Jacey Bedford's Journal

I saw crocuses (white and purple) growing on the grass verge down the road into Huddersfield thids afternoon (the ones up here are still in bud, but on their way). They made me smile. Spring is coming!

The bad news... the reason for the trip into Huddersfield was to take BB to A&E. He managed to trap the end of his index finger in the car door this morning. Self-inflicted, he admits, but... Big Ouchie. It's pretty well mushed up his finger-end and nail and the doc had to remove a flap of his finger tip. That's gotta hurt.

My friend mevennen  has written a clear and succinct post on the benefits of a national health care system in the light of the recent death of Melissa Mia Hall in the USA, who stayed at home and died of a heart attack because she feared huge medical bills if she sought help for her chest pain.

I could post about why a civilised country without an affordable system of health care for all its citizens in no civilised country at all, but Mevennen has said it already. If you are American and if you are confused about the lies some of your politicians are telling you about British National Health please read this.

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To Mevennen's excellent post I will just add that I have had private health cover in the days when I was younger and fitter and my business could afford the premiums. In all the time I paid the premiums I had a couple of eye consultations for which no treatment was required, a course of physiotherapy (after an accident) and one minor investigative (day) procedure in a very nice hospital with a private room.

Even though I had private health insurance I still continued with my excellent NHS GP at the local health centre as my primary care advisor and the initial go-to guy for any illness, infection, flu or accidental damage and also for regular well-woman screenings (which revealed my diabetes). The NHS also dealt with my medical emergencies because my private healthcare hospital didn't have A & E (ER) facilities. So the NHS saved my life when I had an anaphylactic reaction; fixed and strapped up my dislocated shoulder; x-rayed my leg when I tore a ligament and set my broken wrist and followed up with a course of physio.

When I turned fifty the private health care premiums rose beyond my ability to pay and so it was the NHS that continued to deal with my late onset diabetes and my hypothyroid condition with regular check-ups and daily drugs that come without even a prescription charge because without them I will die.

Along with the rest of the female population in my age group I also get regular breast cancer screening and (available for everybody at a certain age) a bowel cancer screen. I can also get basic dentistry on the NHS, and my husband still does, though I choose not to.

It was the NHS that dealt with the last stages of my father's bone cancer when the private medical insurance that his managerial job paid for said he was at the upper limit of his benefits and they wouldn't continue to pay for his treatment. The transition from private to public health care was seamless and he even continued with the same consultant onchologist - only now funded by the state (and his years of paying a small, regular amount of 'national insurance' into the system deducted at source from his wages).

The NHS has been good to me and mine and though I know the system isn't perfect I continue in good health while managing conditions that would have killed me twenty years ago had the care not been available at an affordable price.

The cost? A small percentage of income, which not only pays for health insurance, but also covers state pension contributions. As a self-employed person on a small income I pay less than ten pounds per month for all that. Even if I were unemployed or at home caring for a family or loved one and without income, I would still get all the health care benefits at no cost. I'm covered, cradle to grave. I will never have to choose between health and keeping a roof over my head.

Americans... ask your govenment why this system is not available to you.

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I managed an entry on LJ. Anyhow, folks, I'm still here, behind my keyboard, watching the snow again.

Tried to go and see Percy Thingy, Lightning Thief with H on Wednesday, but we hadn't accounted for a) a flat battery on her car and b) half term, so though we made it to the cinema, we didn't make it in time, so we went shopping instead. Only food shopping, nothing exciting.

And that was the highlight of my week... except... I had my dental appointment cancelled last Friday because my new-new-new dentist (who assured me, on the only time I've been to see her, that she was 'here to stay') has now left the practice. I'm booked in with the fourth new dentist at the same practice within a year. Sheesh! I had the same dentist for almost thirty years, and now he's retired they can't keep one for thirty days. What's wrong with this picture?

I know I'm preaching to the converted when I'm talking to folks on my flist, but what about the rest of America? Wake up, you buggers, and do something about this - for Crystal Lee and all the ones like her that it's NOT too late to save.

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I am so relieved to be British at times like this. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that some British patients are sometimes not treated with expensive drugs for financial reasons, and that's appalling, but at least the decision is taken by a team of doctors who balance up cost against likely success. It's NOT taken by a freaking insurance company.

In the aftermath of losing two back molars to abcesses in the last few months I've started on the bridgework today to repair some of the damage - or at least fill the gaps. I like my dentist. She's new, young, enthusiastic and thorough. The old one was great and I worried about the changeover when he retired, but I'm not disappointed.

Have you had yours?

Best Beloved,  Ageing but Active Mother and I all trooped down to the local health centre for our annual flu jab this morning. I've been having flu jabs for the best part of sixteen or seventeen years and though the doc said he didn't know why, it does also seem to be the case that immunisation against flu does also give you a certain amount of protection against the wheezles and sneezles.

There is no scientific evidence for this (he told me) but it seems to work.

As someone who was always very prone to catching coughs and colds which rapidly turn into somethig approaching bronchitis, avoiding them in the first place if I can is a sensible thing to do. I don't know about scientific evidence, but I can say that it has worked for me. Maybe it's all in my head - but that's fine if it works, it works.

I went through the whole of last winter without a sniffle.

Of course now I work from home I'm not exposed to as many people who have the dreaded lurgy, but for thirteen or fourteen of those years I was being hugged by random members of the audience after each concert - some of them only telling me afterwards that they were fighting off stinking colds. I wasn't entirely cold-free during my performing years, but I did maybe only have one (or at most two) a year whereas when younger I used to get them almost monthly.

In the UK anyone who has a compromised immune system due to illness or age (and that includes diabetics) gets a flu jab free on the national health (green_knight  this includes you now) but I noticed the other day that the pharmacy in the supermarket is advertising them for just ten quid for everyone else. Well worth it, I say.

BTW, green_knight  you are now also entitled to an immunisation against viral pneumonia and that's just a one-shot for life. Ask if your doc forgets to offer it.

I've got a flobby mouth courtesy of a visit to my dentist to have two lost fillings replaced. Blech.

But, horror of horrors, Mr Chaudhuri, my dentist of thirty years is retiring! I still think of him as a 'charming young man'. He restored my faith in dentists after I almost got my jaw dislocated by an extremely unpleasant dentist in Wakefield (unpleasant on many levels) whose name I have blocked from my memory.

I will really miss Mr Chaudhuri. Apparently he and the other partner are being replaced by two newly qualified girlies from Sheffield University. So I'm going to have to break in a new dentist next time. Luckily they will still take NHS patients - though they offer private dentistry as well for optional procedures and materials.

As I said yesterday we went to see Snow White - a local am-dram pantomime which our friend Phil was in. I am loyal to my friends and Phil was lovely as one of the Seven Dwarfs, one of the best things in it, in fact, but the rest of the panto... Oh boy... and I like pantomime.

To add insult to injury one of the girlies along the row pushed her way past during the performance and managed to tread on Best Beloved's sore toe - the one he lost the nail from a couple of nights ago. He went white. I thought he was going to scream. When the lights came up in the interval I spotted she was wearing stilletto heels.

OWWWWW!

Anyhow, much as we felt we owed it to Phil, we crept out before the end. I've never done that in a live performance before because I do appreciate the effort that goes into staging something like that... but...

So I didn't manage to get the binding done before going to the panto. Instead I got up early (for me) and I trailed all the way into Wakefield this morning to get Joe's architecture portfolio bound. Having spent the best part of five hours, yesterday, printing it perfectly... you guessed it... the binder-lady screwed up and ruined the first two sheets with a cut that went off the edge of the sheet. With no time to do anything else we photocopied the damages pages on to glossy paper. Not quite the same weight, but the best we could manage. i hurtled home again, arriving twenty minutes before the earliest time I'd booked the courier to find the DHL van sitting at my gate. Apparently the website is wrong and you can't get a pickup in our area after 1.00 and in all innocence I'd booked the collection between 2.00 and 4.30.

Luckily it's a courier service I've used before and - bless him - the driver waited. Then he stood around while I packed up the portfolio and with any luck it's already winging its way to the University of London, Department of the Built Environment. (The Bartlett.)

DHL get my vote every time. Great service.

As if slicing his knuckle to the bone last Monday wasn't enough, in the middle of the night I heard an awful 'Owwwww!!!!" followed by another 'OWW!" and several uninventive but colourful curse-words. Best Beloved had gone for a mid-night bathroom trip without putting the light on and had stubbed his toe on the box of Christmas decorations sitting on the landing waiting to be taken up into the loft. In rebounding from the toe-stubbing he'd cracked the stitched knuckle on the airing cupboard door, jerked his hand back and cricked his neck.

Now there's a tale of woe.

And when he did put the light on, he'd managed to knock off his toenail cleanly and completely with much accompanying blood.

I say again, OWWWW!

Now the blood and the knuckle gashed to the bone is something I have no problem coping with. I can do blood. I don't fall over or go green. But toes are something I'm more than squeamish about and toenails... well... there's just no way I'm ministering to that injury. I'll tut and cluck in the background and offer sympathy and hot sweet tea, but he's on his own with the toenail thing.

Euwwww!

When he'd stopped swearing and had time to laugh, he said he was worried about going to do some building in the barn today because his next job was hoisting boards up to the first floor with the electric winch and he kept remembering the words to the song 'Paddy and the Bricks' and with his luck...
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