Another prototype unveiled at another HQ. I drove. Found it easily. But the bloody underground car park was hell. However a day at secret location. More NDAs. I’d have to kill you if I told you what they’ve designed. We shared a lot of laughter, a lot of knowledge sharing. I used to be the ‘poster girl’ for their product. 10 years ago. My face is splashed ( literally) around hospitals everywhere using their first catheter product. People come up to me thinking they know me. They don’t. It’s me on their catheter instructions manual!!

As all urology appointments have been cancelled, as are the spinal stimulator checkups too, imagine my surprise to find I had 3 appointments at difficult -patients -severe -asthma clinic at BARTs. One appointment a week for the next three weeks. No idea what who why, I got there last Monday. The nurse who saw me pointed out it was not sensible to have all these appointments. She assured me she’d sort it. She would ring she said. She reckons I need urgent X-ray. But . She has no authority to book that. She promised to arrange it. She hasn’t rung nor booked xray. It’s bonkers isn’t it?

Bladder is haywire. Despite prophylactic nitrofurantoin MSU agrees with me. Need some more antibiotics. As GP only dipsticks and says ‘no action needed’, for £50 I sent it to lab Thankyou Jerome. And his amazing assistant B. She’s so bloody efficient.

I was a speaker at the Infection Prevention and Diagnostics symposium in Birmingham today. Great location huge conference centre bang next door to the Ginormous ICC. It wasn’t until I got there that the BAUS 2024 was taking place. Bang next door. BAUS stands for err something Urological Surgeons. Massive conference all the great and the good surgeons were there. As ‘twitter / x ‘ verifies. They never invite female patients. Very dangerous! They do invite famous men from the telly who’ve had various urology things. Just saying- outgoing president lady maybe couldn’t convince her board. Ah well.

Back to the conference next door – My bit was about diagnostics , anti microbial resistance and the overall nightmare of UTI diagnosis and respiratory disease diagnosis.

I made them laugh – King Queen and all the Japanese dignatories at the grand sushi bash last night Buckingham Palace. How many must have catheters ?uti’s ?coughs ?, pelvic floor issues ?7… anyone and everyone could be affected. No wonder the ladies wear long dresses.

I made some cry. At the end a young microbiologist came up to me. Hugged me. Thanked me. It turns out her husband had recently died. He’d had every catheter, infection and poor care leading to catastrophic infection. Thank-you she said. You said it as it is. ie it’s Crap.

Driving home through the terrible traffic ( should have got the train) I wondered what we could possibly do to help. Point of care diagnostics. Prevention. Stewardship. We have to sort this out.

Meanwhile just when surely nothing else can go wrong Mr Max-Fax saw me last night. Despite all these months and months of wiring up the jaw. It’s still about to lock dislocate or break. Surgery, which I’d so hoped to avoid, is now inevitable. I admire his honesty. He was kind. Caring. Empathetic. Don’t worry he said. We break your jaw. Pop titanium in and fix it all. I’m not sure he realised how green and shaky I turned. Oh fff maybe the nhs list is so long it won’t happen.

Before the start …