Looking into holes. Part eight

 I think in an earlier post I referred to my dad having his arm amputated. I’ve now been told he never did. The problem is that image has been fixed in my memory for 60 yrs so where did it come from? Did I conflate an overheard conversation? There was a very popular tv series in the sixties called The Fugitive where Doctor Richard Kildare was on the trail of a one armed man who’d killed his wife. At a time when we only had two tv channels it dominated conversations; I even remember it being excitedly discussed in the chip shop at the bottom of my road. Of course that could be another false memory.

All these memories tripping over each other moving each other out of the way, forcing their way into the front of my conscience.

It was 1967 or 1968 or 1969. The sun bore down out of a powder blue sky onto the chalky white Rhos-on-Sea lido. When the weather seemed more predictable and consistently benign it was one of the most popular attractions along with the Welsh mountain zoo. For me one one of the outstanding images was of one of my aunties in a stunning  white bikini. She looked like an Italian film star. Unfortunately the day didn’t end well; I got badly burned and spent weeks off school, prostrate in bed, covered from head to foot in calamine lotion. Friends from school visited just for a few moments each; I blessed them and they left.

I’ve been playing footsie with cancer for a long time. I remember hearing that film stars used coconut oil to achieve a perfect tan and, at 18, cooking on the beach as I strutted along in my shorts and blue cotton shirt. (I have no idea what I was wearing but memories are up for grabs now). That summer I worked as a barman on Colwyn bay pier (now lost to neglect and changes in taste, so sad) part of my job was stacking the bottle banks out back. My skin turned a nut brown and my hair seemed to curl in the sun so that I looked like David Essex (I wish)

In 2010 I  was hit by the most appalling stabbing pain in the gut. I ended up at a walk in centre with the doctor exploring my colon with gusto. 

“Are you particularly stressed at the moment?”

“ at the moment, Yes”

I mean I don’t want to lay out my medical history. This attack on my cells only started ten weeks ago but sometimes the body just says: stop this, you are not respecting me, this is my turn.

Early 2020, February, I got hit by the nastiest infection. This was the time when those skiers retuned to the U.K. and we saw the initial infections rise. I didn’t lose my taste but I had the most terrible asthma. Asthma is an annoyance for me. Every six months I take a puff but this time I was at the start of a dog walk and I had to go home. I developed terrific upper back pains and the GP arranged for me to see a chiropractor who kindly manipulated me and then gave me some leaflets with appropriate exercises. They did work and gave me some temporary relief. Then I just found myself contacting the doctor with one niggle after another at a time, lockdown, when they simply couldn’t cope.

I sometimes feel like shouting “I told you I was ill and you weren’t listening” I know it’s unfair but as a frontline triage something in the GP model now seems broken. I know other people who have been sent for numerous tests but I’d finally get one and phone up 3 weeks later to be told it was normal. So there. At least now I’m not just skulking away. I’m fully engaged in what’s happening here and I feel I’m getting a lot of support from an expert diverse group of supreme professionalism, empathy, kindness and dedication. Never really bought so much into clap for carers and the  initial 1% pay offer was contemptuous. We need to understand how hard it was to build this magnificent institution and how easy it will be to let it slip from our grasp.

https://youtu.be/xWwUJH70ubM