterday with Hazel. Had to stop half way around. Another migraine came in from nowhere on the left hand side. Made me feel blurp. Weird. Spacey. Pain - obviously. It passed fairly quickly. But. Eh. Yeah. Not cool. It made a return late into the evening, this time on the right hand side. Ghosted around then buggered off. My head is really not doing great lately.

We related our news back and forth on the walk. Hazel once again professed the desire to "handle Andy". You need a buffer she said. I'll sort him out ! Her eyes glittered. This leans into her personality and her mental health issues. A fight. Part of her lives for a fight. It's the trauma anger monster, happy to be taken out for a just cause and unleash pain on someone else. You have to be careful around that Pandora's box. A bit like a beserker.

She got what I was saying about Andy being a nice guy. But that the nice guy up front is not the one that makes decisions. It's the 300lb anxiety monster in the back that calls the shots. And how this perfectly fits in with my gestalt personality psych theory. The village of different personalities, drives et al that combine to make a person.

She also thought it just might be a case of Andy getting better at parroting back my complaints about him.

I zoned out a couple of times on the walk. Some for pain. Some for work. It was not a comfortable walk for me. It was a gritting of teeth. Getting Athena her happy excercise time. I just needed to be present and able to put her in a position to provide that.

We ended up in a more lengthy chat in the car about what I was talking about the other day on the blog. The whole balancing act about understanding people versus demonising them. Hazel is traditionally very much on the demonisation end of the scale. Burn everyone. Fuck em. I am on the other end of the scale.

Such discussions with her can be tricky. You can't go too far. You can't opionate strongly. Let it go. Otherwise the trauma anger monster will come out and she will spiral hardcore. Tricky. Been there, done that, not pretty.

Despite that, we kinda agreed about the understanding thing. She was more, kicking people up the ass is an important and necessary step. I was more, sure I get that, but the world is shit enough, I'm ok with being less kicky, and more huggy. I was surprised actually by how she's changed. She was much more forgiving of people just being people. Fucking up. Being dickheads. Lashing out. This I think is another sign that she is slowly healing. The harder edges are slowly softening out and she has a bit of time to be kinder.

The irony once again is that much of the stuff we talk about - in relation to others - is directly relatable to herself. It did cross my mind to bring it up, but in the end I left it. The whole, you have behaved in the past horrifically towards me, by your own standards, I should hang you out to dry. But I haven't. I do think she gets it in there, somewhere. Her burn everyone down stance has now ameriolated a bit more to, you can understand why people got there, but it doesnt mean you have to put up with them. Which is very true. And something I have employed with her at times when it has become intolerable. You need to leave. I suspect. She now gets it. But I have no need to poke the beast about it. She either will or she wont. That's ok.

She wanted food, so we stopped for a burger - something Hazel very much enjoys, and then I had a quick shop around M & S. A few things for me. And I got a few things for Hazel, because, it's nice. Her favourite cake. A pasta thing I thought she should try. And a bunch of daffodils. Because. Why not. It's not something she'd buy herself. But something she would appreciate. Spread a teeny tiny bit of happiness in the world and at the very least you can say, well, I did something, not a total waste of space.

Hanging out at M & S seems to be our pattern over the last 3 weeks. End up eating a burger in their car park. After coming out of M & S I was done. I could feel the tug of exhaustion on me. And I was steadily feeling more ill. Time to go home and rest.

Today I have noodled a little with work to catch up on some time missed yesterday. Not great. But eh. My progress stopped by... eh.. bad maintenance on a server. Nothing I can do about it. I've asked Andy to get someone to update it. Of course I can do all of that. Give me the keys to the pay account to buy some stuff, and I could get it done. But. I don't want to be doing that. It's a waste of my time and yet another task I should avoid getting lumped onto me. So. Instead. I wait. For someone else to get round to it. Meh. IF things were ship shape I wouldn't need to ask. All this stuff would be shiny and ready to go. It isn't.

I've identified a real lack of coordination and basically keeping track of things at the tippety top of our management. There is no tracking of state of each client. Agreements. This that or the other. It's just. Whatever you talked about last week. And it's failing. It doesn't work. Eh well.

Today I will potter about. I should start the process of getting another doctors appointment to get a referral to the hospital and yada. But. My heart is not in it. Not sure I can face the utter drivel bullshit of the fucking NHS.

That, incidentally, is something Hazel also offered to help with. Not good enough she said on hearing I had been handed around back to the whole, lets just wait another 2 years. Let me talk to them she carried on. It's easier for someone else to do it. Yes. I agree. Advocacy is a powerful thing. But I declined. I would deal with it. Slowly. Shittily. It is what it is. She pushed a few more times. Let me do it. Naww. It's ok. I will just sink. Into the wait. What. Does it matter.

Talking of the epic fuckup that is the NHS, the old man was released from hospital yesterday. No real outcome. No action taken. They looked around his stomach, found nothing, released him. With a prescription for laxatives.

So they didn't find the cause of his bleed. And at this point have decided to give up and release him. I guess with the thinking that, if he starts to die, he'll probably come back. Wont he.

Awesome.

Much professionalism. Many diligence. Such care.

As an advanced civilisation we all tend to specialise. I specialise in computers. You have a computer problem ? I'm your guy. I have spent the better part of 40 years learning how they work and how to talk to them. I know stuff that takes many years, if not decades to properly grok. As a result. That's a lot of what I do. Ask me to run a farm, and I am going to be clueless. Ask me how to build a bridge, and I am going to struggle. I rely on other people - also specialising - to apply their own time and learning to that aspect of life. And then we share. I share my computer skills. They share their farming wisdom. I get to eat. They get to browse the internet.

Part of that specialisation is of course healthcare. I rely on someone else taking the many years to learn about healthcare. Surgery. The ways of looking after people.

I do computers. You bake bread. You made bridges. You build power stations. You repair hearts.

Except.

It seems to me the bit of that contract where the health care specialists do their thing is not working.

I am doing my job.

They seem to not be doing their job. I ask for their help. I get told to fuck off.

Ok. But that's not the contract. If you're not holding up your end of the bargain... then why do we have you around ?

You can complain that it's the system. Or the budget. Or problem staff. Or practices. But in the end, it doesn't matter. As a whole. It's not working. Like a vending machine, I can't get my candy bar out of the machine. It's stuck. I don't much care if its the coin slot, the mechanism, or faulty buttons. I just know I dont have a candy bar. And. In this case. The vending machine is also surly, patronising and generally has a contemptuous personality.

It's. Not good.

The problem solver in me immediately moves to a solution.

If A doesn't work. Can A be fixed ? Or do I need to find B ? That simple.