Tuesday, October 02, 2012
How lucky we are.
"From the cradle to the grave"
How proud we should be of those men and women of vision who worked to set up a service that would care for the health of all Britons from the start of life until the end.
The problems of how it should be paid for increase - but how important it is that the citizens of this country demand that it will continue to be paid for.
The National Health Service has been caring for me almost from the moment of my birth - it came into existence shortly after I did.
The NHS has saved me from an early grave on more than one occasion and provided the means for my life to continue with a reasonable expectation of comfort and ease.......never forget that the opposite of "ease" is "disease".
Today one of my chapters within the NHS drew to a close.
What a fantastic team of people they have been who guided and protected me through that chapter.
This morning I was greeted with a smile from the registrar of the Urology Department; "Anything to report?" he asked.
I smiled and confirmed that I had no health concerns relevant to urology. "Have you anything to report?" I asked him.
He confirmed that all scans and tests showed no problems at all.
We chatted a little, smiled and I offered many thanks and I left, presumably not to be seen again by that department.
Bill and I were in and out of the hospital in 15 minutes. What an efficient department urology is - I have never had to wait very long to be seen.
Then we drove to sort out the ongoing problems within another segment of my dealings with the NHS.
I was back in the dentist's chair. Mr C felt that the neuralgia was being caused by quite slight problems in 2 of the wounds. He redressed them with a paste of cloves....are they magic or something? Soon pain subsided.
He suggested I carry on with the painkillers of my choice, maybe for another week.
I remember cloves being used by my mother when I had tooth ache many, many years ago. I hated the cloves and I hated the pain, and the 2 became entwined in my mind. From then on I never appreciated stewed apples which had been flavoured up with cloves.
But now, today, I can cherish the healing properties of this spice.
I have bought a small bottle of oil of cloves so that I can continue to numb those wounds when the hurt becomes too much.
And I have had to discover just what cloves are. They are the dried flower buds of a tree which grows in countries around the Indian Ocean.
Every day provides opportunities for learning.
So, tonight I feel better than last night.
How proud we should be of those men and women of vision who worked to set up a service that would care for the health of all Britons from the start of life until the end.
The problems of how it should be paid for increase - but how important it is that the citizens of this country demand that it will continue to be paid for.
The National Health Service has been caring for me almost from the moment of my birth - it came into existence shortly after I did.
The NHS has saved me from an early grave on more than one occasion and provided the means for my life to continue with a reasonable expectation of comfort and ease.......never forget that the opposite of "ease" is "disease".
Today one of my chapters within the NHS drew to a close.
What a fantastic team of people they have been who guided and protected me through that chapter.
This morning I was greeted with a smile from the registrar of the Urology Department; "Anything to report?" he asked.
I smiled and confirmed that I had no health concerns relevant to urology. "Have you anything to report?" I asked him.
He confirmed that all scans and tests showed no problems at all.
We chatted a little, smiled and I offered many thanks and I left, presumably not to be seen again by that department.
Bill and I were in and out of the hospital in 15 minutes. What an efficient department urology is - I have never had to wait very long to be seen.
Then we drove to sort out the ongoing problems within another segment of my dealings with the NHS.
I was back in the dentist's chair. Mr C felt that the neuralgia was being caused by quite slight problems in 2 of the wounds. He redressed them with a paste of cloves....are they magic or something? Soon pain subsided.
He suggested I carry on with the painkillers of my choice, maybe for another week.
I remember cloves being used by my mother when I had tooth ache many, many years ago. I hated the cloves and I hated the pain, and the 2 became entwined in my mind. From then on I never appreciated stewed apples which had been flavoured up with cloves.
But now, today, I can cherish the healing properties of this spice.
I have bought a small bottle of oil of cloves so that I can continue to numb those wounds when the hurt becomes too much.
And I have had to discover just what cloves are. They are the dried flower buds of a tree which grows in countries around the Indian Ocean.
Every day provides opportunities for learning.
So, tonight I feel better than last night.
