Not for the squeamish..........

Somehow I knew that you would not be able to resist looking at this one! If I had titled it "Medical records" or "Just for fun" I very much doubt that you would have bothered. However, I know very few people who would be able to resist taking a look at the contents with a title like that.........I believe that the mythical "they" call it human nature.......

Unless you jumped straight to this post, you will recall that I had a groovy time the other evening looking at the images the hospital sent as part of my medical record. Today I discovered that I could download individual pictures (sad, he must have too much time on his hands I hear you say). I find them all fascinating, but don't worry I am only uploading one here. I figured that no-one would really want to see too much detail and I don't know some of you well enough (in fact I don't know some of you at all!), so just an outline. It should be below the bottom of the page so you will have to scroll down.....











Last chance to change your mind.............

Sure?



Here goes.............

Hospital again tomorrow, will try to post in the evning.

Nearly forgot the song. Could not resist this one......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYeQUXXYvK0

Medical records

Welcome back dear reader, I hope that you had a good / fun / quiet / interesting / outrageous (delete as appropriate) seasonal break and are suitably refreshed / revived / tired out / relieved.........................

I had not meant to write another entry until after I had been back to UCLH next Wednesday, but could not resist after receiving this morning's post. You may recall that, a few weeks ago, I applied to Medway Hospital for copies of my medical records. Wonder upon wonders, they arrived today.

My reasons for wanting copies of the records were several:

• Curiosity
• A weird desire to see the images generated by the various scans
• A need to have copies of the pathology reports for the appointment next week

Curiosity is one of the most wonderful attributes that seems to be possessed by all sentient forms of life (and maybe some of the life forms that we do not deem to be sentient!). It is probably essential for survival and I would contend that it is the single quality which enables learning. As Stephen Hawking said "Look up to the stars, not down at your feet. Be curious". My dogs are curious (in both senses of the word); the wildlife in the garden is curious, at least until it meets a pair of curious dogs; even the lichen on the roof may be curious. If I know that there is a record somewhere which relates to me, and only me, I am naturally curious to see what it says.

The weird desire stems partly from curiosity and partly from when I was a student. I studied human physiology, so saw a lot of illustrations in textbooks of the inside of the human body, so it seems natural (to me) to want to have some illustrations that are of real life: mine.

The need for the pathology results is a little more serious. When I saw the consultant at UCLH, he told me that Medway had not sent him the pathology results. Given that he will need them before formulating a treatment plan, and not being mad keen on another prostate biopsy, I figured that it would be useful to have copies that I can give him. It might speed things up a bit as well.

I can now report that I have enjoyed a couple of fun hours playing with the MRI, CT and Bone Scan images of me. Absolutely fascinating to be able to take a virtual trip through a body...........lungs, heart, liver, kidneys..........almost sounds like a recipe for haggis! If you are curious and are not too squaemish, I would thoroughly recommend it. I am tempted to print a few of the pics to have framed and hang in various suitable places throughout the house, but I suspect that this might be frowned upon!

Back next Wednesday. Until then, one of Handsworth's finest..........well worth listening to anything you can find from this singer, she is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aySxGwP56kU

MRI the Second

Chipped the car out of the ice at about half past seven on a crisp saturday morning and set off for the train to London. Knowing that the usually punctual and reliable (!) railway system occasionally has problems at the weekend, I caught an early train; if the NHS was going to be kind enough to see me on a saturday, I figured it would be rude to turn up late.

Minor glitch on the jounrney, but I arrived at UCLH in good time and, thanks to a very helpful security guard, found my way to Podium Level 2. Intriguingly, the "Podium" turned out to be what I would call an Atrium; perhaps someone made a mistake when the building was put up in 2005? At any rate, everything was clean and shiny, and the lifts worked.

Into a waiting room which contained: a reception desk, complete with receptionist, who booked me in with a smile; several vending machines in case anyone arrived with a coffee deficit; 28 chairs, neatly arranged and a vase containing some very fetching plastic tulips (they looked better than you are imagining). One thing missing. Come to think of it, there were quite a lot of things missing.......no-one else there. I was not used to such choice, so hesitated before choosing the chair that I judged would give me the best warning of anyone approaching.

Bang on 10, a young woman in green arrived and introduced herself as my radiographer before leading me off to the imaging department. I will not bore you with the details, but she was very efficient, quite chatty and obviously knew her stuff. Unlike Medway, when I asked about potential side effects of the two substances she would be administering, she was able to answer both accurately and with confidence.

Into the machine, and away it went.............30 minutes of the kind of percussion that I usually associate with raves (not that I have any direct experience of such things!). Job done, unhooked from the intravenous line, and off I went. By 10:50 I was back out on the street and heading for a quick bit of shopping before catching the train home.

If only this was the standard that the NHS could achieve across all its services..........but then UCLH is a well funded London teaching hospital. It is fairly easy to see where all the resources have gone; the power of the medical establishment, in its narrowest sense, remains pre-eminent.

Nothing much happening on the hospital front until 7th January now. Hopefully the Prof and I will be able to agree a treatment plan at that meeting and things will start moving. Only 5 months since the journey started................

No song tonight. In its place, I thought that those of you who have never experienced and MRI scan might enjoy a short clip of the sounds that the machine makes. This clip is very abbreviated as the scans last about half an hour. To get the most out of this, you need to listen to the whole clip through headphones with the volume turned up as loud as you can bear. The real thing peaks at 120db which is about the same as a jet aeroplane taking off......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4DHUim_Lc8

Bonsoir

As I have left the blog for so long, I had not been looking at the statistics, so just a very quick note to welcome the reader(s?) from France. Je suis flatte que vous voulez lire. Je espere que vous apprecierez. My French is very poor, but I hope that is understandable!

Back to the NHS...........a new hospital to play with

It has been a while! I hope that you have all (?) found alternative sources of entertainment whilst the blog has been in hibernation and have not been too distraught without your favourite read...............

After what seemed an almost interminable wait, I finally made the first stumbling foray into a major London teaching hospital this morning. It might be a top class hospital in England, but please bear in mind that this is the NHS, so as you might guess, already things are not moving too smoothly. Before I describe today's events, a brief description of the correspendence so far.

Referral was made by Medway Hospital in October. Letter offering an appointment duly arrived within a week, quickly followed by another booking me in for an MRI scan on Saturday next. A few days later, the inevitable letter inviting me to contribute to a research study and a long questionnaire (this is a teaching hospital after all). Interesting study looking at what factors influence people's decision on the type of treatment they want. Excellent idea!
Long gap, then, out of the blue, another letter from UCLH.....

Another appointment?
A vital piece of information?
Another research study?
None of the above?

None of the above: it was an exact copy of the first letter (told you this was still the NHS!)

Back to today.........

As I was about to leave the house to catch a train to London, I noticed that there was a message on the answerphone. As I am notoriously bad at answering the telephone, this was nothing special, but I checked it anyway. Message from a very polite woman at UCLH saying that there was no need to attend the outpatient appointment as they could not make any decisions until after the MRI scan on Saturday. She left her name and a number so I called her back.  She reiterated that I was welcome to go, but would probably be wasting my time by going to the appointment. I asked whether they had access to the MRI scan that I had been given at Medway Hospital? I had thought, naively as it turned out, that the NHS might be capable of sending such things electronically..............no chance. We have only spent umpteen squillion pounds on NHS information systems; this is clearly not enough! Upshot was that I decided to go anyway for three main reasons: a) I could test out the route, b)I would at least establish contact with the clinical team, and c) it would make me feel that something is happening. The latter was probably the most important consideration as it would help maintain my psychological wellbeing.

Off I toddled and ended up at an ultra modern, if not aesthetically pleasing, building off the Euston Road. The main reception area was quite a shock after Medway: clean, spacious, high backed comfy looking chairs, big reception desk, screens on the walls, and machines that invited you to scan your appointment letter to "sign in". Wow!

Sidled up to one of the machines, pressed its screen where invited, had the barcode on my letter scanned, machine emitted a  very satisfying, and almost smug, bleep.......job done. Or was it? I expected a message with words to the effect of "thank you, please take a seat and watch a screen for your name to come up". What I got was "please go the reception desk". Went to the reception desk and spoke with the pleasant young man:

Me, handing over the letter: "your machine told me to come here"
Him, after checking his computer: "you need to go to reception downstairs"

Down the spiral staircase and into the netherworld of the UCLH Macmillan Cancer Treatment Centre...........have you guessed?

A queue of people in front of a reception desk personnned by two very stressed looking young men with piles of patient files behind them, and about 50 people sitting in chairs around the edges of the reception area. In a curious was, this was reassuring; it confirmed to me that I was still in the hands of the NHS. Got to the front of the queue and received an apology: their main outpatients booking system was down and they were having enter everything manually. Final confirmation that I was still in the NHS.

40 minutes after the due appointment time, a young man in an expensive, but crumpled and slightly ill fitting, suit (or it may have been "fashionable") called my name. He introduced himself as the Professor, made a further introduction to a young doctor from Italy who was to join us, led me to a room, invited me to take a seat, apologised that he had to attend to something else, and rushed off!

Had a great few minutes talking to the young Italian doctor; he was from Rome and had been allowed by his girlfriend to study in London for 12 months, but no longer than that.

The Prof returned, explained that he could not do much until after the MRI scan and leafed through the paperwork that he had on me from Medway. No pathology report, no copies of MRI, no copies of anything apart from the referral letter. Sent an email to his secretary asking her to pursue Medway, dictated a letter back to Medway and advised me that I should get copies of everything myself and carry them around in a folder................welcome to the 21st century!

Appointment booked to see him again on 7th January.

Hint: If you ever get tangled up with the NHS, get copies of everything (and I mean everything!) as you go along. You will need them if you want treatment.

Before I sign off until after the MRI scan on Saturday, an amusing juxtaposition. Whilst writing this, there was an item on Newsnight (for non UK readers, this is a formerly "heavyweight" TV news programme which is watched by about 6 of us in the country), discussing private contracts in the NHS. A wonderfully dinosaur-like representative of hospital consultants was trying to tell us NHS good, private bad. Given that about 90% of hospital consultants derive significant proportions of their income from private work, this seemed a little hypocritical. It also proved that she had never had to use the NHS herself!

Not sure why I thought of this song, but it has been rattling round my head for a few days so I thought I would share it with you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF9TjbdJyUE

Back on Saturday..............

NHS again

Back on the NHS theme again. I had not anticipated that I would have much, or anything, to say about it until I had met with the good folk at University College Hospital (UCH) on the 10th of December, but a couple of things happened today that I could not resist writing about.

After a lot about the failings of the local NHS, it is a real pleasure to be able to relate some good news about how it can work well. One relates to Medway Hospital, the other to the good sense and planning at UCH.

You may recall that the MRI scan I had to look at my prostate revealed another potential problem which led to an endosocopy the other week. The bits that were removed during this duly went off to the pathology department at Medway Hospital with the usual assurance that results would be available in "about 2 weeks".

Forgive me, but after waiting 4 weeks last time, I did not have a lot of faith in the 2 week estimate. But no, I got home yesterday to find a message from the surgeon asking me to call him back. Tried, he was busy "in theatre". Love that expression; conjures pictures of surgeons and amateur dramatics..............mind you, there are an awful lot of surgeons who enjoy a drama!

This afternoon, the 'phone rang (or, strictly speaking, warbled a bit) and there was the good professor on the other end. He had actually taken the time to telephone in order to tell me that the histology report revealed nothing sinister. You may recall that I quoted my experiences in the endoscopy suite as a study in excellence the other week; well, this phone call confirmed my view. Well done Medway Hospital, or at least, well done Professor Wegstapel.

The other good thing arrived in the post; it was an MRI appointment UCH which has been booked for the 13th of December (a saturday). 

One of my criticisms of  Medway hospital was that everything was done in series i.e. seen by someone, they refer you for an investigation, you go back to them, they refer you for something else etc etc etc. Weeks in between each stage. Nothing like that at UCH, they understand what will be needed and book you in advance. What would have stretched to 2, 3 or 4 weeks locally will happen in 3 days at one of the big London Hospitals!

A topical music clip for a change. For those of you who do not live in the UK, and for anyone who is not really into politics, this may be a bit obscure. Believe it or not, the man singing was actually a Minister in the British Government until 4 day ago..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDd_deMoUpc

Newspapers can be useful......

In my house, newspapers have many uses which their electronic e-versions could never hope to match. Amongst other things, they are used to:

• Provide a removable and disposable lining for the chicken coops
• Dry out wet wellies and shoes
• Light the fire in winter
• (this may strike some of you as a bit odd) Act as a conduit for the news and opinions of the day i.e. they are read.

Today, I found another use for them. At least, I found a potential use for the local version of a newspaper, one of which around these parts is called the Medway Messenger. If you have seen my Twit feed (@phil_woods), you may have noticed a few cryptic references to the Medway Messenger which, to save myself from RSI, I shall henceforth refer to as the MM. They will feature a bit later.

You may also recall an earlier blog post in which I speculated about whether there were people who might want to apply their skills and / or knowledge to help others who were encountering difficulties with public services. Within a day of that post, I met someone in need of just that kind of help.

Allow me to leave you in suspense for a few minutes longer and tell you a story. It is a story so breathtakingly daft that it defies belief, but I can assure you that it is true. I shall refer to the main character as S to preserve her anonymity for the time being.

S is a single mother of two, one child being of school age, the other still firmly in the pre-school stage. She is registered partially sighted and, as a consequence, cannot persuade the DVLA (for my non UK readers, this is the bunch of bureaucrats who give, or take away, driving licences. They are based in Walesland, a semi-autnomous principality somewhere in the West) to let her apply for a licence to drive a motor vehicle.

S used to have a job, to my mind and those of many others, a very important and skilled job, in which she has qualifications. She was part of a small and very select team of people who look after every whim of some very, very important guests. In short, she worked at the stable yard my horse lives in. Unfortunately, when she broke up with her husband, who used to drive her to and from work, she had to leave the job as there is no direct public transport from her younger son's childcare to the stables. She cycles, but it is an 11 mile trip with two HUGE hills inbetween; there is no way she could make it to work on time, or have the energy to work once she got there.

Being resourceful and determined that she should not languish on state benefits, S applied for something called the Access to Work Grant. This is a discretionary benefit to help people with disabilities get into, or back into, work. Great idea...............unfortunately not matched by reality.

Without boring you with the details, all that was needed was a taxi from the place she drops her younger child at 07:30 to work, which starts at 08:00, and the same in reverse at 16:30. The (un) civil servant she has been dealing with agreed that the AtoW Grant would be just the thing, but not from childcare to work. His genius solution was that she should walk 2 miles to the nearest station, catch a train to Swanley some 15 miles away, get off and wait, catch a train to Bearsted (15 miles back again) where he would provide the Grant for a taxi for the last 6 miles.  This would get her to work at 10:00 -ish if she is lucky. Bonkers, or what?

I had a brainwave.

There is a by-election in Medway which is a little interesting. It is so contentious that the main political parties are falling over themselves to fill the place with their idea of the Great and Good (the author here dissociates himself from all political parties, all of whom are equally corrupt in his eyes) and to compete wildly with each other over who could be the most benevolent, hardest, nastiest or just plain maddest depending on what they are talking about at the time.

How would all these Islington (a nouveau riche part of London, the equivalent of a bat's cave for politicians) luvvies react if someone put a real person, who is a real victim of their system, right under their noses? How could this be achieved?

Answer: in by-elections, each party, with the possible exception of the Monster Raving Loony Party,  has armies of people combing the local papers looking to see what the strange locals are on about. How about getting S's story into the local paper?

A quick check with S that she was ok with it (she was) and I dropped an email to the MM (remember them?) with a summary of S's story. No response.

Waited patiently (not my style)

A few days went by

Nothing

Sent another email regretting that they were not interested in the story

11 minutes went by

Bingo! Did I think that S would agree to be interviewed? Photographed?  Too d**n right she would!

S and the MM now have each other's contact details. Let's hope that the power of the press can be harnessed, even in this small way, to do some good. I will keep you posted.

And now tonight's song. I heard this band on tv the other day and they blew me away. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lif-UZJjxA