Category: united kingdom

Tuberculosis is at Lowest Levels.

Detected.

request for sputum test
sputum test request showing to exclude TB in fifty year old female within a national health system

Most British people in their fifties were vaccinated against Tuberculosis at school.

I was one of those that queued up and got my TB shot.

But how long does it last?

This was the advice researched and copied on 24th July 2021 from London, UK.

Independent advice from the Guardian newspaper.

TB vaccine BCG effective for twice as long as previously thought.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/aug/31/tb-vaccine-bcg…
31/08/2017 · Benefits of world’s only vaccine against tuberculosis were underestimated as new findings reveal it protects against the disease for at least 20 years.

American Advice – which is slightly worrying tbh, as a Brit who’s had it.

Vaccines | Basic TB Facts | TB | CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/vaccines.htm
TB Vaccine (BCG) Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is a vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) disease. This vaccine is not widely used in the United States, but it is often given to infants and small children in other countries where TB is common. BCG does not always protect people from getting TB.

United Kingdom of British Isles Advice – We have a National Health System.

BCG tuberculosis (TB) vaccine overview – NHS
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/bcg-tuberculosis-tb-vaccine
It’s less effective in preventing TB that affects the lungs, which is the more common type of TB in adults. Read the patient information leaflet for BCG AJV vaccine (PDF, 272kb) Read the answers to common questions about the BCG TB vaccine. Side effects of the BCG vaccine. Reactions to the BCG vaccine are uncommon and generally mild.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/bcg-tb-vaccine-questions-answers
The BCG vaccine contains a weakened strain of TB bacteria, which builds up immunity and encourages the body to fight TB if infected with it, without causing the disease itself. The BCG vaccination is thought to protect up to 80% of people against the most severe forms of TB for at least 15 years, perhaps even up to 60 years.

So why aren’t our NHS testing people with shadows on their lungs for TB??? I know this because I am one of the people who has been in contact with someone who has TB. I went on to have symptoms and diagnosed as COPD, but I’ve never had my sputum tested for tuberculosis because I had a vaccine thirty five years ago.

This worries me. I’m definitely not a doctor but it does interest me because it’s weird.

Just before covid19 hit our countries TB was starting to hit the headlines with a huge transmission in Wales killing at least one person.

A person has died following a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in a Welsh village.

A further 80 people in the Llwynhendy area of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, may have also come in contact with the disease and have been told to attend screenings for the condition in June.

And there was this…the first person to get corona virus 2019 was a Welsh teacher.

Connor Reed, 25, caught the strain while teaching English at a foreign language in a school in Wuhan – the epicenter of the outbreak – at the end of November 2019. As stated by the Evening Standard in May 2020.

This all adds up to some questions for me…What about you?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the geography of the United Kingdom, it includes Wales.

So, Still Nothing. TVT mesh saga.

Through frustration and tears I write but couldn’t feel less like writing.

Sounds coming from outside remind me of lives being lived to the fullest whilst I painfully pace the length of the flat to stop my muscles from wasting completely.

In April 2020 the health minister kindly apologised to Polypropylene mesh implant sufferers and promised our care would change. For some people, it has. They’ve been referred to removal clinics and have made a recovery.

Unfortunately, some of us, are falling through NHS guidelines and our GPs seem unable to get us on the correct pathway for treatment. It has now been three years since my implanting surgeon recommended my implanted TVT be removed.

In the past year my dedicated GP has referred me out and seen me returned back to her by three Gynae consultants. I’m so grateful that she continues to understand my concerns and push for me.

I suppose, like any bad conservation job, it’s difficult to find someone afterwards to sort out a satisfactory outcome. The hold up is simply put. There is a shortage of surgeons to remove the mesh.

I’m tired of being in pain. I’m tired of being tired. I’m bored at a level no one understands. I’m frustrated beyond what I thought was possible and I see no end.

What do I see? I see a future of dealing with it.

And, I am starting, just starting to do it.

Before, I was clinging on to recovery and getting my life back again. I’m realising and adapting in my mind to the real fact that I am going to be stuck like this; sat accessorized in adult nappies, lording it around trying to look hot in a wheelchair.

Tears sting my eyes when I say I didn’t deserve this. But, none of us did. The guy who came to the hospital to get his hernia repair, the woman who got her bladder fixed or myself who got the TVT mesh implanted during a necessary hysterectomy, none of us deserves what’s happened.

Of course, in this life no one promised me a life without pain. One isn’t born feeling fantastic. In fact it’s the complete opposite isn’t it? From our first tooth cutting into tender baby gums to our last poop being forced out of a dry arse; life is full of pain.

It’s different when the pain is not experienced by everyone. I’m obviously conflicted on this as essentially, no one promised me life would not have pain.

I suppose I’m saying I need to start getting out, using the wheelchair if I need to, and living my life again regardless of the TVT. There is zero point in waiting for removal as the health services have more important people to deal with.

So, it’s still me and my TVT.

Thanks for reading.

Arbitrary Punishments Given at School

Remember school days? Those days our elders told us we’d miss? I don’t but I have started thinking more about education as I get older. It is no easy task to manipulate children into good behaviour.

A popular punishment at school, after corporal punishment was made illegal, were English writing chores. The irony of this is not lost on me.

I was a smart arse in the 1970s and 1980s. Accepting ‘smart arse status’ in adulthood helps me to understand why I was punished. How many children were forced to read the British encyclopedias their parents were conned into buying?

Starting school late resulted in my adoption of terrible social skills. My short sightedness wasn’t discovered until half way through my middle school which led to unintentional trouble. Labelled a cheat, I’d copy other student’s work when teachers chalked information up on the blackboard.

The first punishment I remember was the unforgiving wooden ruler across my outstretched hand. Anyone going through this punishment will know it ‘builds character’ – a strange British term – conjuring up the courage to hold out your palm for the second and third will help harden one’s soul. I’m glad it’s illegal now.

The bad deed which warranted the violence against me? I was mixing paints. Unfortunately making a brown mess when I was trying to make white paint. At six years old I’d read about light spectrums but hadn’t realised how bad paints were as a medium for experimenting with light.

By the time in was secondary school my smart questions were annoying, and the punishments too. My least favorite was being given thousand word essays on arbitrary things like The Life of a Penny in Teacher’s Pocket or similar themed story, such as The Life of a Cocktail Stick in a Kitchen Cupboard.

As a child, with little experience of life, trying to fill pages with fiction outside of lesson time was punishing. I’d yearn for the simple ‘five hundred line’ tasks heaped on my fellow students. I was so proud of achieving the essay word counts and so devastated by the teacher’s criticisms or lack of feedback.

Towards the last term of school I found the courage to ask for lines instead of essays. I remember the joy of carbon paper (this copied what was written on the top sheet) and sticking pens together so each line was repeated enabling faster completion.

When my children attended school, in the 1990s/2000s, isolation was the school’s line of punishment. Forcing the ‘disruptive’ children to stay in a room in isolation from their friends is punishment but with other disruptive children it is cruel.

For myself, I think the inconvenience and pain of writing lines was a good punishment. Being smacked across the palm with a wooden ruler was sadistic, unnecessarily cruel and ineffective. I suspect the written essays were to entertain the teachers and to stop my questions, which is why I eventually disappointed them.

What punishments were popular at your school and do you remember why?

The 2525 Pilgrimage

Inspired by a Zega & Evans song, released in the 1960s, called ‘In the Year 2525’.

The 2525 Pilgrimage by Samantha “unextraordinarybint” Harris

Centuries since Corona Virus Alpha hit Earth devastating our population, I sit here using a rusty blade, scraping marks in hope that I won’t be discovered by our monitors. We use this ancient fridge for storing clothing; working well for keeping moths out, my up-bringers and I sharing it. Now, it will bare these words for history.

At school, we’re told our ancestors used the fridges to keep carcasses fresh. It was a time when humans battled with each other, spoiling the planet with poisonous weapons. A time when people murdered Earth’s other inhabitants; selfishly eating animals, using them as a source of protein, they’d manufacture products from their carcases and enjoyed wearing animal skins, even using bones for medicinal broths and industrial glues.

I’ve never known a cold fridge. The harnessing of electrical power was outlawed for humans in 2050. For our safety, AI automatic droids maintain our planet’s electrical grids. Distribution and supply is strictly rationed to Necessary For Life organisations and not squandered by people.

I’m told my ‘need to create’ is an escalation of my illness, so I must be cautious. I’m a committed New Beginning Believer but the evilness of bad mental health remains. Managing to physically scrape one word a day has taken discipline. My addiction craves more, risking raising my heart rate to a detectable level.

Weeks after the Corona Virus Zeta variant attacked the planet in June 2030 a cohort study showed how vulnerable humans became when out of their homes. As a major medical discovery it saved billions of lives but had not been welcomed by all. Deadly violent protests spread across the world faster than the virus, destroying cities and towns, cutting utilities and leaving land scorched with fire.

It is history now, how it was necessary for AI to oversee human health for The Common Good and the protection of our species and our solar system. Our homes, for our safety, had to become human cages.

Robots now distribute our care, limiting human error. Armoured vehicles travel streets delivering water tablets and nutrition, monitoring our vital signs so we rarely starve if we are viable. Thankful, we watch through holes we’ve piped into the hives on our windows.

Foxes, snakes, sheep, wolves and deer roam outside our homes on cracked tarmac. The grass verges, left to grow naturally, encouraging wildlife, are now host to the genetic insects released to combat stray humans carrying disease. Building nests and hives around us they are able to monitor movements keeping AI informed of our well being.

State television transmits a basic program service with special entertainment on Saturday nights. Generally television informs us of how the latest health programme progresses, which locations are expecting the Build Back Better vaccination robots and the daily birth rate over death rate graph.

International Communications are impossible for most since the satellites were, for our safety, reconfigured using the same space drones that humans had invented for mining exploration. Anti vaccination terrorists had to be stopped from using the networks to organise resistance and had been blocking The New Beginning Faith broadcasts.

Automatic trucks collect human waste weekly from each street moving it to a collection point where it’s transported by crane into giant airships run on biofuel. These craft transport the sweet smelling load to the ocean where it is released for the marine life to feed upon. Diet, controlled by AI, allows us to now produce nutrient rich waste which is useful until our deaths.

Few natural humans, other than royalty, can safely move around outside. We don’t have the genetic makeup. Crane drivers have outside protective freedoms. Having a skill AI can’t master, they bare witness to how the Build Back Better system is working. I’m assigned a crane operator as my lover. I pray we’ll be fruitful.

Gratefully, I’m able to leave home once in a lifetime. I’ve been researching my Life Pathway Journey on the battery run Ethernet computer. It will be so exciting to see The London Eye. One has to be patient as the current female pilgrimage age is the first month after one’s fifty-fifth birthday.

I pray I will still be considered worthy.

The End.

Comfortable Pants

In England we have ‘pants’.

These are our undergarments. Affectionately called knickers or grots these slips of material with elastic cover our private parts, and clean ones must be worn daily for good health.

Pants must not be confused with the American term for trousers.

This is about comfy pants for females. I suspect men need comfy undergarments too but I’m not in a position to talk on their behalf so I’ll just deal with fanny coverings…and again, fanny in the united kingdom means vagina and only the vagina. (Unless you have an Aunt called Fanny the root of many a joke here in England.)

Without getting into too much detail females have more down in the lower abdomen than males.

Men have guts and bladders. Women have guts, bladder, womb, fallopian tubes, ovaries and cervix all crammed in the same size space.

As with all things in life, once it’s out of the box, it harder to get it back in.

Meaning…

After childbirth the womb has expanded…the area is larger. Fitting back into the garments she wore before children isn’t always an option. In fact, let’s be honest, it’s rarely an option.

As I get older I find comfortable pants are missing from my drawers completely. It is a constant grind that every pair of pants I own have been cut like those shown in the photo accompanying.

Excuse me, I own ‘special’ pairs for my lover. You know, lovely sexy articles to stimulate our carnal juices but I’m not talking about these that are barely on for half an hour.

It’s my ‘day to day’ pants. My ‘bread and butter’ pants. These are the pants that I hope I don’t get knocked over and taken into hospital with. What would the nurses and doctors say?

Anyhow, I’m going to leave this here today in the hope that some undergarment manufacturer hears my moan and does something about it. Please stop putting such a tiny waist into big knickers. If you are making big knickers…who are you making them for?

We have a saying in England,

“Put your big pants on and deal with it.”

Bet you never imagine our big pants would actually look like this.

Have a nice day.

I Have A Sty (hordeolum) – babble

I don’t know what it’s called where you live but, here in the United Kingdom, a ‘sty’ is the name for an eye lid pimple brought on by stress. It starts small, ‘kinda prickly and ends up as a swollen, crusty mess that makes it hard to blink and see properly.

All one can do is manage stress, not cure it.

Could I list my stresses? Probably. The question is, would anyone want to read them…?

I’m being coy as I know what’s done it.

Two weeks ago I submitted a book to a literary agent to ask if they’d consider me. It’s 47k words long and much is riding on it being positively received.

Naively I thought I could submit a book then ‘get on with the next’. Now this mistake seems massive. I can barely concentrate on anything. My head is everywhere negative.

What if I can’t write? What if my ideas are rubbish or they hate the concepts? Doubts continue to bug me along many different paths of thinking. I purged my wp account in case they looked…but what would they be looking for? Will they see me or be coloured by what they read here? Will they find the right Samantha Harris as there are so many of us?

AGGGHHH it’s all too much…hence the eye.

I’m wandering around the flat doing the most stupid things…procastinating for sure, is one of them.

Astragalus root has bizarrely worked to take the sting out of the sty. Initially I was drinking the self prepared astragalus root tea for my chest pain (long story). The small white used roots looked like they could be soothing. Why not take a wild stab at it? I did nothing more than swipe the root gently but directly onto my sore eye lid and it eased.

So, I’ll keep the used roots to keep the inflammation down until the infection goes and I’ve made chamomile tea too in a bid to relax this afternoon. Apparently, it could be twelve weeks before the agent gets back to me with some sort of reply about my book.

TWELVE WEEKS !!!!

I’ll have no eyelids left by then and will need more tea.

Should I warn kids not to mess with herbs? Ah, they’ll be alright.

Thanks for reading.

White Magic is Everywhere – Song.

White magic goes unseen

White magic is in the green

It’s in the trees, in the grass, in the bees

White magic is in the breeze

White magic is everywhere

White magic, I don’t care

White magic floats between

It goes, unseen

White magic lady

White magic, ain’t shady

White magic is everywhere

It floats on every atom on the bright blue air

White magic is where it’s at

White magic, so get on back

White magic is everywhere

It floats on every atom that is in our air

White magic, you don’t have a clue

White magic, what we do

White magic, we spread it everywhere

And it lives in every atom upon our air

White magic is the key

White magic, for you and me

White magic, let’s get on down

And we’ll take down from the air, down to the ground

White magic is everywhere

White magic is in the air

Written today 9th June 2021.

Watford, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. Europe.

The Chamber Pot (adult real life story).

The Chamber Pot by Unextraordinarybint
TheChamberPot

Fishing boats bobbed with the movement of the waves against the walls of the barbican as I quickly walked across it’s cobbled stones. A strong wind forced me to pull my scarf tighter around my neck. I had no coat and was freezing waiting for him to answer the door. The walk from Mutley Plain had been painfully fresh. I’ve always found it impossible to keep warm in British winters. Pushing the ancient, wooden door open I followed Robert through the hall and into the study.

He sat in his usual place, at the head of a busy, tall table, his large frame filling the gap which worked as a doorway to the library. He collected ancient manuscripts and occult books. Taking his responsibility, to the English artefacts seriously, he’d built a temperature controlled environment for them. We discussed the Mona Lisa and Rembrandt before he suggested we start.

Nervously I climbed the well worn, wooden stairs to the upper floor. His studio was a jumble. Worked canvasses propped up walls, paints were set up on palates with painted pictures in various stages everywhere you looked, covered with large dusty, stained sheets which draped across the floorboards. He led me to where he’d already started and I tell him I’m impressed.

Robert was a master conversationalist as well as a brilliant artist (painter). Each of our meetings is remembered with fondness. He influenced me. No subject was off limits. He appeared to enjoy discussing the more intimate things in life, especially sex. I’ve met men like Robert all my life. He was gentle, loving and giving. No other men were so at ease with their sexuality. He asked me outright,

“Do you enjoy sex?”

Please remember that at this stage in my life sex is something which ‘happens to me’ and this overweight, greying man is at least twice my age (at least). I laugh at him. He continues,

“I’d love to make you orgasm. Nothing more. I’d just love to taste you Samantha.”

I don’t believe him and scoff at his suggestion. This is not good enough for Robert. He is affronted. He now wants to know why wouldn’t I let him lick me. With no reason to lie, I tell him, I don’t believe he wants to lick me just to make me cum. His expression is stunned and then he asks,

“Why not?”

Now, that was an interesting question.

My answer was long and badly expressed. I’d never had an orgasm and didn’t understand why men licked me other than to get my legs open. Oral sex seemed to be a momentarily affair before being presented with a penis to suck or envelop. I didn’t think I could cum, I suggested female orgasm wasn’t real and he assured me it was.

Robert asked me if I trusted him and held out his hand for me to hold. He led me through to a bed at the back of the studio and told me of it’s history before leading me through to a private bathroom of sorts featuring a sink and large gilt edged mirror fixed on the wall.

He stood me naked in front of the mirror, making me look myself. Robert persuaded the younger me to look at each of my reflected features. He told me that I was beautiful and worthy of worship..something I still have problems with today. He realised my self esteem was too low and as such I didn’t ask for pleasure, I didn’t know I could or should. We moved back to the four poster.

Passing me a large ceramic chamber pot he asked if I would mind emptying my bladder. It was cold and I’d been holding for hours so it took seconds for me to fill it with hot steamy urine. Robert took it from me as if it were a holy chalice; his hands either side and without hesitation, drank the lot, wiping his mouth across with his sleeve when he’d finished.

I was out of excuses.

I lay on the bed amongst the lace silk throws. Giving me the first and second orgasms of my life, Robert took away layers of fear that inadequate sex education, peer pressure and society had placed upon me.

As his tongue explored and licked I felt more worthy and empowered than I thought possible. I didn’t worry about how I smelt, tasted, looked or sounded. Pushing deep into my vulva, his tongue played, licked and teased my clitoris into spasms of joy that came over me in waves.

My first orgasm was like climbing a road hill on a bicycle, straining to reach the top then feeling my body flipping inside, as I fly over the peak doing wheelies and nothing is coming the other way to spoil the ride as I roll down the other side.

We continued to do this for weeks during breaks of him painting me. At the time I believed him to have several intimate relationships with women he had children with, around seventeen of them. Robert and I were never ‘true loves’ but we enjoy meals out together and probably some of the best conversations I’ve had. He was a profoundly interesting person with a depth of personality not often found.

My informative years (the 80s) had been full of advice for sex safe and how to not get pregnant or get HIV. It was heavily aimed at gay people and avoiding sexually transmitted disease. There was very little information for straight women other than how to put on a condom, how not to do it in the arse unless you’ve stretched (still hurts) and how to give head, (it’s suck not blow).

At twenty years old, it was liberating to talk to someone like Robert. Someone who knew something about sex, the bones of how it really worked. An older man. I’d been having consensual intercourse for five years before meeting him. No lover had brought me to orgasm. Like many women I had pretended out of boredom, embarrassment, pity and wanting it to finish.

Without meeting Robert I may have gone on to become one of life’s unfortunates, those who’ve never had the pleasure of an orgasm. His honesty, courage, patience and intelligence saved me many miserable decades and I’m proud to have known him before his premature death.

I’ve gone on to have many wonderful lovers and learnt much about carnal knowledge but it would still be over twenty years before I purchased a chamber pot.

Thanks for reading.

Feeling Persecuted in London

I woke up upset again today.

Recently the sun has been shining. We had a week long, glorious heat wave.

The government released most of us from our homes from covid19 lockdown rules and we’ve been able to move around freely, with or without masks. Most of us made the most of it.

And, we are looking forward to complete freedom on the 21st June.

So, why do I feel low?

Could it be because I’m surrounded by untruths?

As I sit and write this, a mist hangs low over Watford in Hertfordshire and sirens sound loudly on the roads outside my tower block. It is always busy where I live, on the outskirts of London.

Many things bounce around my head, none more than the attack on myself in 2012.

I try so hard to not think about it…so hard.

I went to the fair on Sunday. Three hours of screaming and colour. It was probably the second time I’ve been out with my grandchildren. It was amazing. Everyone was happy and smiling. I was smiling. I was laughing.

So, why don’t I wake up thinking about that happiness?

I’m trying to avoid news channels but I live in London. It’s impossible not to know the news as I’m attached to youtube most of the day.

I check to see if the system is working yet.

For me, this is done by putting a victim’s name into the BBC news search box. Not mine.

No, it isn’t being covered.

He doesn’t matter.

So, why do I feel so upset. They tell he doesn’t matter.

Roll on ‘complete freedom’.

Thanks for reading.

Photo is of german facial protection mask from 1600s currently on display in a Combined Military Museum England, UK. Sorry about my wheelchair being reflected in the glass! I wondered if this mask would protect me from the virus, G7 or G5?

Blimey. Looks like I’m stuck with the TVT mesh.

The last few months have been hard. As hard as the last few years? Maybe not. Probably because my expectation level has dropped to 0.01 above zero.

Those that read my blog will know I had a vaginal polypropylene mesh tape implanted in me during a hysterectomy for Endometriosis. I thought it was, and I was told, it was, an inert material designed to hold my bladder up like a sling which would help with the stress incontinence they said I had.

When I woke up from the surgery in 2005 I felt an intense painful tension across my pubis…which I still have. It feels like I need a wee urgently and feels like something is cutting into me.

It feels like cystitis. I moaned about it since..the implanting surgeon gave me medication to ‘relax’ my bladder…as all they could find in my wee samples was blood, just a small amount.

The medication didn’t work and so ensued a fifteen year investigation as to the cause of this blood, pain and urgency. My GP referring me here there and everywhere to try and find the cause. Me becoming sicker and sicker.

I’ve done tons of physio. I’ve done diet restriction, addition and subtraction. I kept a food diary for two years. I kept an activity diary. I analysed every part of my life….and changed it. Including my work – several times – as everything I did seemed to irritate my groin. I did this for years. I eventually became exceptionally ill and was put on an NHS palliative care program.

My daughter got involved, together, through research we found that the TVT mesh that I’d had implanted in 2005 had left women with the symptoms I was complaining of. But, the kicker was, the longer it was left in situ the harder, almost impossible, it was to remove.

It was not designed to be moved.

It was designed to cause a ‘healing’ response from the surrounding tissue and build a tissue mass within my pelvic cavity. It was this mass which would then, in theory, hold the bladder in place. The TVT mesh’s rough edges were designed to irritate and cause the foreign body reaction which hurts us.

So, my lawyer contacted me yesterday to say until I have a doctor who admits my pain is caused by the TVT I have no case. Fifteen years of investigations and lies amount to nothing but exactly what they are.

I think the cost should be counted. I’m sat at home, on full disability, I’m 52 years old.

I was working full time. I’d retrained to become an electrician to be more physical and left modelling behind – I could no longer stand up in the shoes and it got me no where. Nothing worked.

I don’t complain about not being able to walk as I do have Ehlers Danlos but is this is being used as an excuse not to treat me? I got referred by my implanting surgeon for ‘consideration of removal of TVT’ in 2018 after I presented him with evidence of my continued ignored symptoms since 2005.

I’m no closer to removal now than I was in 2018. Further away really, as the removal specialist to which I was referred left the NHS soon after I saw her in Oxford 2019 (with my evidence) and then the hospital discharged me last month as they said they don’t have funds for TVT removal.

I was hoping to get somewhere with lawyers to go private as I know the government is refunding women who have done this. It seems discriminatory that us poor people reliant on the NHS are being pushed to the back of the queue and, as it appears in my case at least, still ignored.

So, no pay out. No removal as yet…Having been discharged from Oxford I’m not even with a consultant gynaecologist. It looks like I’ll be holding on to this torture device for a while longer.

Yeah, I know Matt Hancock apologised to all of us but he just says the right thing for the camera.

Thanks for reading.

On a good note I did submit my first book to a literary agent. At least I can think straight again.

Hard

Is that Samantha Harris?

Yes.

I’m the consultant who took over your case last year.

Oh, hello.

Sorry, it’s taken so long to get back to you.

‘pleasantries’

Bombshell

The hospital can no longer perform the surgery to remove the TVT mesh. We were unable to secure funding.

Yes, we do have the expertise to remove TVT mesh by laparoscopy.

No, the clinic which has been funded doesn’t have the expertise.

I’m sorry Ms Harris.

Yes, I will write to your GP who will need to refer you to the removal clinic.

Bye.

Thank you Doctor. Bye.

Summing up as I can’t write about this. It hurts too much.

Interference From Software

Let’s talk about interference. I live in England, UK. We are now post Brexit.

Am I the only one getting frustrated with the interference of programs online while I’m trying to write? From searching to editing, the robot programs ( whom you did not ask for help) interfere.

Predictive search…I can’t stand this.

I can type. I don’t need help….I know what I am going to search for….no matter how often I try I will never understand it’s predictions and it’s results.

I am pretty sure that Google is sexist. I cannot get my site listed for love or money. See the featured image of this article for my search results for my own site… However, I have had problems with google mail and youtube for years. In fact I just paid for google to recieve my emails which they’d locked up…bizarre. I got some messages from five years ago…

Anyhow, it’s not just google misbehaving.

Microsoft was my chosen program for writing and editing my books…I’m 51 years old, it’s familiar.

I’ve had my hotmail account since last century and this is not a stretch of the truth. It doesn’t appear to be working now, at all, I’m trying not to panic. Many of us are affected so I’m sure it will be soon be fixed…

I have faith in you microsoft to fix the hotmail…however Word is lost, I think.

Does anyone know of a writing and editing program which is not cloud based? I am having real security issues with word and microsoft. I’ve been locked out of one laptop completely as I accidently removed it from my devices….no way around this it seems, I cannot get the machine into the BIOS screen to safely reboot.

Thankfully, being an electrical nerd I have a few devices around so can usually manage to get one of my machines online…however, I am not an IT nerd and I am out of touch.

I’m using the paid for version of Word…just incase some of you are judging me lol.

Months ago, I spent days trying to retrieve some writing and editing. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you guys how frustrating and time consuming this is. It also messes with my general work writing planning as I think I’ve edited something but then find out it hasn’t been done after all.

Asking yourself whether you’ve written this or that for a character and having to read through to find out, takes time and messes with confidence.

I contacted microsoft about my missing files and edits. They ‘fixed’ the software and apologised for my loses. However, as a writer of fictional adventure it’s not so easy to find your place again…especially when you don’t have faith that your changes will be saved.

It’s slowed my writing down and I feel stuck. I’m learning on the job as I’m disabled and it’s the only thing I can currently do in my own time etc when I’m well enough. I get tired easily but am always thinking about plot lines and character plays. I suffer from memory fog so need to be able to write when I can with out too much hassle or remembering where I am.

I’m I really looking at buying a typewriter? Surely not? Where would I get ribbons???

Hopefully someone will see that there is a gap in the market for writers with unreliable broadband and memories.

Until then I write on a laptop which I have disabled the wifi on. The bulk of my work being stuck in word on this laptop. I’m grateful that I did a hard copy, printed off for my alpha reader. However, many adjustments have been made since then.

But it’s not just the logistics now, it’s the feeling of insecurity which is holding me up.

I would love to write offline but with editing assistance, spell check etc. Why is this impossible? What am I missing? Is the interference from software programs necessary? Spellcheck not being on here is bad enough…why not? It’s the simplest thing…

Cloud or nothing? I’m hoping someone will give me some advice here, I really don’t mind paying for the right software but it mustn’t be on a disk as I don’t have a diskdrive (who does now?) Gig pen software doesn’t appear to be a thing yet…? So, I realise I would need to download the software initially…there are so many editing programs but they are all cloud based from what I can see.

Thanks for reading.

The Fall

The grateful stood back

Watched

While we attacked

The blood spewed

Our eyes avoiding

The tortured

They knew

The Great Four sat

Surveyed, reviewed.

Others, apathetic,

Reigned

Bonded to greedy games

Enemy brought in

Boxed bright

Fuelling winnable fights.

She slips out from within

Unwanted, ugly, thin.

Her plan, simply to survive

To build, to love and to lie.

Understanding the lines in the sand,

She gathers feathers

To softly land.

The end.

By Samantha “unextraordinarybint” Harris.

I hope that this poem resonates with some readers.

staycalmcarryon

Lab Rat Age – Lockdown Poem

Isolating for covid nineteen

All social distancing

It’s now twenty twenty-one

Another lock down has begun

Pfizer, Astra Zeneca and J & J

Motivated with shares and graphs

They wipe us away

Like fleas on an arse

Looking back to where to begin

I came across the story of Aspirin

Linked to Spanish Flu, who knew?

Pharma have us by the balls

Wanting funding for a new cause

Just how many more variants

Can really be found

In residents isolating, gone to ground?

We’ve vaccinated millions

Yet death figures soar

It takes no super sleuth

To unlock the cage

On Britain’s new,

Lab Rat Age.

The end.

Thanks for reading

copyright Samantha Harris (unextraordinarybint) January 2021

No Better – Review Stapled Hemorrhoidopexy. Honest/Blunt.

A week ago I had my appointment at NHS colorectal specialist regarding my butt pain.

This is now the third hospital I’ve been seen for looking into this. I wish they’d share medical records… I’m reminded of how, last decade, I used to go from hospital to hospital over the bladder pain. Then I read an article which told me it could be the TVT polypropylene mesh.

I read through the doctors letters that I had and saw that it was being mentioned as okay when I wasn’t really aware that this was what they were looking at.

Each consultant said the same thing “no erosion of the TVT”. I know now that there is no possible way they could have seen this by these investigations and each one of them lied.

Taking you back to 2005 when I had an Hysterectomy for Endometriosis because of night sweats and crippling pain. I was discharged from the ward six days after my surgery without clearing my bowels. I was re-admitted five days later having still not cleared my bowels.

Four years after that I am having a Stapled Hemorrhoidopexy, which I am unaware is a new procedure. The story of getting to that point is a whole book of horrors for another day.

I wake after the Stapled Hemorrhoidopexy in what the medical profession disgustingly call “exquisite pain”. That is not the correct term. The correct term would be horrific pain that will never be forgotten, worse than child birth. I woke screaming like a banshee. There was nothing exquisite about it. Sick sacks.

If you look up Stapled Hemorrhoidopexy, the gumph will tell you it is a painless, minimal invasive procedure and that you will be back to work the next day. It is not true. Far from it. This is a cut and shunt that you will be lucky to be standing up comfortably the next week, let alone the next day.

It definitely doesn’t suit everyone and if you have Ehlers Danlos like myself I would recommend not having it and demanding the older technique with biological material and a gentle hand. A huge mechanical stapler being shoved up your arse is not easy to recover from.

I have not yet found out what they used to fix the cut, the surgeon told me it was a ‘composite ring’. I am in the process of getting my medical records because of the TVT Mesh case I am trying to bring against the NHS, I am trying to find what this ‘composite ring’ is made of…because of my butt pain whilst I’m there.

It’s been eleven years since I had the Stapled Hemroidplexy to correct my evacuation problems. It didn’t work. It never worked and now it’s incredibly painful and has been for a few years – getting worse as time goes by.

Care is bad for women patients in the NHS. Since closing the women’s hospitals we have to travel hundreds of miles. I’m in so much pain, it is incredibly hard to to travel to several different areas of the country for what is essentially an inch difference on my body.

Common sense seems to have left the building and thousands of people are left on benefits because of operations and procedures like this…it costs the government and the tax payer millions.

During my recent (Dec 2020) consultation I was not asked my history…we didn’t have time. My kind doctor told me that my upper and lower abdominal CT Scan, poo sample and blood results had all came back normal.

To me, that is instantly worrying. They’d done a chest CT too… I have bullous lung disease, or cystic lungs…clearly visible on a scan if any one looks at it. At stage four I have a heavy shadow on my right lung unavoidable to any eye let alone a trained eye of a radiographer.

As a patient being told that they can find nothing wrong when you are unable to sit down during the consultation is an unpleasant situation. I had no option but to have the poor consultant physically examine me. She would be sure to feel the rectroentrocele (or something) to show that I am not mental.

There is no understatement when I say it really fecking hurt.

Like last year at Watford General, it was very difficult and upsetting.

More painful was her finding something, checking with me that it hurt, and then pushing on it…the pressure made my heart flip and my ears pop. I tried to go through the wall on the other side of the bench to get away from her soul pressing finger.

The doctor handed me a wipe and some tissues. Getting dressed I wondered what she had found and how on earth I was going to get through Christmas in so much pain.

The doc has told me I am in pelvic spasm and given me some cream to use until I see her again early next year. I will let you know how it goes. I’m due to see her again in February 2021 – unless we are still in covid19 lockdown and it’s cancelled.

Thanks for reading.

Poor guy.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51172093_Hemoperitoneum_as_severe_and_unusual_complication_in_the_stapler_recto-anopexy_for_hemorrhoidal_prolapse_Case_report

Thursday is the Day – journal entry

So, I went for my CT scan at Luton hospital last week. The whole thing was utterly exhausting, and it was hard for me to keep things in perspective. I did get through it, I remained polite, I got my scan and left. This coming Thursday I will return to Luton Hospital and find out whether there is something sinister or not.

I find things difficult at the best of times but getting around during the covid19 pandemic is in league of its own, one needs a degree in logistics. To be frank, I’m in so much pain, the drive itself was a chore and I was pleased to arrive in plenty of time and find the disabled carpark fairly easily.

Because I use a wheelchair and/or a trolley seat (a mobility aid which means I can walk a bit and then sit for a bit) I had the foresight to call the hospital to check where I had to go. The information they had sent through the post didn’t include anything for disabled people. I wanted to make sure the scanning dept. was okay with me not having the blood test for the kidney function, as I wasn’t having the contrast.

The lady who spoke to me on the phone was really helpful and assured me that they always see people on time so not to arrive early, else I’d be waiting in the cold and that it was fine about the dye, I didn’t have to had the contrast.

The journey went well, I did arrive early in the carpark and thought it wise see the scanner zone and check out its location. Good job I plan for bad luck as it took me ten minutes to get out of the carpark.

I was not happy. You cannot imagine the pain I am in when I stand up. I have a walking stick and a light weight frame on wheels which pulls out into a seat. I walked around the disabled carpark, twice. I then pulled out my seat and sat down. A white van was parked near me. I could see someone sat in the driver’s seat. I stare at the windscreen.
The window of it starts winding down and a man puts his head out of the driver’s side. He shouts across to me,

“You okay love?”

“Not really,” I reply. “Am I expected to jump this fence to get into the hospital? Where’s the exit?”

He laughed.

Yeah, very funny, I thought, as I was barely keeping the tears at bay. He pointed towards the wooden builder’s hording wall just in front of us and said,

“It’s on the other side of that. Just go around to the right there, around the corner and you’ll see it.”

I thanked him, gave him a smile which hopefully did not say you fucking arsehole for watching me for what seemed like an eternity, stood up with the aid of my stick and pulled my trolley around the white painted hoarding and, yes, I found the exit of the carpark and finally, into the hospital.

How hard would it have been to put a sign there?

It was then a further ten minute journey for me of walking, sitting, walking to get to the zone where the scanner was. I arrived at 9.25am for my 9.30am appointment. The weather temperature was three degrees according to my car. I was glad to be wrapped up and was feeling smug that I had a flask of tea in the car for when I returned to it. My heart was proper pounding in my chest from the effort, but I was pleased I’d not used my wheelchair as it had all been up hill.

I had my mask on. I’ve got a black fabric one as I have lung disease and need to breathe. Since I was little, I’ve covered my mouth in the cold. It hurts less when you breathe in through a scarf or big fluffy collar or cowl. I don’t mind wearing the mask but when I walk, I cough. Nothing clears the pathway faster, like Moses parting the sea as I walked through the hospital grounds, people crossed over the road rather than walk near me.

I found the area where I needed to be as a kindly man could see I was lost and struggling. He pointed out that I was really close, and but for the lack of signs I would have known.
The kindness of strangers is something I’ve come to rely on since becoming sick. I’m thankful that as a tall person I used to help people out when I was able. As a tall person you are obliged to help out shorter people or people in wheelchairs, it’s part of the ‘tall people’s’ code.

Arriving in Area D…the CT scanner. I realized that it was directly opposite Area C, which is the children department. When I say opposite, I mean the CT Scanner door was approximately two metres from the entrance to the children’s hospital.
I only point it out as they were queuing to get in and I had to wait amongst them.

Social distancing rules have seen the hospital remove seats and benches, so I was pleased with my trolley seat and tried to position myself so that when I coughed, I was facing the scanning unit rather than the pathway. I heard several envious comments about my seat.

I feel it is an ill thought out plan to keep people waiting in the same area where sick children are also waiting. It was impossible to social distance. In order to get their temperatures checked before being allowed into the hospital this queue was being pushed passed by people leaving the hospital too.

Also, it is wrong to make people stand in the cold when there is a respiratory illness going around.

Getting temperatures checked before being allowed INTO the hospital. There are too many things wrong with this…I mean the point of coming to the hospital is that you are ill.

I listened as one by one the parents were told that only one of them could attend by the side of their sick child whilst being made to stand next to strangers coughing. There was one nurse on checking them in and she was doing a cracking job at moving the queue along. I cannot blame the staff, but surely common sense would suggest this queuing does not meet the anti-transmission guidelines.

As per a sign’s instruction, I knocked on the scanner unit’s door and waited. Nothing happened so I waited until exactly 9.30am and knocked again. A serious looking man put his head around the door and asked my name. I inwardly cringed as I feverishly hoped someone else would be in there and I’m not alone with him but keep my anxiousness under control smile and give my name. He doesn’t smile back, nods acknowledgement, repeats my name and closes the door again.

A few minutes later he opened it again and tells me that they have a patient in, and it shouldn’t be much longer. Then he squeezed passed me to go get a cup of tea. I will never know whether it was for him or the patient. I did feel that when he passed me with his warm cup of tea, he had a proper smug look on his face.

This is the perceived racism I feel when faced with some health staff since the attack, stuff I didn’t notice before but now take more personally. The sly looks. The extra waiting. The not smiling back when you smile at them. I’m more wary now, that is sad. I used to just accept it but now I cannot help but question if I am waiting longer because of my name or something else I cannot control.

I was coughing pretty much constantly by the time they opened the door, and the patient came out. I was in at 9.50am and was not in a great frame of mind. The tea man introduced himself, as the radiographer and then started to question my unsuitability claim for the contrast dye.

Back in March 2019 I had an MRI and I had contrast. It was awful and the burning didn’t stop for a month. A blood test, taken in A&E in April, showed my kidneys were showing signs of damage. The doctor told me to stop drinking alcohol rather than listen to me (and my daughter) that it was the contrast dye. I don’t drink alcohol. Not all white people like it. It is water usually in my wine glass so that I look like I’m joining in.

I did my own research and found out that people who have undergone lots of surgical procedures may not be suitable for the dye. The burning I was feeling was at the areas where they’d cut into my body at previous occasions and operations. The ions in the dye tend to group together in these areas which can cause burning sensations and pain. I don’t know why it affects the kidneys.

The MRI scan last year had taken over an hour and I’d eventually asked for it to finish as I couldn’t lie on the bench any longer. The report came back as everything okay. They didn’t note my lung disease, the TVT mesh, my leaky heart valve or the rectum staples. The only thing they noted was that I didn’t have a womb, but my referral letter had said I’d had a hysterectomy.

I thought they’d gotten me muddled with another patient, but this was all at Watford last year, now I was at Luton. Different time, different location and hopefully a different outcome.

I hand Mr tea radiographer man, the forms which they’d sent me. These are forms giving consent for use of the dye and for consent for the images to be used in research and the blood request forms.

He looked a bit annoyed.

On the forms I’d written I consented for diagnostic purposes only and not the contrast injection as I have a compromised immune response issue adding it is not suitable for me. And I signed it.

Clearly, I wanted the normal CT scan and as I had already phoned up them about it, I didn’t see why I needed to justify it again to an arrogant radiographer who obviously thought I was doing it just to annoy him. He came around from behind his glass screen.

“Who said you can’t have the contrast?”

“I did” was my response and I went on to tell him what had happened, but he waved his hand at me and went back to his little booth…he shouted,

“Which hospital did you have the MRI at?”

I replied and then watched him call Watford General. I look at him and I’m thinking…WTF. If he thinks for a moment, he can bully me into something which I know will hurt me he is sadly mistaken, and I start putting my coat back on.

I can hear him on the phone…”yeah, Samantha Harris, says she had a reaction to the dye….”

I catch the eye of the female nurse helping him. I tell her silently mouthing the words…”I’m going to go now as I’m not having the dye.”

I start to stand up as he isn’t listening…he is not listening to me at all. I’ve not had the blood tests to show that my kidneys are fine for the contrast dye. I’d had this at WGH, and it had come back okay. It obviously was not okay otherwise my kidneys would not have looked like a heavy drinkers a month after the scan.

He marches over to me and gives me the forms, releasing them just before I get my hand to them.

“You may as well have these back then.” He states as they fall down on floor near my feet.

He returns to the glass screen booth and the nurse introduces herself and helps me get up on the bench. I coughed a lot. I managed to lie still for the few seconds it takes to take the scan. I’m told I can go home as soon as I am dressed.

I make my way back to the car. I pour myself a cup of tea and cry. I then realise I’ve forgotten to get all the blood tests the consultant wanted done. I cry a bit more. I’m too tired to go back into the hospital, I drive home carefully and fall asleep until the next day.

I almost cried when the blood clinic nurse put the needle in my arm for the blood tests. It was nothing to do with her technique, it’s obviously me.

I think this shows that I am a baby. My pain threshold must be exceptionally low to be almost on the ceiling for a little blood being taken.

To me, this has to be a good sign.
Now it’s a waiting game.

I find out on Thursday afternoon what the colorectal consultant thinks about my sore behind…she is called Dr Brown. Bless her.