When I was writing my post yesterday, I let everything about the day before just pour out of me as I wanted rid of it and to simply move on with yet another change in my life but ready to adjust and get used to it, well that was the plan. Part of what I had to do yesterday was to sort out all the bits and pieces needed to set the prescription delivery service up and running in the hope that it is going to remove one hassle from my life at least. It meant I had to make a phone call, but that was clear in my head what I needed from them and to find out what they needed from me, simple. I had only found one company online that was working across Glasgow, which had surprised me as this is the biggest city in Scotland and one of the biggest in the UK, but all I needed was one company. I am sure that you can already guess that that didn’t work out at all, they don’t cover this side of the city and they couldn’t help me at all with the name of a chemist who did, all they could suggest was that I went to the main street in our area and checked with the chemist there if they could help, not much help when you are housebound, so it was back online and back to my search.

I couldn’t find anything that was actually in Glasgow, so I decided to try the big boys who serve the entire country and on first glance it appeared there were several there that could help, that was until I started to fill in their online forms. One by one they fell apart, none could cover even the simplest things, most are based down in England and wouldn’t accept the fact that prescriptions in Scotland are free and they wanted full payment for each item. I found two that could deal with the country difference but when it came down to it, it turned out that they couldn’t deliver restricted drugs as in Morphine or MST, they would need to be collected from one of their local stores, not what the whole thing is about really. I actually thought I had found the one and only company who could help me but there was an issue on their website and I couldn’t manage to get the details required on to the site, so I sent them an email with the details of what I wanted and went to bed for my nap. Despite the fact that I was late in actually going to bed, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was running a hundred miles an hour and all I could think of was the frustration that was going made inside me over sites that didn’t work, people who made promises but had hidden reasons for breaking them and the stupidity of a world where being housebound meant you where the exact type of person their service should be helping, yet they couldn’t help the very people who needed them the most. Once again, this was turning out to be a service for the fit, healthy and lazy, not the ill, disabled and desperately in need of help. The most annoying part of it all, the fact that once again no one could actually put together a website that was simple and straightforward enough that you don’t waste hours filling things in, in the belief that this is what you are looking for, only to find at the last minute, that you couldn’t use it due to a hidden rule.

I had been lying there for about half an hour when I heard the phone ring, well actually I wasn’t totally sure if it was as I had my earplugs in as normal, so I quickly removed one and listened. I could hear Adam talking and I know his telephone voice so well when it comes to him talking to someone he doesn’t know, I guessed it was the company I had emailed. Luckily he was still on the phone by the time I was dressed and in the hallway, so he handed the phone over to me. Their company although in England didn’t have a problem with my being in Scotland or our free prescriptions, but they did have a problem with everything else. For them to deal with my prescriptions I would first have to get the doctor to post to me my prescription, they I would post it to them, then they would post the drugs to me, minus the restricted ones, all said with the bubbly voice of a sales person, she didn’t get a sale. Adam then took over and said he was going for a walk and he would go into every chemist he could find until he could find one who could help. He came home quite quickly actually, the second one he entered was more than happy to help and he returned with all the simple details require to get the whole thing up and running. I have to admit that I am just waiting for something to go wrong, but we at least can try it, I just need to call the doctors today so that we can start the whole thing going by giving them the first of the repeat prescriptions and hand that into them, along with the signed forms.

This whole thing is yet another example of what I have been seeing now for a few years, the world really isn’t set up to deal with anyone who is off grid in any way, be that simply being a wheelchair user or being housebound. We are such a minority that even those who we believe are there to help us, don’t even consider the fact we exist. First there are the Doctors who can’t understand that a medical problem that may not seem too important for a fit and healthy person, but totally destroy us and leave us so ill we can’t function. Then the hospital visits which leave you exhausted and drained for days, because your body is so ill, it can’t manage the simple process of dressing and leaving the house in an undignified manner of a stair climber, then waiting for hours to come home again. Dental care that is denied to us as the NHS will only supply that horrid stairclimber and an ambulance if you are visiting a hospital and won’t take anyone to their GP or Dentist, both which I see as medical. Web sites that you can’t place an order on unless you have the most pointless thing in the world for someone who is housebound, a mobile phone or can’t supply a delivery service as they only do click and collect. Companies who supply discounted items and services, but only if you can get to them and shops, restaurants and so on who don’t make the changes really needed to allow wheelchair access. Town planners who have never sat in a wheelchair and don’t understand that a camber on the pavement means you can’t go any distance in a manual chair without being forced by the slope into the road, or lower some curbs but not all, so you land up stranded without any choice but to backtrack and try a different exhausting route. Computer programs that should help us, but we can’t try before we buy, as there is no way of knowing if they will help without being able to test them and that’s before we talk about cost. Now there is also of course the latest edition, Chemists who will only supply a pickup and delivery for those who don’t really need it and those are just a few of the one I could list.

Being chronically ill, disabled or housebound means that life is already harder for us, but the thing that makes it the hardest are all the things we are excluded from, just because none of them even thought of anyone other than themselves and those like them. Being housebound you would think that these days the world is still open to us thanks to the web, it has made life so much more bearable, but it also is the source of huge frustration and for no other reason than a little thought. It costs almost nothing these days for businesses to make their services known online, yet here we are in 2015 and to find a company that can assist, still means being mobile or having someone else who can do things for us, it shouldn’t be like that.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 12/03/13 – Independent dreaming > http://bit.ly/YhElSD

Paul Gambaccini, the person who caused me so much distress yesterday morning, I remembered his name 24hrs on from when I needed it. I remember finding him rather annoyed and a reason for switching the radio off, may be this was some kind of revenge. At least I………