Riding the wave

beanielou

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82131113#Comment_82131113

That’s horrendous.

Keep_Buggering_On

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82131189#Comment_82131189

Its across the board though. My mum's doctors have gone to entirely online appointment booking. Luckily my Dad can use the internet, my mum would have no chance otherwise. She has extremely limited sight, has never used the internet even when working (she got the younger nurses to do anything to do with computers for the last ten years she was working) and with her PSP she no longer has the motor skills to use anything beyond a basic mobile phone with massive keys and she is only 73. Its this assumption that everyone uses a smart phone and the lack of alternatives for those who either can't or don't wish to use apps that annoys me. Yes its very convenient for many, but don't get rid of the alternative.

beanielou

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82131199#Comment_82131199

I absolutely agree.

Keep_Buggering_On

Had a wonderfully relaxed morning- they have put the full audio book of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone read by Stephen Fry on YouTube for September, and I found an adult Star Wars colouring book my parents gave me for Christmas about ten years ago so I spent a lovely couple of hours listening to a couple of chapters and colouring in a picture. I think its called 'self-care' by those in the know, but all I know was that it was very enjoyable, I felt a lot better and relaxed for doing it and it cost nothing! That's a pretty good morning in my book!

Bananabreadyum

That's a lovely way to spend a couple of hours,!

Keep_Buggering_On

Feeling exhausted this morning as I had around two hours of sleep, but still doing better than OH. She has been getting recurrent UTIs and whilst the doctors have been treating this, they told her that if she got any pain in her kidneys she needed to ring 999. She went to bed last night at tenish, but came back downstairs about 11.30 with an excruciating stabbing pain in her left side where her kidney is. We duly rang 999 and they were very good, but asked for her to go to A&E so they could check it out. We would have had to wait 4 ½ hours for an ambulance so OH took a taxi up to Bradford Royal Infirmary whilst I stayed at home with the kids. She was at A&E for five hours, in which time they took her blood and did a urine sample. There was one doctor trying to cope with all the cases for a whole city and OH said there were people sitting on the floor as the backlog was so bad. After five hours sat on a plastic chair, her fibromyalgia was really flaring up and causing her more pain than the (possible) kidney infection. OH asked a nurse who was very apologetic and said they would have given her a bed if they had one and there would be at least another nine hours to wait to be seen! At that point OH gave it up as a bad job and came home- she will go to the GPs in the village instead! I knew things were bad, but I hadn’t realised how bad they were. As OH said, it wasn’t the staff’s fault as they were lovely and doing the best they could, they were just completely under resourced and overwhelmed.

I am working in the kitchen today so I can keep an eye on OH and run round and help if I can, although she is going back to bed to sleep when the kids have gone to school. I am supposed to be in the office tomorrow, but I really don’t want to leave OH on her own at the moment so I will ring my manager later this morning and see if I can work from home again tomorrow and join the meeting online instead as I would really rather be on hand in case of any emergencies.

Keep_Buggering_On

OH is feeling much better- GPs think its a kidney stone so they have given her some strong painkillers, plus lanzoprozol to settle her stomach from the strong painkillers and booked her in for an ultrasound to check everything is okay. I went into work today after all (and had a really good training day), but despite a good night's sleep last night, I am still knackered- takes a few days to recover from a broken night's sleep these days, compared to when I was in my twenties and could survive on two or three hours with no ill effect!

Blackcats

I'm glad your OH is feeling better.

Keep_Buggering_On

Its felt like a very long, very full on week at work this week and next week is looking as busy so I am very glad it’s the weekend. We have a babysitter (well friend’s daughter) keeping an eye on the kids tomorrow night so OH and I can go out for a meal for our anniversary. Its only the Italian in the village, but I am really looking forward to it as it must be a couple of years since we had a night out with just the two of us. We had planned to go out last year for our anniversary, but an emergency vet bill of £1500 for the guinea pig put paid to that idea! I would leave DS on his own for the evening, but DD is too young and they would end up scrapping the whole night if we didn’t have someone to watch them!

Blackcats

have a lovely evening at the Italian. It's nice to really look forward to a treat.