Back to the normal routine this week.

Train into London for the next Biologic for awkward patients at Barts Severe Asthma service. Lo and behold home kits are maybe now available. I got my training administered and await delivery of said kits from the pharma company. That is absolutely brilliant. Saving time and money for me but also for the NHS in more ways than one. Unfortunately the portal they use is called ‘Patients-Know-Best’. That actually has bugger all on it except clinic letters which are simply copy and paste generic clinic letters. It is therefore some major confusion that several text messages are telling me I have an appointment next week. No time. No department. No place . Anxious not to get expelled I have emailed the admin team. They are also perplexed. Ah well. No change there then. Actually ‘Patient -knows -eff -all ‘ would be a better name for the portal.

Meanwhile having finished the bladder intravenous stuff I seem ok ish this week on that front.

Teeth rewired yesterday in the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. All ok here too. The delays on M1 to get there were affecting everyone so although we were all late so was the clinic and we all kind of got sorted. I do just worry about theL&D scanner caravan in the car park. No one ever seems to go in. No one ever seems to come out. The trolley however moves. Hopefully no patient is locked in there!

The Post Office story and the total disregard for sub-postmasters has captured the public this week. This has of course been going on with no-one in the higher echelons of power doing anything about it, for 20 years. It strikes a chord. Not only does the CEO lady live in our town and is known to many of my friends here. It is not just her is it? Undoubtedly she must have peed off many people so badly that she is the target right now. But where was the rest of them. The software giant Fujitsu and the rest? Where were the politicians the managers of the Post office? Who and when will anyone be accountable for middle management intransigence? The bullying the culture of blame the scapegoating. It is eerily familiar isnt it. How dreadful to think of all those poor people working every hour of every day for the good of the community. To be persecuted and indeed pushed over the edge because no one said…stop there is something wrong here. How many times do we talk about the airline industry and their safety record which is so good. Why? Because of the culture of no fault. Learn from what goes wrong. See it say it sort it. For goodness sake.

NHS the ITV docu series is surely next on the pipeline? If it takes an ITV drama to get the attention it deserves. Asthma care for me personally is extraordinarily good despite the chronically useless software.. Asthma is life threatening. Bladders on the other hand are not life threatening but life limiting. How many times have I heard it said, bladderations are laughed at, ignored, postponed, just a massive muddle of non helpfulness. In my case arguing with the GP to get the lab to test the urine, trying to get urology to talk to microbiology, etc etc and I am lucky so lucky. Jerome is ever there to cajol, knock heads together, he is not afraid to get the right things done. He thinks outside the box. He works out who what where. Bloody lucky for me. But he cannot possibly do that for everyone . Meanwhile Daughter 1 has been in our local hospital. Perchance the Junior Doctors strike has proved a blessing. On the surgical assessment unit last week was the highly regarded Consultant Mrs Blogs. Having tried to see this one for four years, here she was in person. Blogs had the power to order up MRI, CT, bloods, urology, etc etc all of which should have happened ages ago. Let’s hope she can continue to sort this out.

Meanwhile a story to I hope make you laugh. In the multi tasking way of my days at the moment…hang on says you ….at the moment? Multitasking is my norm. Always has been.

Anyway, I was helping Mum to sort out Dad’s inflamed groin. As you do. Hopeless trying to get the GP, with the help of the carers ( yes at last we do have them !) we diagnosed a fungal infection. Possibly not helped by perhaps a uti caused by the indwelling catheter which has not been changed for so long. ( I am on thecase). We googled fungal. We perused Amazon and found women’s canestan…expensive. …men’s athlete foot stuff…pricey…and then hurrah we found men’s groin itch stuff. Cheap. Might work.

Meanwhile and in no way connected I was panicking about some flowers I had ordered on behalf of a group of us known as the ‘Bewildered Bridge Club’. Our leader Mrs 3 NoTrumps birthday was last week. I thought I had sorted the flowers. I seem not to have. In a panic I dashed out an order on Amazon…

The default addresses somehow got mixedup and I discovered to my horror that Dad was getting flowers from MOrrisons ( how? what?) and Mrs 3 No-Trumps was getting a supply of Jock Itch antifungal Cream.

I will let you know how I got myself into this mess and out of it ( well hopefully).

Stop press. I have just heard that the Morrisons ( !) flowers are dead already. Petals have drooped!