Various things delayed us this morning but we had nothing to really rush about for so getting up a little later than planned did not distress us. However, it was a really gloomy day and raining quite hard – however, if the weather had been a tad colder then the precipitation may have fallen as snow so under the circumstances we were not dspleased. After our normal breakfasting, we made tracks to go to Droitwich despite the weather. En route, I made three attempts to call in at a variety of retail outlets to pick up a copy of ‘The Times‘ but failed every time so I came to the conclusion that perhaps the print run and/or distribution had been a victim of the weather. When we got to Droitwich and got Meg into the wheelchair, we nearly came a cropper. The roads en route to Droitwich had been pretty flooded but absolutely passable and when in Droitwich, I though I espied a low kerb and promptly drove the wheelchair off it. But I had been deceived because the drain water was level with the kerb itself and what T thought was flat was a bit of a drop. Fortunately, I grabbed hold of Meg before she went flying forwards and whereas normally I hold on to her hood to prevent such an occurrence, today Meg had her hood up. But the ‘kindness of strangers’ intervened again and we went to our favourite cafe where we were greeted warmly by the Catholic lady who always looks after us very well. We ordered a pot of tea and one bacon butty between us and I must say that this was some of the nicest bacon I had ever tasted. So we had a wonderful little repast and were going to make a little trip into areas of the town but instead were quite pleased to get home. By this stage, it was not too far short of 1.00pm so I pressed on making the lunch whilst Meg watched TV in the Music Room. We had a very tasty of chicken for our lunch, dining in the kitchem as we always do and I popped out into the Music Room for something. Hearing a loud ‘thump’ I knew that Meg had had a fall on the kitchen fall – although we tell her constantly never to to try to walk unaided or ‘the staggers’ will intervene and a fall is very likely to ensue. This is what had happened and there a fair amount of blood on the floor and on Meg’s jumper. It looked as though her glasses frame (fortunately not the glass within them) had impacted her eyebrow causing quite a deep gash which had bled quite profusely. Fortunately, our son was in the house upstairs working away but heard the commotion so he helped to get Meg onto her feet and cleaned up the floor and the clothing but without attempting to do anything about the cut itself (about two thirds of an inch long and quite deep) At this stage, it was pretty clear that we needed to attend the Minor Injuries unit in the local community hospital.
Fortunately, although it was raining hard, we managed to get Meg into the hospital in the wheelchair and as I had Meg’s NHS number in my wallet, managed to get her booked in and then into the hospital system. We did not have to wait too long to get seen by a Triage nurse who took some particulars. Then we got seen by a medic and a nurse (whether the medic was an A&E specialist I am not sure) After some quick neurological tests for head injuries (which all proved negative), he applied some of that special ‘glue’ to the cut and then some varystrips to help the edges of the wound to stick together. I had one or two almost Kafka-esque conversations with the medic along the lines of ‘Have you mentioned these falls to your GP and what did he say?’ ‘Yes and he made a diagnosis of lack of core strength’. The medic made eyes at me and asked if we had been referred to the falls clinic, to which I responded that I did not know that such a clinic existed as it had never been mentioned in any of our previous transactions with the NHS. By sheer coincidence, earlier on that morning, I had made an appointment for about ten days time to have an annual review of Meg’s condition and so all of this ncident can be discussed then. The one silver lining to the cloud is that a report of the patching up done at the hospital will automatically wing its way onto Meg’s case notes so perhaps the GPs might apply their mind to this particular problem that we have, given that Meg falls about once a day and sometimes more frequently than that. For good measure, she fell again whilst getting out of the car on the way home so that is quite enough for one day.
There are going to be two days of ‘immigration issues’ in the House of Commons – today being legal immigation and tomorrow illegal immigration. The Home Sectetary is under enormous pressure from his right wing to do everything possible to curb immigration but in the meantime, the care and hospitality sectors are desperate for the workers which just do not seem to be forthcoming from the indigenous population (probably because the wages are too low for the levels of responsibility that have to be deployed and retail outlets like supermarkets offer an easier way to earn one’s wages.)
© Mike Hart [2023]