Burning Peter to save Paul

Eastbourne has a problem. A big one. We have a hospital here, which is as it should be for a town our size. In fact, since we have the only main hospital for at least 20 miles in any direction, you would think we would be happy with it.

But we're not.

Bit by bit, our hospital is being closed down and the services are being transferred to a 'nearby' hospital, The Conquest in Hastings.
Like I said, nothing else for at least 20 miles. And that's not counting the fact that the main road is guaranteed to slow to a crawl for miles during peak times. Or if there are road works. Or an accident... 'Alternative' routes involve minor roads, many of which have cars parked along them, forcing traffic into a perpetual slalom. Unless you opt for the picturesque route, which, while relatively trouble free, adds an uncomfortable five miles or so onto the journey.

(map taken from Google Maps)

First, the maternity unit was closed down, despite lots of protests, petitions, demonstrations and talks (the kind of talks where only one side appears to be listening, apparently). It was put off and then sneaked back onto the agenda when they thought nobody was looking.

Three days after it closed, the first 'taxi baby' was born, en route to The Conquest.

Now, any scheduled surgery is to take place there too.

A fun fact about Eastbourne; It has the oldest (average) population in Britain. A large town, comprised mostly of OAPs, all of whom have to somehow make their way to someplace they aren't necessarily familiar with, via whatever means necessary

Fun fact 2; Discounting taxi, there is no one single form of public transport that will get you from Eastbourne to The Conquest. The Conquest is at the back end of Hastings, well away from any busy transport routes. This might be fine for patients trying to sleep, but for anyone trying to get there, it's a bit of a bugger. And if you should decide to drive there, then you have to fight for a parking spot in one of the most fractured, compartmentalised car parks I have ever known.

Julie has said to me that she wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to turn it into a cottage hospital. I poo-poohed this idea, but when I mentioned it to my doctor today, he replied that he wouldn't be at all surprised.

Well, crap.

Naturally, the residents of the town aren't taking this lying down - they can't because some of the wards have been closed and there aren't nearly enough beds... In the windows of many houses, you will find small posters defending our hospital. Most of them seem more plaintive than anything else...

Nice flatline...

Julie, being a life resident of the town, is obviously very much against the transfer of services (as am I). One day, we were out for a walk, and we happened to pass a house with one of these posters in the window. Julie felt moved to have a little rant.

Well, yes. Although a tad on the illegal side of things.

HUNGRRRRY! (our 400th post!)

Post number 400? Indeed it is! It's not our 400th Gem, thanks to our prize draws, but we're working on it. It's hard to believe that we started this back in February of 2011 with an odd question from Julie regarding a thin soup.

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Talking of food, I have a confession to make; I enjoy food rather too much. It's not a bolt from the blue for people that know me, but it makes a point.

You see, one of the downsides of eating a lot is that you tend to feel hungry more often. Sometimes it's a phantom feeling, but it's more usually a side-effect of your stomach simply getting into the habit of eating a lot. Julie used to have a problem herself, but a stomach bypass operation has changed that. (Ironically, the first thing that Julie had following the operation was consomme - as Gemmed all that time ago!)

For me, I find that I am often feeling at least peckish about an hour or so after a meal - something that astounds my wife. Admittedly, I have larger portions than I should, but salad only tends to go so far, no matter how much you eat. Consequently, on a recent occasion, I was feeling a little more than 'peckish'.

Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors as portrayed
by Gazzycakes on deviantArt.
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Audrey-II-38506578

>ahem<

Anyway, there had been noises issuing from my equator, so I decided to do something about it. Julie couldn't believe it.

No, that's not me.

Well played, love, well played.

The extreme egg fiasco

We have a problem. We like food. Unfortunately, we're not too good at controlling what we eat, nor the quantities thereof. Oh, and by the way, that statement doesn't just apply to my wife and me, but Western civilisation in general. We have come to consume too much of the wrong things and too much in general.

I'm currently trying to work with a dietician. Julie, on the other hand, tried that and various diets a long time ago. In the end, we agreed surgery was the only option. Julie had a gastric bypass, a version known as the Roux-en-y procedure.

This, without a word of exaggeration, has changed her life completely. It's entirely probable that it saved her life. Compulsive eating is a psychological problem, one that our primitive bodies are ill-equipped to cope with.

For those who can't stomach (sorry) looking at graphic details of operations, the notion is a simple one. Basically, the stomach is cut in half and the appropriate tubing is connected up to a much smaller gastric pouch.
Initially, the diet is severely limited, but with time, the patient can once again eat much of what they did before - just in drastically smaller portions. Even then, the stomach is still an elastic organ. It can stretch, and does. However, even taking that into account, one would still never be able to eat the massive portions as before.

It's a difficult situation, not just for the patient. A lot of human social interaction is based around the consumption of food and drink, and most pubs, cafes and restaurants don't really understand the concept of needing a tiny portion. Indeed, many get rather shirty when you ask for a child's portion when you have clearly left childhood far too long ago.

So how small does the stomach become after the operation?
About the size of a hen's egg.

Seriously.

Obviously, you're never going to be able to take in what you could, so if you have this op, then you're going to have to take a daily dose of vitamin & minerals in tablet form..
As I mentioned, the stomach may regain some magnitude, but only in a small way. Maybe twice the size of an egg, maybe a bit more.

It's not an exact thing, because everyone is different. Some keep their diet to minimal levels, some find they can't eat certain foods any more; some can't handle sweet stuff, others have trouble with greasy food - oh and it really doesn't take much alcohol either.

So, when Julie and me were in a cafe having a bite to eat, I was ploughing through a nice panini. My wife, however, was gingerly picking at hers. Oh, she was enjoying it, but necessity meant that she had to take it carefully, or she would end up with a side-effect known as 'dumping' - although this is more usually encountered in association with sugary foods.

With this in mind, we began to discuss how much her stomach will have changed in the few years since her operation.

...ummm...
...ok...

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Just in case you didn't know, the World Book Night Prize draw is now closed. We will be filming a clip today for the drawing of the winners and posting the results tomorrow.

What a lot of wotnot!

We decided to cheer ourselves up the other night by playing a game of Trivial Pursuit. It was... entertaining...
Part of the problem was that wave both been ill recently, with a combination of heavy colds and a virus picked up from Julie working in the hospital that made sure we didn't stray too far from a toilet. As a result, we were mumbling fairly often and our concentration was shot to pieces. And thanks to the cold, both of us had a mild tinnitus going on, which meant that we had a little trouble hearing things.

Of course, you also need to bear in mind that Julie (and, occasionally, myself) can find difficulty with some of the questions at the best of times. Admittedly, there are some which are pronunciation problems, but they're something that doesn't really affect us that much. Generally, though, it's simply Julie's approach to the game that wins through; if you don't know the answer, bluff it. Big time. Over-egg the pudding, spoil that broth and go the whole hog.

But, whatever you do, please remember what makes you you. Julie does. Even if she doesn't have the wherewithal to say so...

Now, that's what I call honesty. Facing up to your own shortcomings and turning them into strengths. It's amazing how much work a 'wotnot' does...

The gall of the woman...

A few months ago, my mum visited one of her sisters, partly just to drop by, but also partly because of health issues. Last year wasn't a good one for our family when it came to health, what with one thing and another. Compared to a lot of the family, I am fairly distant, both physically and emotionally, so it was during a phone conversation with my mother a few days later that this came to light for me.

For British people in general and our family in particular (as a running joke), the weather is a strong topic for discussion. Therefore, most conversation openings between me and Mum will run along the lines of greeting, weather, health.

"Hi, Mum, what's the weather like up by you? How're you feeling today?"

Scintillating stuff, I know.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find that when you have chats with people you know very well and have done for a long time, you tend to develop a sort of conversational shorthand. You will also take verbal shortcuts which will baffle outsiders, yet will be patently clear to anyone in the know.
However, there is a subtle danger here.
If either or both of the people in the conversation are feeling a little tired or are being distracted by something or other, then even long-established cues may be missed and confusion will reign.
Take, for example, this snippet from my mother as she tells me of her visit to her sister.

Now, if you did the same as me, you read straight through that without blinking and then thought, "hang on a minute..."
Of course, my aunt wasn't suffering from a meteorological disorder, it was just that I had heard two separate elements of the conversation as one sentence. As it turned out, Jackie was only in for a check-up - she wasn't about to have a weather vane installed...

Satan, rocks, and an x-rayted song.

Last week, Julie found she had somehow hurt her back, just below her neck. Don't be worried - all she has done is somehow pulled a muscle. However, on top of her little accident at work (see Monday's post), this comes as especially unwelcome timing. The pain turned out to be a tad worse than that in her foot, so she has been forced to speak to her doctor again, with the result that she has been prescribed painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
I know the pain must be rather nasty, because Julie is actually fine with taking the tablets (as far as having to take medication goes). That said, Julie is trying to limit the amount she takes. Not because she is concerned about becoming hooked on them, but because of the side-effects. It's a legitimate concern. especially so in the light of her weight-loss surgery. Because of the reduced stomach size, Julie is now both more and less reactive to the chemicals in the meds, so while some tablets seem to have lost their effectiveness, others will turn out to be more of a problem.
So it is with co-codamol (a mix of codeine and paracetamol). I'm not going to go into details. They're not icky; you just don't need to know them. Suffice it to say that Julie finds she has to work out if she's more concerned about the pain or the side-effects at any one point before taking and co-codamol. Or, as Julie put it,

A little note for the folks who may have got the wrong end of the stick here; hardcore - in this case - does not refer to 'action', but to the rubble that is used in construction. Although I'll freely admit that, when I first saw a sign advertising 'Free hardcore', I not only got the wrong end of the stick, I got the wrong stick altogether.
Ah, youth.

What with Julie's foot and her back and my ongoing headache issues (and occasional back troubles), a lot of our conversations turn to health matters. Usually, we'll lament our lot, and then follow it up by saying that there are many far worse off than we are... although that doesn't make it any better.
Julie said it best.

And on that note, we shall bid you fare-thee-well and have a great weekend!

Having a (non)sense of place

[My apologies, today's post is a little on the lengthy side.]

Working at the hospital can be dangerous. Quite apart from abusive drunks on the night shifts, germ-ridden people coughing into your face or razor-sharp instruments seemingly waiting to cut you at the first opportunity, there are the trolleys. Sorry if that reads like I am being flippant towards the last one, but I'm not. It's admittedly not as potentially lethal as the others, but it's a real danger nonetheless.
Imagine you have a trolley laden with its contents - and this goes for the hospital beds being pushed around, too - moving along a corridor. Maybe one wheel sticks, maybe they're all very free-flowing. However, the fact remains that a huge chunk of metal is being pushed and/or pulled by one or two people. What happens when you come to negotiate a corner, or go through a door? It's going to be tricky, holding the door open with one hand and manipulating the trolley with the other.

That's when you need to be careful.

Julie found this out to her cost recently, as she was trying to move a loaded food trolley (and they're very heavy, I am told) into a corridor, out of a lift (elevator, to US English speakers). One of the wheels caught her foot, which obviously hurt like blazes. Julie, being bought up to not worry about things and to get on as best as she can, didn't mention it at the time.
However, the top of her foot continued to hurt like blazes.
Eventually, Julie went to see a doctor, who referred her to the hospital for an x-ray. This, thankfully, turned up no broken bones, although there had been some fluid created as a result of the accident. This would apparently subside in a few more days. This was a relief, as we really didn't fancy Julie being signed off and not getting any pay. We can't afford that right now.

Julie and myself were talking about the accident, and I was asking some questions; Was it reported? (there isn't anyone around at the weekends to report to.) Was it recorded in the accident book? (see previous parentheses) Have you spoken to a team leader since the weekend? (well... no)
Gah.
It was about this point that I went on a little rant about how they should be issued and wearing protective footwear - what we in the business know as "toe-'tectors". I also hectored Julie about needing to tell someone about it as soon as possible; if nothing else, if it turned out there was something seriously wrong, then her employers would know why and how. Julie has a tendency, when I begin one of my little tirades, of letting me run my course and then saying something like, "well, we'll see." Which is quite aggravating.

In any event, Julie told her supervisor the next day. She was told that Occupational Health* would need to get in touch with her and go over the incident with her. However, there was an obvious problem or two. You see, Julie only works an early evening shift, one which has very little overlap with office staff. Not only that, but the day after Julie's chat with her supervisor, she was due to take a couple of days off. Just when were OH supposed to be getting hold of Julie?

If that wasn't enough, after I had written this Gem down, Julie dug herself in even further...

[Even better, Julie just came back from work as I was typing this out. Naturally curious as to what I may have been slandering her for (just kidding, it's all true), she had a glance and wanted to know the Gem involved. I read out what I had copied down and she stood there for a moment and then said,

"Well, that makes sense, doesn't it?"

Yes, dear.]

*Occupational Health is one of those departments within a company that has arisen as a direct result of the culture of litigation that has become prevalent in much of the western world these days. Essentially, they exist to give the company a reason to avoid paying out any money to an injured party. To this end, OH will ask you so many questions that you get fed up of it all and decide it's less hassle to go back to work.

This poisson is poisonous

If you're British and have had to stay in hospital for one reason or another, then you will have had the questionable pleasure of sampling the cuisine offered by the NHS (or, more precisely, the contracted caterer that offered their services so cheaply, you KNOW it's not going to be good news).
Then again, you may have been lucky enough to 'go private', thus qualifying you for breakfasts of smoked salmon and dinners involving at least four courses and a change of napkins.*

The last time Julie was in hospital as a patient, the staff had been told that, as a result of her previous weight-loss surgery, they shouldn't allow her any fatty foods. Unfortunately, they took this information and went just a tad too far with it. As a result, the food they unceremoniously plonked in front of her was about as exciting as a sheet of cardboard. Jacket potato with a hint of cheese was the best they managed. And I think that was only because they forgot to leave the cheese off and couldn't scrape it all off in time. The absolute worst was a piece of chicken breast so dry it very nearly qualified for the status of 'mummified'.
I kid you not.
When I went to visit my wife on this particular day, I received a frantic text from her to buy some fruit and a pack of choccy biscuits from the shop in the foyer. Somewhat bemused, I followed the instructions and went upstairs to find Julie attempting to prise some fibres of meat from the aforementioned chicken breast. As soon as she saw me, Julie dropped the breast (with a thump!) and reached for the grapes I'd bought. While she tucked into the grapes with semi-orgiastic sound effects, I picked up the chicken and experimentally tapped it on the tray. It didn't quite make a tapping sound,  but as I picked it up, I had to admit it was a solid bit of meat. It was just a pity that the cooking and transportation involved had drained it dry.

As Julie found out when she began working at the hospital herself, food for the patients isn't prepared onsite, but in Hastings, over twenty miles away. After that, it's brought over to us and then stored in the appropriate manner until it's time to dish it all up.
Yum, right?
Well, it seems that the food still has its fans - the rice pudding is apparently a big hit with one or two of the patients, although the semolina is almost universally reviled.
On the other hand, there's the fish pie, which doesn't look too nice at all. As we sat in our front room, talking about how her day had gone, Julie joked about dropping it on the floor and then scraping it up before serving it to people; the reasoning was that anything she did to it would have been an improvement. Julie laughed at the thought and stopped when she saw my cringing expression of faint disgust and shock.

Well, I'm sure that's a great comfort to us all, eh?


*You may have guessed that I have not had the good fortune to go private and that I'm making a wild stab in the dark regarding the menus on offer.

A foodie fail by the befuddled

Continuing the hospital theme for the week, it would be remiss of me to completely ignore the patients. I realise it may be a cheap shot, but you sometimes can't help but smile at some of the things people come out with when under the influence of medication, sedation or, sadly, age or dementia.
My maternal grandfather was a big man, and a healthy one to boot. That's actually a rather apt phrase, since he was actually a professional footballer ('soccer player, to those of you that think footballs aren't spherical), and had played for Leeds United and Norwich City, amongst other teams, during his long and successful career. Sadly, during the later years of his life, he developed Alzheimer's disease. After a long, slow decline, he died at a ripe old age, and the world is a less good place for that. However, his dementia did provide a few bittersweet moments, notably the occasion when he turned to his wife (also in her seventies at that point), and said,

How about we try for another kid, Flossie?

For ages after that, Gran loved to recount that story, laughing each time she brought it up. It still brings a sad smile to my face, too.

My Grandad, the soccer star.

Back to the present day, and to an occasion when Julie is serving up evening meals to various patients. As I have said elsewhere, Julie tends to keep a written list of what food is available for a given day. This is especially useful, should she temporarily blank over what is on her trolley. I think we've all done something like that, right? Having said that, no matter how blank she goes, she'll always have a pretty good idea of what the trolley doesn't hold - and of what the meals she lists are made of.

Someone is obviously used to better fare than that offered up by the National Health Service...

In a daze of futures past

Julie's job at the hospital is to provide the patients with their evening meals and a spot of tea or coffee to wash it down. The thing is, the hospital is such a big place, they need to have some sort of system, otherwise they won't know if they're coming or going. To that end, they tend to have the same menu from one week to the next. However, Julie feels the need to write down what she will be offering on a particular day, so she doesn't get confused about whether it's chicken pasta bake day or corned beef hash day.
Or, as Julie put it...

... I'm going now. I've got a headache, for some reason.

Julie goes all geographillogical in the hospital.

"Hello and welcome to Eastbourne District General Hospital, how may I help you? Oh, you're visiting someone, you say? That's nice, although I'm not sure you will be able to take those flowers on to the ward, because of the need for sterility. I'm sure you can see our position. Oh, and please don't forget to make use of the hand sanitisers you'll see around - yes, the are a couple of wards closed at the moment because of contamination. Well, from what I was told, it's down to visitors bringing in the bugs with them. Some people... um... aren't as clean as they could be and then when they start touching things, the bugs stay on there and then other people who were clean when they came to the hospital come and put their clean hands on the door handles, rails, trolleys, wheelchairs - you know - and then they pick up those nasty bugs and start spreading them around without realising it.
Oh, I'm so sorry, what ward was it you were wanting to visit? Hailsham-4? Oh, that's nice and easy. If you go down that corridor, turn left go on for three junctions, turn right then left again, up the stairs, go right twice, all the way to the end of the corridor, take away the number you first thought of, jump up and down, wave your knickers in the air....."

"Oh dear, Bert, I think we're lost. I'm sure we've been along this corridor twice already. Oh look, there's someone; she looks competent enough with that uniform, let's go and ask her..."

As you may have guessed, poor old Bert and Flo, now even more confused, had had the misfortune to run into Julie, as she was pushing her food trolley along the corridor. In fairness to Julie, the hospital is large and the corridors do all look the same. Not only that, but my wife hadn't been working there for all that long when this took place; in fact, I reckon that was what Julie had meant to say all along, but a couple of words got left out.
Talking of words - how about that 'geographillogical' in the title? I'm quite proud of that one.
Tata for now!

Blame it on the NFCS

Times are hard. People are losing jobs, businesses are closing down and 99% of the people in the 1st world are feeling the pinch. I currently have a full-time job, crappy though it is, but Julie, after more than ten years of working for the same organisation, has had her hours cut substantially. We don't own, but rent our house, so to keep our ability to pay the bills, Julie has spent a long while searching for either a full-time job, or a second one at part time, just to keep us afloat.
Before Christmas, the hospital had offered her a job, depending on whether the CRB check showed up clear - it did. Eventually. In March.
So, yes, Julie now has two jobs, one of which means she is dealing with sick and confused people, and the other is at the hospital (ba-boom tish!). However, allow me to allay your fears. Julie is not going to be a nurse, although she can blanket bathe me any time :-p. No, Julie is instead one of those nice people who takes around your food and cups of tea. The fact that said food is often inedible is besides the point. It's cooked twenty miles away and ferried to Julie for her to dish out.
Despite my earlier crack at her colleagues in her first job, Julie obviously meet some folk at the hospital who are elderly or otherwise addled by medication. Despite an initial reluctance (read 'fear') in dealing with these unfortunate souls, Julie has since managed to prove herself quite able to communicate them, although there are still moments where Julie is flummoxed. Usually by the sudden (if unintentional) appearance of pensioner body parts...
This week, I intend to post Gems resulting from Julie's time at the hospital. From what I can recall, none involve patients, so there's no mockery that way.
For our first hospital Gem, we go all the way back to deep midwinter, when we were waiting on news of the background check. It was dragging out  somewhat, and somewhat disheartening. All the while, Julie continued to look for other jobs, just in case the hospital one fell through. The thing is, there's a bit of a running joke in this country on the speed of our National Health Service. However, since we're essentially getting our treatment, along with bed and board, should it be necessary, then I won't complain. Too much.
Julie, on the other hand, felt no such inhibition...

Well, there's only one possible reaction to that.

Breaking [faith with] the legs

Julie recently began a part-time job at the hospital, after an extended period of waiting for a CRB check to clear. For those not in the know, all that means is that there's a check to see if you're nutter with a criminal past. (Useful, except that there are a lot of nutters that DON'T yet have a police record.*)

All Julie is required to do at the hospital, in case you're worried she'll be let loose with all that equipment and medication, is provide the patients with food and water. I say 'all', but it's a pretty big 'all', considering the amount of times she has to trek down to the kitchens, along various corridors, around wards, BACK along corridors upon realising she got lost and is in the wrong part of the hospital, along a different set of corridors, around the correct ward, all that several times in the course of a three-hour shift, as not everything fits on the trolley in one go.
No wonder she's bloody knackered when she gets home - especially when you bear in mind this is a second job to try and up our income. As Julie herself put it,

What Julie actually meant was that she wanted to trade them in for a different pair. Unfortunately, she got the 'tray' sound from 'trade' in her head and it went a little loopy, becoming 'betray' en route to the mouth. This is how a vast majority of her Gems are created.
Oh dear. I've just given away a trade secret, haven't I?
Never mind. There are plenty of others. If nothing else, even I haven't figured them out yet. Mind you, neither has Julie...
Tata for now!

*Not even 'Roxanne' or 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'...