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I got out of hospital a week ago. It was, being completely honest, quite a serious matter; my immune system had flatlined, meaning that a childhood illness called Parvovirus B19, or "slapped cheek syndrome" had got through my defences. My red blood cell count was also very poor, and instead of the three years supply of vitamin B12 that most people have tucked away in their livers, I didn't have three days worth. The consultants were quite surprised. Apparently people don't get that sort of ill, nowadays. They also picked up a nasty case of H. Pylori, which wrecks your appetite, your digestion, and apparently can also cause depression. I could probably see why, even if I hadn't had it.
So they gave me a pint of blood, an endoscopy that was easily the most physically unpleasant experience of my life, and a bone marrow biopsy to make sure that I didn't have anything really hideous. Like leukemia. Wikipedia and a mobile phone with wireless internet can really fuck with your ability to sleep, if you let it.
(Also, I don't have HIV, which I can't say came as a shock, but was basically a minor counterpoint to the huge swelling main theme of "fuck me, you're paler than your bedsheets". But my immune system was so badly buggered that they had to exclude full-blown AIDS as a cause. I hadn't let myself think about that, before now.)
So the incredibly competent and skilled doctors and nurses on the haematology/oncology ward that I found myself in for a fortnight took the biopsy, took one look at the results and declared me fit to recover at home. Which was nice, even if it meant I took so many pills home that I asked to pick up one of those blue pill organiser boxes that you always look at, in a slightly puzzled way, when you're waiting for your prescription at the pharmacist's. And that's led to a week of increasingly frustrating bed rest, to any number of prayers and masses being said for me, and to a need to get out of the house to take some fresh air and not be in another bloody hospital ward, even if the bed is comfier.
(I'm pretty openly atheist, but if there was even the slightest chance of all those good thoughts tipping the balance in my favour then I was going to take it. There are atheists in foxholes, but it's remarkable how tolerant you become to other people's lifeways when the smell of cordite is in the air.)
So that need to leave the house led to two things: a walking stick, which I use for short journeys and journeys that I think are going to be shorter than they are; and rented or borrowed wheelchairs, depending if I'm going to the supermarket or if I need to potter around town. (Parvovirus is also called "erythema infectiosum" and if that isn't taught at Hogwarts I don't know what is.) And I'm experiencing at first hand what people who are in wheelchairs permanently have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Access to buildings is still an issue. Not in shopping centres, no, but all the fiddly little interesting shops that you actually want to go to, tend to have skipped the important step of asking people who use wheelchairs about their needs. They usually have slopes to roll up and down, and that's nice, but metal flanges, ready to accept heavy metal shutters, might as well be brick walls to the chair user.
And then you have the buildings owned and operated by wankers, which in 20-fucking-12 still have no slopes for access, no thought of automatic doors, and definitely no consideration for people who don't have the full complement of working limbs. It will come as no shock to some that this describes the access to the Workfare building that I needed to visit today.
But none of that pisses me off - because it's stupidity. Rudeness, I have a lot more of a problem with. And a supposed friend of the family treated me in exactly the way that wheelchair users are ill-treated - talking over my head and referring to me as "he" when I was sat right in front of her. Taking the piss out of her with her mother, it's true, but that's not the point. In a town which is soon, I hope, to have a new most favoured son who plays Wheelchair Rugby with vim, vigour and an Olympic gold medal around his neck. I hope the bitch is made to be fucking ashamed of herself.
So they gave me a pint of blood, an endoscopy that was easily the most physically unpleasant experience of my life, and a bone marrow biopsy to make sure that I didn't have anything really hideous. Like leukemia. Wikipedia and a mobile phone with wireless internet can really fuck with your ability to sleep, if you let it.
(Also, I don't have HIV, which I can't say came as a shock, but was basically a minor counterpoint to the huge swelling main theme of "fuck me, you're paler than your bedsheets". But my immune system was so badly buggered that they had to exclude full-blown AIDS as a cause. I hadn't let myself think about that, before now.)
So the incredibly competent and skilled doctors and nurses on the haematology/oncology ward that I found myself in for a fortnight took the biopsy, took one look at the results and declared me fit to recover at home. Which was nice, even if it meant I took so many pills home that I asked to pick up one of those blue pill organiser boxes that you always look at, in a slightly puzzled way, when you're waiting for your prescription at the pharmacist's. And that's led to a week of increasingly frustrating bed rest, to any number of prayers and masses being said for me, and to a need to get out of the house to take some fresh air and not be in another bloody hospital ward, even if the bed is comfier.
(I'm pretty openly atheist, but if there was even the slightest chance of all those good thoughts tipping the balance in my favour then I was going to take it. There are atheists in foxholes, but it's remarkable how tolerant you become to other people's lifeways when the smell of cordite is in the air.)
So that need to leave the house led to two things: a walking stick, which I use for short journeys and journeys that I think are going to be shorter than they are; and rented or borrowed wheelchairs, depending if I'm going to the supermarket or if I need to potter around town. (Parvovirus is also called "erythema infectiosum" and if that isn't taught at Hogwarts I don't know what is.) And I'm experiencing at first hand what people who are in wheelchairs permanently have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Access to buildings is still an issue. Not in shopping centres, no, but all the fiddly little interesting shops that you actually want to go to, tend to have skipped the important step of asking people who use wheelchairs about their needs. They usually have slopes to roll up and down, and that's nice, but metal flanges, ready to accept heavy metal shutters, might as well be brick walls to the chair user.
And then you have the buildings owned and operated by wankers, which in 20-fucking-12 still have no slopes for access, no thought of automatic doors, and definitely no consideration for people who don't have the full complement of working limbs. It will come as no shock to some that this describes the access to the Workfare building that I needed to visit today.
But none of that pisses me off - because it's stupidity. Rudeness, I have a lot more of a problem with. And a supposed friend of the family treated me in exactly the way that wheelchair users are ill-treated - talking over my head and referring to me as "he" when I was sat right in front of her. Taking the piss out of her with her mother, it's true, but that's not the point. In a town which is soon, I hope, to have a new most favoured son who plays Wheelchair Rugby with vim, vigour and an Olympic gold medal around his neck. I hope the bitch is made to be fucking ashamed of herself.
