Apr 4

 The docs were a clusterfuck. A week after asking for an appointment they got back to me and said the waiting list would be between 4 and 6 weeks. 

Ok.

Hazel was not having it, so she phoned them up, and hey presto an appointment for that day appeared.

On seeing the doc she told me flat out that gout does not move. Really. Because this isn't my first or even second rodeo with gout and that was tested, and it was gout, and let me assure you that gout abso-fucking-lutely does move.

I then went on to explain exactly what the symptoms were - classic gout - and the doc then begrudgingly admitted, yeah, that sounds like gout.

Fuck. Off.

As it turns out however, whilst the gout at the front of the foot is now majorly receding, the pain in the back of my foot has increased, and the doc reckons its tendonitis. Caused. By not treating the gout quickly enough.

Instead of testing blood to check for gouty levels ( which they should do as gout can stay at critical levels and requires a long term med regime ), or even giving me any gout meds at all, she gave me fuck off strength opioids and an appointment to see a physio in two weeks.

Garbage.

At this point I am honestly stuck with what to do about GP visits. A delay of between 5 and 7 weeks means, they ain't doing shit. At that kind of delay you might as well close up shop in my humble opinion. You aren't doing what you're there to do. Which is all very well. But if the GP isn't being a GP, then it begs the question - why have you there at all. Maintaining spend and time on a GP service that doesn't actually do any GP services is pointless - as bad as not having one at all is, you're already functionally at that point already, so the only question is whether you want to pay for a non service, or pay nothing for a non service. 

Uh huh.

I think in future I will check out some mid tier private health care stuff for GPs and avoid the NHS entirely until - if and when - they ever get their shit back together again.

On the subject of this, I read a good analysis of what the problem with the NHS is https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/how-bad-nhs-crisis which really seems to have done its homework.

The long and short of it is - the NHS is not underfunded, the NHS wastes money on holding to a paper record system, and even where it has computers they belong in a museum. And secondly, budget spend is mismanaged by the NHS and continually spent on short term shit, with no capital spend. Meaning the service gets caught in an ever descending spiral of dysfunction. Despite having a similar spend on healthcare to much of everyone else in the world ( except the entirely broken US ), and at a high level looking like it should be comparable, on digging into the capital spend, it reveals the NHS is chronically short of beds, gear, and everything that requires a longer term strategic spend. In fact the NHS ranks as almost the worst in that regard.

Which is actually slightly hopeful. That you've identified the problem. Address the mismanagement of budget spend, and you might, just might, get the NHS improving.

The killer point was this - since 2020 the NHS budget has increased by 16%. Also there are now more junior doctors and nurses than ever. Yet productivity is still the same as it was in 2019. IE. Throw more money and manpower at it, and nothing improves. Yikes.

Back to my foot.

The tendonitis is a killer. It flares at night, wakes me up with the pain, and is in general, super goddamn painful. Looking at a minimum of 3 weeks for this bullshit to heal if not months. Marvellous. And it could have probably could have avoided the worst of it had the NHS actually dealt with me in a timely fashion.

Athena has her librella shot today. She is stable. Bright eyed today. Wobbly. Limpy. But she wanders around the house. Up and down stairs. Doesn't want to rest. Wants to know what you're doing. She seems to me, better, if not, and probably never, fixed.

Hazel disagrees.

However.

Hazel tends to be super negative about everything. It is a curiosity of her whole mindset / mental health stuff most visible whenever you point out something positive in the news or a point of hope or a breakthrough. She is quick to dismiss it. And not only this - the bigger problem. She gets angry about it. Like she takes it personally. And very very quickly she gets very angry about it. It is, bizarre if not outright alarming. It's something to do with her borderline. She takes maximum offence for there being any positivity or hope. Everything must be shit and suffer. Positivity is met with maximum trauma anger outburst.

I suspect it's something about not being able to tolerate good things, and instead, just inserting an absolute scream of pain and outrage. I am hurt and unhappy. How dare anyone else have a glimmer of happy.

It is challenging to deal with. And it means you must either be very careful of any positive news, or, just avoid it entirely. It also means she is permanently trapped in a negative world of her own making, not being able to tolerate any sunlight in her dark world.

All of that being said as it stands with Athena, there is little doubt she's not suddenly going to get wholly better, and wipe away the years from her clock. She is in end of life care for sure. But. She is more stable than she has been in the last month. And she is coping. And being Athena. And whilst it is inevitable that that will end, as all things do, you can take some relief in the fact that at the moment, she is stable and holding, and that you get one, two, three more days with her.

I don't think Hazel can tolerate hope. Not even a little. And her outbursts against it are extreme ( as is the way with borderline ).

I am working haphazardly at the moment. There is a desperate need for me to get shit done at work - the guys are a bit of a mess at best and just flat out useless at worst. Our senior dev is capable, but often sulky and avoids actually getting his hands dirty. He likes living in his ivory tower that Andy allowed him to live in for more than a year. It comes down to a difficult employee and zero man management. Not untypical for us.

Despite all my shit going on, I am in the last couple of days feeling a little brighter mentally. I am chafing at not being able to do shit because of my god awful foot. And am planning shit that I can't currently do.

That being said my sleep has suddenly shifted into the treacle groggy phase. Where I go so very very deep. I came up just ever so slightly the other day, everything molasses. Everything was warm, heavy and sluggish. Including my breathing. There was no panic. Just. Everything in slow motion. I idly held my breath. And held it. And held it. There was no sudden kick of oh my god you're not breathing. I just. Stopped.

Hmm.

I consciously started breathing again and tried it again. Same result.

Slightly alarming.

So the charity work I have been doing for Oxford has come up with a plan. To put a milestone in for a year to get all systems functional. There are some grants they can get for improving their systems something running to the tune of £100k, which will be a massive boost for them. They have said they could pay me for it, but I have told them no. Keep it. But it seems like we're going to double down on getting shit done, and overall I think this is really positive.

I was thinking about this yesterday, the mess that is my current work, and the joy that is the charity work. Ostensibly they are exactly the same. But. Uh huh. And slowly it seems, given freedom, I am migrating from one, to the other. If I had endless money, I would have flipped full time already. But it is what it is.

As for me. In a slightly better mood. I have come up with a tenative plan, which will no doubt evaporate, to clear out my dining room entirely and setup some crafting stuff in there, and dabble in making things as a slow and quiet hobby. It's something I like doing. And I think I should spend a bit of time when I can doing that. My only real sticking point is that my lovely gorgeous dining room table is utterly the wrong table for this. And is too big for the room. In a perfect world, I would stick that table somewhere else and convert the dining room entirely with a much smaller but more adaptable table. I cannot bring myself to get rid of the current table though. It's lovely. Impractical. So. I'm a bit stuck. I want to change. I can't bring myself to solve the table. My "only" solution ( stupid ) is clearly to buy a much bigger house, so I can let the lovely table have its own room.

I know. Stupid.

This is how my brain works.

I am hoping I come up with some plan to solve this issue that doesn't require the unattainable goal of "buying a bigger house".