My blow up cushion has arrived and I know that I have to give it a few days before I can say if it is helping or not but at the minute it isn’t. It may sound life a really silly little thing, but it feel to me as though I have spent the last 6 months sitting on a wooden bench with no escape. I am sure you know what it is like to sit on a hard bench for a few hours, well that will set the picture but you have to add into that the pain that I also get in my legs is heightened by the pressure on the nerves in the back side and the back of my thighs. Without the right support I am in terrible pain, The only place that I find any relief is to lie on my bed, that to me is not an option as I don’t want to be bed bound until I can’t walk, that I will accept, but not being able to sit is just silly!

I have been trying to get through to the hospital, it is nightmare, i have been put through to two wrong department so far and on my third attempt, well I have typed this entire sentence with one hand, if that gives you any idea of the time I have been waiting……. We are off again, guess what wrong department again, back to reception and she cant find the number….. Phone ringing… answer machine asking me to dial an extension number… Right I have given up and called the Doctors again, they can’t help as the Surgery Secretary is on holiday until Monday and she is the only one who deals with hospital appointments. I am leaving it until Monday when she returns.

I can’t actually believe that I got such great example of our wonderful NHS systems, where patients are now meant to be able to make their own appointments and control the whole system. OK I am a little foggy and my speech is slurring a bit with the normal stutter but if I can’t do this, I doubt that the millions of people who are supposed to deal with it manage ever. I am joking here but I can’t help but wonder if this is one way they keep the waiting list down, muck us about so much that we eventually tell them to stick their appointment.

I wish that me the Business Operations Manager could get hold of the whole stupid system and sort it out. Adam works at that same hospital as I am trying to get an appointment at, the stories he tells my of how the admin side works is horrific. I would take the whole strange system they use, through it out and start again, it is unbelievable that in 2012, they can’t even get a set of notes ordered in time for the patients appointment which would have been made 2 to 4 weeks before the appointment date. What he tells me makes me angry as a Manager, angry as a patient and angry as a tax payer. I’m off to get a strong cup of coffee and take several deep breaths.