How to die well...in Ireland

......Notice.....Notice.....Notice.....after the next five blogs i shall become ......'AnnLive'

this blog will develop from there...please share...
Awnyah will become 'AnnLive'

Now....on more serious matters.





the time ahead is less than the time that has past.
and this is an important message for the young, not so young, the old and the nearly old...and shall i say....the dying.





when you ALL consider this, it doesnt sound too hot a place to be does it?
it is not.  but does it have to be BAD?



Does it have to be TERRRIBLE?
does it have to be 'long drawn out 'tooth-pulling' style?
or can it be amazingly quick but enjoyable?
or can it be long and enjoyable?

what sets it all up to be the former and latter.

People....Humans....People....Humans.....TOGETHER.

NO ONE CAN DO THIS ALL...ALONE.

IF YOU THINK THAT NO ONE ELSE MATTERS THEN YOU ARE DECEIVING YOURSELVES AND IN A STATE OF DENIAL AND DELUSIONAL.

the day i truly captured the feeling of kindred spirit in loneliness and isolation also entrapment against our will.










As humans, we are intrinsically, a pack animal.
we are a species that survives simply by being in groups and surviving the ups and downs, in groups.

We cannot solve any problem alone.
we cannot survive on our own.

to die well...and we will all have to die...many feel that they are very cynical and begin to hate living, hate life and the people in their lives, for the hurt and pain built up over decades.

true, that can be there in spades.
so too, can a society's ethos of care.

whether we can do this well, together.
society, including the care services, and wait for this biggie 'FAMILY'

we absolutely need both the social services, the care, the human professional touch and we need family who draw on their love, resourcefulness and togetherness in times of need.
but also family do one other thing.
they add the comfort element in our lives.

we read and we hear of the increasingly lonely in society.
we abandon the elderly as if they are lepers.
we abandon the disabled as fake, frauds, and wasters and scroungers.

we abandon the sibling, cousin for crossing the line, once too often.
for being different, for not doing what they ask of us.

when we are finished what we have done, is abandon the humans ..they are all then gone and we are alone...for the first time in our lives....we are facing the biggest challenge of our lives...alone.
dying.
and before dying what can we do as humans.

this shoe that held a foot of a human - has a history....
the people who have to struggle daily with their 'histories' and 'past' and alienation.
the only way we can sort of make sense of any of this is to go out and resolve the issues amongst those that are still alive....before it is too late.

then we find that their is a comfort there to be found in the crevices of hurt and pain.

because there is a big understanding that wasnt there before, but is now.

why challenge anyone more than they have to be?
why add to the challenge of dying by adding abuse, carelessness, noisiness and accusations and also why challenge the joy that may be found in the comfort of family by shutting away, shutting out and walking away from the very ones who need you most?

why not even try to shape up this challenge of dying and dying well...in Ireland?

the family one sunday on the Burma road, minus two siblings and mother
can you draw the family together again...
especially as within the band and strand you now live in no one is under 60!

how do you entice them to see other sides to the picture, reframe and constitute an understanding amongst the living.

so that living well in order to die well means just that.
embracing whats left.
but not to do it all alone and many are and many are doing this more and more.

i said above that we need to draw close because all in our band are over 60yrs.
but in order to draw close you must embrace those whose band age is 6yrs.  and thus we have once again youth and elderly together.
Living well in society is to experience youth and the young and to experience their vibrancy.
nothing rubs off as 'feel good factor' as the vibrancy of the young.

the elderly need this.
and so too do the middle age.

Ireland is in a deep depression.
everyone is suffering really badly.

it isnt a time for attack on anyone now.
its time to band together in a bandage.
we need to tape old wounds up.
and live through this well and reasonably happy and comfortably.

this isnt a state of affairs that requires even a copper.
it requires LOVE, or Luv in spades.

whatever way you chose to demonstrate it.

across the way from me is a 87yr old lady and opposite is her boy friend who is 92 and both are single and living alone.
all they have for the comfort in their end days is the telly.
and the phone (they chose to cut that sort of extra funding there for the contact)

they are so lonely.
if you do not know this, go tap on their door and say hello.
instant welcome and starving for the contact.

families live here too and are all around.
but each lives within their own house and in this part down here, people dont mix that well.
there is a reserve.

a lonely bench at Our Lady's Hospice Harold's Cross
Dublin.
but families too may be feeling lonely.

and we are lonely when one thing is absent.
Love, or Luv.
when that is there so is lonliness.
nothing can take that away.
dogs.
telly.
gardening.
decor.
driving.
writing.
artwork.
goodwork.
all work.
some play.

cannot take away lonliness.

only one thing can.
Love.
or
Luv.

and

Family.

I am dying.
before you i am dying.
you may not even know it.
or believe it.
but tis true.

the time i have could be cut tomorrow.
as the good god almighty decides, it is now going to be either quick or slow, but thats silly to even say that.
one way i will be gone soon.
the other way my dying will be a disintegrating slowly, burning down like a flickering candle flame.

Do not say such stupid things as:
Do not say that, you look so well, how on earth can you be thinking of dying.
- i can, because i am!

do not say such stupid things as:
Oh god, she is once in a wheelchair and then walking, she is far less disabled then she makes out to be.

this is such a daft bloody thing to say...
how do you know?
do you know me?
have you had an indepth conversation with me to determine this?
unless you have then shut trap because it ain't so.

there are far more disabilities out there then one which requires the wheelchair.

now your homework for the week or days before we meet again, if ever is this.
google now...'what famous person is living with crohns disease'
also google...'what famous person is living with sjogrens syndrome'
and what famous person is living with fibromyalgia, parkinsonsism (also some with parkinson's disease), also generalised dystonia, and also muscular dystrophy and myopathy.
find out what famous person finds acquired deafness to be like.
and also Dame Judi Dench on her thoughts about having macular degeneration.

why do i give you this homework....because i have all of these in one bundle!!! thats why.

if you can relate to a famous person and what they say about any of these diseases then maybe you can start to relate to your sister and i am the sister.
not only am i a sibling within a family.
i write this blog for all who tap in here.
to make a bit of a difference so some may see that they too are not that alone for there is a person like me out there, maybe that gives some small comfort.
that struggle isnt uniquely your own.  its universal.

it may not be starvation, or war but outside these calamities within communities there are major pockets of misery, pain, lonliness and isolation.
being outside starvation and war, there is the possibility for change for the resources are less thrreatening.
Love and Luv being one.
togetherness being another.
family being another
community
people

not...to die alone in ireland...but to live well until then, and then die with Love. Luv.

journey's end with a chronic illness doubled in having an identical twin.

my twin and i are disabled and very unwell.

today i will try and capture what it is like to see a loved one suffer and to try and start a fresh life in a new town so far away from where i had lived.

this has so many strands its even hard to think straight.
where shall i begin with this.
Sunday dinner maybe?

as good a place as any.

Yes, it was my turn to set the table and do the Sunday dinner.  I wasn't that great and collected during the week but glad to say a simple meal put together with a lot of love and decorum was well received and we had a pleasant chat.

but tainted there, was 'Loss.'
I saw it today in my twins demeanour.
the saddened eyes and the bit of quietness that i am not that fond of.
SHE lost a lot coming back to Ireland.

I cannot fully comprehend how it must have felt.
Being away for over forty years she had always spoken of 'coming home.'
she wanted this.
to see and smell the sea and to catch up on the family, see the next generation more often and be part of 'family.'

My twin had lived in Hackney, the East End of London UK.
she lived on the fifth floor and 58steps up.
there was no lift.
There she padded out for forty years, tried to get the education that wasn't available here and try to forge a life that certainly in the 70's was not available here.
Tenacity, pain, loneliness and endurance was the order of the day.
the easing away horrible thoughts and the terror that was within, a very young person leaving home at 17yrs, couldn't have been easy and wasn't at all.
No, its not the same as today for when the young do this now, they are of braver stuff and more worldly and confident.
i am sure though because of this maybe more is expected in the 'adult' sense, but most do have an inner core of self value, we didn't.

i could be wrong.

the struggle in London wasn't easy for many here to understand.
i saw it most as i visited most and it was a struggle, different but nonetheless a struggle.

this side of the coin was kept firmly from the preying eyes of those she held dear and didn't want to either upset or couldn't allow see that maybe at times the struggle was too much.
those times existed.

the yearning for home was to yearn to come back with enough reserve to enjoy and explore Ireland and to be healthy enough to capture a true feeling of 'home' and being where she should be, 'home.'

that didn't happen.

she came home, yes with the enthusiasm. but this was quickly quashed.
Ireland was in a chaos equal to that of the 70's.
her twin sister had also moved to a social housing unit from hell.

both moved for the same reason.
both were ill and both were beginning to suffer in a mystifying way.

Again the empathy and sympathy from who we thought might have it to spare, was non existent.
the help never came.
the love never came.
the exhaustion set in.

her return was a tough and steep learning curve.

the dynamic of understanding a twin, for both twins now as near neighbours rather than as once a year sibling 'love-ins,' was baffling for both.
its very different, and we were floored by this unexpectedness.
forthy years was a lifetime to learn how to cope as best we could.
her ways were not mine and for her too, she found grappling with this difference very difficult.

this dynamic saw us at times torn apart in anger and bitterness toward each other.
resentment too and lack of understanding and - severe shock.
we knew one thing though, for all of it, we loved each other very much and that was not what was questioned.
we simply didn't know each other.

but then we didn't also know what was in store in health, in Ireland and in family.

it was such a time of flux.
as we both tried to settle in our new homes things quickly soured and got dangerous.
I was placed badly in a social housing unit that actually put my life in danger.
being shot at would do it i have to say.
i was shot at.
and i had a lot happen that nearly saw me in a mental institution.
i nearly cracked under the stress and strain of isolation in a community of alcoholics. being abused by a cleric when i was vulnerable would cause alarm to me placed within a male enclave, a single woman alone with a disability.

Mags helped me out of that hell when there wasnt one other person who physically offered
no one was making many moves to get me to safety.
so my twin and i had to make this move.

it was ghastly.
before we could come to terms with our personal relationships, we had to bond together fast and quickly to get me out of a situation i simply couldn't stay in.
but the alarm being too, we couldn't live together but needed to be close and we absolutely knew this.

everything was taken, again finance would never stretch for same again.
so where were we to go?
the help for the decision making, the shifting and the organisation was - nil.

instead, as i mentioned at the Sunday dinner we shared today it was dreadful, we now were in HELL.
there wasn't another word that could adequately describe the next few years.

the notion of family to have us 'in sheltered accommodation' was the only notion.
nothing about what we felt we needed or wanted.
it was the easy option.
it was what middle class do...they turn the other way and are, unhelpful.

Sheltered accommodation in the Ireland of today is the same as 'dying cages.'
you are given a bed, a room painted magnolia which you cannot change and you may get your food.
but that's it.
no pets allowed (we both had dogs).
no redecoration, and in some we visited a limited amount of nails in the walls for memento pictures.
this wasn't what we needed or wanted at not yet 60yrs of age.

Margaret wanted or i felt she wanted to be part of Ireland and live in Ireland as equal and as a person with a chance to experience.
not to be put away for convenience.

at times now, my twin does feel maybe she would find it easier.
this isn't the easy way but i do know, it the far more normal way.
it isn't right to coral human beings in stale and empty boxes of sterility with no art and joy or love or tending.
it is no more than a prison and a sentence, a long one.
you chose that and there isn't any going back.
it was bitterly cold as we started to pack up proby
family seemed to resent that i managed to persuade my twin that we could do better than the sheltered accommodation.
i was called all sorts of things and completely 'outted' by family and am still.
even one close relative saying 'i wish you were dead.'
i was stirring trouble of the status quo.
we want you in sheltered accommodation' but i didn't and no i said and no i meant it.
i wasn't being put away.

Also very tough was leaving the home that my dear sister had and which we jointly inherited but it was too small for two and we couldnt have done it, we knew this, family thought otherwise, we still believe as others do, it was the right thing to do.
we had to move for economic reasons.
we couldn't afford to stay in our birth county.
the hurt and bitterness and upset this caused me was profound.
i had spent 60yrs there and loved every blade of grass in it.
this was the cruel fate of mine and foisted on me by the council and also the lack of ability of the HSE to see that i was safe in my own county.

i have had to suffer that, the alienation from family and a disconnect in my new environment, that i hope to god will change with time.

my twin has had to deal with the shock of illness, disability and family she yearned for and found non existent.
at least in the form she felt was there but discovered wasn't.

so we sat of a Sunday attempting to experience the joy that i put on the table with love and twin enjoyed as best she could, broken isn't a word we would use easily because neither would ever admit to this.
but we are.
we are shattered and profoundly traumatised.

there isn't one good thing that happened when it came to human beings in the past six years.
what a species we are.
the love my twin deserved on coming home was not there.  she is devastated.

it has to have been the toughest thing both physically, mentally, psychologically and emotionally to be doing what i did then, a major move away from my county, all because i was shot at and had no option
the way i was treated and how i was regarded has injured both of us profoundly as we love each other with unshaken love and loyalty.

we are traumatised and unwell.
we are now facing a lonely and sadder end than either ever anticipated.

i write this out of love of one individual who had sad eyes today facing me at the dinner table.

if it matters at all, i wish to say i love my twin and it hurts to see how much she is hurting.

If a person reads this and knows me and my twin sister, look upon us as who we are.
incredible.
we did so much to make a compromise but we did it alone.
we had little finance, no family helping us with shifting, encouragement, viewing houses or dealing with estate agents, solicitors, surveyors or other.
we were offered little advice in house hunting by anyone.
we were offered no support at all in our new county and were utterly wiped by the HSE who caused us further harm, unspeakable harm.

we wanted more than this.
we wanted to be embraced with understanding, with family.
we wanted a connectedness now, for we have little time left.
we wanted to experience love, and joy NOW, for we never had it.
we didn't want to be sad or hurt or traumatised.
but there is no getting away from it, we are.

when, i ask, is the tide going to change.
when will someone start the healing process say, lets take, within family.
within family to turn from 'we cannot abide you.'
to 'lets see if it can get better, lets all try.'
i am so willing.
but it takes two for this healing and start off.

but right now it does feel very much like as if my twin and self are on an island within an island.
we are only the two of us. together holding each other with the little strength we have and can muster.
but we want a bit more because this is very very tough indeed.

this is extending that first move toward anyone who knows me or us, all.  everyone.

to see us as very very sick, there isn't a doubt there, if you do not see that then you are in denial.
we do need comfort at this point in our lives, not disharmony.
not hatred, distrust, loathing and abandonment.

we have been dealt a very cruel deck of cards.
trying to make light of something that wasn't very funny at all.
it was so so tough, we took everything, simply because not a penny could be spared for buying anything again.
of all, of all who could have done the exact opposite we have been put through the mill, by our own family.

we want the family back, in total, in harmony and with a lot of love on all sides.

the twins.
the conditions we suffer are:
mitochondrial disease
muscle wasting
severe deafness
cataracts
inability to walk far
severe arthritis,
crohns disease
ceoliac disease
primary sjogrens syndrome
lupus
hypothyroidism
deformed feet
dyscalculia
poor vision
brain damage
and personality traits that are clearly and definitely due to such bad hearing from the start that learning was impacted in a negative way.
we had no hearing aids for over twenty five years of our formative years.
this my friends is the educated way of seeing our start.
you cannot do most things well if you have almost total deafness.  science and psychology had now determined the importance of hearing in the shaping of personality, social interaction and connecting with others.

especially when facility was not there to compensate for this, as there is nowadays.

personality and deafness are very strongly linked.
there is nothing wrong with either.

we are good, and kind and fun people to be around, if its allowed in a good way.  we are deaf though.  very.

this, isn't living as we have it now.

mags i hope you are OK, i know you were left home feeling poorly and have headed for bed.
i love you more than words can ever say.
Mum, Dad and Louise are watching over us.
i am only down the road.
take care.
we are OK.
very OK.

 gifts for the children of my social housing enclave, the children who will have very few options and chances.  I loved them.

 in the first flush of enthusiasm My dear twin lights her first every coal fire, in her first ever own home.

we shall survive!

an idea is brewing but it had to come....

hello my followers to date.
you gotta agree with me that the blog name is daft, utterly daft, who can remember that?

there is to be a name change but i am unclear how to let my followers know - isnt there is a sort of link  so that when you change someone trying to get into 'awnyah' will be immediately redirected to "new name"

the new name now is my deepest concentration and as yet has not been born.

i dont think it will take nine months to be created so just a bit of a warning here, for reason of sanity for all, the name in its present form will shortly be erased and a new one placed at the top of the plinth.

watch this space....

there is a full moon tonight and the thunder and lightening has been raging.
my two chihuahuas are fast asleep and have not moved an inch since the start of the storn.
does that say something about their clever attitude or their stupidiy?

all comments welcomed.

when one feels all is crumbling around you

this was the feeling of the day....

that....
LIfe was pretty futile really now.

I felt it in the bones and no matter what i attempted to do to cheer myself up and form a sort of 'purposeful' few hours, nothing felt 'purposeful'

the rain pissed down on my life today.

the HSE pissed me off and hurts like hell to understand fully the way they deal with stuff in a sick person's life.
they had a man take my mobility scooter away from me today.
they said i couldn't have both the scooter and the wheelchair.
they then said i had to give up the wheelchair for it was given to me by mistake
they then told me it was either the scooter or the wheelchair
and then they used the ploy 'someone needs your wheelchair.'
er, i need it.
if so many things have been demanded consistently over a six month period, you are reduced to pulp.  whether by relinquishing a clapped out item i helped maintain is giving in i don't know.
what i wanted was peace and to die in peace.  its not a lot to ask.
i have made the wrench from something they have no idea about, they don't understand the relationship between a disabled person and their mobility aids.

when someone says that MY communication skills are poor, no one said they were not.

but no one said either that the HSE has some kind of right to butcher.
and its this right to do something to another which i find upsetting.

they have a right - once you become sick to tell you how to have your house - it isn't so.
they cannot and should not.
they have a right to simply send you a letter demanding something off you.  No, not when you are sick and disabled.
no person who needs a wheelchair should be asked for it back!

so what really got to me was the feeling of annihilation and powerlessness.
that others now are making huge decisions about your life, your care and your right to life.

I have no say and that is how i felt.

I just couldn't say 'no' and have this accepted.
because the 'organisation' was bigger, better and more knowledgeable than just myself.

Not so of myself.
they do not even know me and do not wish to know me.

today i felt too, who cares enough really?

I felt no one did.

You are sick
So what?
you are alone
So what?
you are dying
So what?

You don't count.

and when i saw my scooter being led away by a man i didn't know and who played with it by standing on the centre part and having fun with it in a joking manner, taking it up on the lift ramp smiling and laughing as if to say 'look what i can do with this thing!"
there i was in tears.
that's MINE.
i honestly believed it to be cos i had it for over seven years and its useless to anyone else now, its almost clapped out.

but it was taken off me in spite.
i did relinquish it but the torment and trauma of taunting was too much.
i had effected this move to bring about a softening of heart
but what did it do to me?
it made me feel horribly bitter.
just cruelly let down by those (i had visited the old, sick and lonely in this scooter with my little therapy dog) maggie maiwho laugh and the care person who ordered this back, did laugh.
she laughed when i explained my malaise.

that to me is callous.

how can i ever hope to turn a new leaf of 'good communication' with an organisation baying for blood.
an organisation who doesn't care and shows this by their actions.

how can i actually feel sort of connected as in bonded in a job of trying to die well when they are inching me out with a sledgehammer not a soft ride at all.

You then turn on the news when you come in.
there over on the beeb, news of the callousness of society toward the elderly where over 800,000 old people live a life of chronic loneliness.
and when the nation is shamed for its horrible treatment with the statement of 'each and every one of these elderly has a relative who could visit.
but don't.

no/
they don't.

i have seen this.

i see no one.
day after day i have my two chihuahaus and my dear twin when we meet up.
but this is all.
i was imprisoned in an institution of (ha) care.
and i didn't get out until i was about 50yrs.
this was the short window i had to learn all i had lost in the space of a life.
i was now old, to learn the tricks of trade of a 19yr old.
when my efforts are met with disdain and anger, no one can actually see the pain there and the ways i desperately try to improve by the day for one thing only - to get close to another human being.
to feel that closeness for this is what being human is.

if i err no one seems to kinda step back and ask why, did she not communicate well and if you realised i did not did you fully understand why?

would it be...that someone was about to make you shape your first and only home the way they wanted to save money when my twin and i had arranged for this, also to save money for we wouldn't have asked it of the body of the organisation!
we had our plan all made out, which we told them about.
so is it actually bad communication to protest to save your home.
no it isn't.
you protect your home.
and we have groups who go out there and stop the bailiffs commandeer the homes of many who are in debt such is the value of 'home.\
but it isn't equal if you are sick.
your home has no value as a home only a mobility assistive aid!
as in one room and one hole in the floor.
that is ease of access.

this isn't a bathroom, its a bad room.

now lets look at this very good money given to me in an adaptation grant.
i was allocated the money.
a sickie.
when this sickie a single lady tried to get the home adapted who helped her?
where was the support by way of men who would bloody well make sure that no one ran all over her, as had the builders?
there was no one then was there?

so its a mess you make of me all around.
you tell me what to do.
you take what you want away from me.
you call me what you want to call me.
you do just about what you want to do.

this to me is butchering and bullying and you are doing it to a very very lonely lady of 60yrs of age.
a lonely lady who is awful nice and many can say this.

but a lady who was also fragile at a young age and retreated into the arms of the most inappropriate care system man has ever devised - the psychiatric system.
there i languished for decades.

once i make the brave move to be involved at any cost, i am cut to pieces for even trying.

just think in disbelief at how people have treated me

to night i feel all asunder.
but one thing i also know.
i am not that alone in what has happened to me for word is out in the common domain of disability groups.  we are treated badly.
very badly.
i also do have friends in the silent places.
those silent disabled see my spirit.
they are silent because they too are afraid of an awful organisation.
i want to meet this organisation at local level as in a partnership.
they have utterly scuppered their chance of me feeling good about them.

today i felt their dancing on my grave

the budget, our famous count down to immorality

well the budget was stark.

many just thank the gods that the gov of ireland didnt stop the free travel.
this being heard from a well off over 70yr old.

it is all very well to consider the 'me fein' when one looks at the budget, to consider it like this means so much more.

who cares say many, i wasnt effected THAT much.
so who was effected?
its plain to see who was.

the long term unemployed.
the young person out of work and seeking.
the elderly
the disabled
the poor
the disadvantaged
AND the least well off - who couldn't care a shite about free travel for their main concern being either food or heat for the winter, when one is elderly, without the means, the cash flow or ability to keep all the balls in the air due to high costs of everything.

Ireland was never a 'cheap' country.
we pay so much more for everything.
medicine is many times dearer than other countries.
services too and supermarket prices are high in comparisons.
our health service doesn't exist so now the bucket insurance is being hit by added taxation for those who scrimp and save to have even a basic insurance for health.

remember, when the public service is on the heap and you stack on tax for the private insurance, you are gonna lose them on the insurance and add to the burden of the public sector.
flipping crazy idea that.

what about the youth of today?
yes, its impossible to do everything here and more and more the young are upping sticks and leaving.
what incentive is there really to stay?
how many people can get that education to get the job?
how educated do you want a workforce?
because that's not the way society is built or made.
we will have the tradesmen and the labourers and then the the top earners, but not all ever get the chance to hit even middle earners.
its not a life/living on the dole.

how many have queued for that handout?
i have.
degrading, tiring, and humiliating.
stifling.
and the butter and beef with my plastic bag too, to be humiliated more for feeling like a beggar.

so we have essentially created chaos for years ahead.
the young are going.
less will have health insurance.
there will be more sick people due to poor services and too costly a price for medication.
this is the frantic need to bail out of the bailout no matter what.

in the process kill off the elderly and lose the young.
wonderful way to create a caring and stable society even on a small scale.
its sort of butchers morale, free thinking and enthusiasm to call yourself Irish.

Irish, no we are not at present Irish.
the way the government is treating its people is not the way we once were.
we had a caring ethos, this isn't caring.
lets see what others are saying:
the Director of Social Justice Ireland states that Budget 2014 is 'unethical'  The Irish Times.

I have the so called education but have never had a job, really.
i was unwell most of my life.
i have a state disability pension.
now we consider the increase in prescription charges for the 'free medication' and a lot isn't free and a lot is expensive.
i have 19 items on my list, some not on this medical card freebie list.
this is a huge burden out of my disability pension.
gas and electricity prices has been increased even though no one in the world had said there was a threat to oil and gas right at this point in time and despite the fact that this cost could have not been allowed happen.
so extra for heating for vulnerable and the sick.
i will feel this.
i find the winter a torrid time because a slight dip in temperature does awful things to my ailing body.
i hate it.
the expense is high, very high.
ceoliac food too is now off the prescription charge for basics and i now bake, well i did up to the time i got too darn ill to even bake a loaf and have not had bread in months.
but my crohns is calmer than ever it was, a case in point it has calmed my gut although never proven to help crohns it seems to have mine.
this means less emergency doctor visits, less medications, supplements, tests, scopes and time consuming remedies and this happens to be because i went gluten free.
this is cost effective.
it isn't cost effective to whip away something that can and should be provided for many who have such food allergies and who will never be able to stick to their diet cos they are too unwell and too poor to subsidise their food specialities.

next we have health provision.
things that have worsened my health have been legend.
all avoidable.
i now receive slightly more physiotherapy but this too for a basic injury that could have been avoided.
this injury caused by the whipping away of the special footwear i have needed now for many years.
with deformed feet trauma insult has occurred in both the Achilles tendons.
this means walking is agony and i need treatment, that i otherwise wouldn't have needed.
tell me what is more costly, to provide a woman with shoes, or to pay someone who is skilled to help this woman who cannot recover the present damage and has been told its irreversible.
this has been caused by the health service!
damage by the health service.

trauma too caused by the health service to my person has so damaged my psyche that i not only now suffer post traumatic stress disorder for the huge move i have made (stated medically) i am suffering the fall out of being a thorn in our present health service providers sides.
so much so i battled royal to save a bath but now seem to have lost the services the people who wanted me to get rid of the bath are actually paid to provide.
they are miffed mighty.

we have budgets and people and cuts and austerity damaging so much most of which is irreparable.
i would have far rather we keep a morality and sensibility about who and what people are then to crass up a rectangle of paper for which a human puts great store on so much so it crucifies so many all around the world its immoral.
we are now creating a small society of hardened people.
people who now do not care.
we are doing this to be considered good citizens of the European union.
but our first duty was to a tiny and good little island.
and we needed first to weed out the rot here in abuse cases, stigma and backward thinking.
we didn't need to join a forceful European mega power just right now.
we needed to consolidate a small independent country who is only in nappies.
but now we have gone from that gorgeous naivety of religious meaningfulness, without the abuse and institutions, but there was a christian element to the thinking of the population towards family and ones own.
now we have nothing.
we are slotted somewhere between France and Germany, Italy and Greece and all the nations trying in vain to be a great federal republic.
this will fail.
when you kill off Ireland some other country will follow in suffering.
Italy and Greece, Portugal and Spain all  now suffering.
the greatness of great Britain has been lost and people on the bottom there are availing now of the food banks more than ever before.
so this is called the 'modern age' the great European Union.
the great pie in the sky and i have just been reminded, its a FULL MOON tonight!
joy madness all told.

hospital is a chance to catch up on my detection work

yes, alas i am in a hospital bed.

the day i decided to be very brave, that day when i became ill with primary sjogrens syndrome, has long since gone.

my bravery was actually going well indeed.
but things in Ireland do go pear shaped more times than we wish to remember.

there is one here who will never forget.

2008 found me returning from Uk with a diagnosis of Primary Sjogrens syndrome, chronic muscle myopathy and also ataxia and all other sorts of things, some related others not so.

i vowed i would always be cheery.
the smile has been surely wiped.

it isnt easy to be so ill and so disabled in teh Ireland of today.

its been now six years or more since the HSE started to meddle so outrageously in my life.
at some points getting involved, then becoming detached and disappearing, to becoming again engaged and not that functional either, and then distancing and coming back and forth.
a bit like a horrible dance.

I have not learnt the steps.
every time i try to get some answers for this dance new dance members or troupe do seem to be there to take that letter, email etc and 'hand it on to the relevant department'
but the moves are intricate.
no one stays in the same spot.
no one can be found
then some disappear entirely never to appear again

as for policy and proceedures, they are as bountiful as the dancers.
most dont exist or are in the wings ready to become a dance of their own.
most are in troupes in other countries.
that is they belong elsewhere and yet to belong here.
we borrow from everywhere.
we have some rules now based on the same in New South Wales and of course more from Germany and others taken from more exotic places but we do not seem to have a mind of our own.

we will have such a policy but when.
they cannot tell you this.
this is hapening at regular intervals.

another thing i find very strange indeed.

unlike the uk and most other transparent contries.
doctors and health professionals can be found online with the CV and bio's but not so ireland.

we also are not allowed mention specific doctors in any forum, unless of course we say something nice about them.
its been so that people wanting to say a negative thing have had their post removed.
you are not even allowed do comparables of doctors.

so while we borrow or say we are going to impliment some policies around this and that.
data is not allowed become public, eg who is good in the country by way of who by general consensus, is good, that is by public decree is good and professional and who is rubbish.
we cannot even allocate them a star rating as some countries have done.

there is so little we can get to know of professional medical personnel in this country its staggaring.
we then make up our minds by the gambling rule or the tail on the donkey game.
you stick the pin and hope for the best.

if you google anyone and want to find out qualifications or their professional body etc to which they show allegiance you wont find it on line.
you wont find it either in any other type of book, data or other.
thats all secret.
very.
so is whether they good or bad or indifferent.
thats why we have the Neary's practising and no one being allowed call a spade a spade or in this case a bloody big shovel.

because if you mention him before he was struck off, your post was struck off.
so no one was able to hear of your experiences.

you can find a sex offending priest, even one in Africa easier than you can a hse official and their  training credentials.
i did and have!
You can find also the school they are teaching in easier and quicker than you can find a 'policy document' here in ireland.
i have and did!

you can also find him after a lapse of seven or eight years, with no starting point at all.
try as you might, the HSE are an organisation as tight and as secret as the mafia regarding the amount of detail they will permit become public or they will permit you to make public.

and for some odd reason which i am still trying to work out....there are two forums one a medical forum and the other a general one on the net that will wipe off your comment if you make a comment against  a doctor.
so what policy are they tied into.
i didnt know that we cannot make a judgement unless of course is the age old one of suing and counter sueing, for defamation.
I know about that one too.
again in this case too.
there are rules for them and there are rules for us.

they can defame character very easily and it may not be all over the net but it may as well be given that we are talking in the professional fields and its against a client.

they do it flash as lightening and dont seem either to think much of it nor do they seem to have policy documents against such a move.

if there are, then the way they defame you is such that they feel highly justified in doing this.

why, cos the HSE is big and strong and 'if you scratch my back then i will scratch yours.'

it isnt good enough either to say this is the way 'ireland does things' as stated by a politician who shall be unnamed, ha!
i am told its the culture of ireland that its better to be friendly with some one than to make a enemy cos you are fucked then really.

so you do  not speak the truth then.
you just dont.
you have need of an itch scratcher especially as you grow older.

hospitalisations do give you time to consider things and mostly too, how will all be better.

as in treatment.
no i am not talking about treatment of medical conditions.
i am talking about treatment of persons, their person as in respect.
cos there is little of that also around.

defamation is horrible.
if it happens people want to restore ones good name and they will go to great lengths to do so.
but persistant complaintant behaviour' will then be slapped upon you.
it isnt policy yet to say this of you it is in new south wales but not here, but 'we are using it anyway1'
ah go on, do.
so they do.
if its right to do so is anyone's guess.
nothing i have seen in the past six years regarding the hse, training and expertise has been right.
its been decidedly 'off' and 'off' by a long margin.

and off for a very long time.

we have ministers for health and other ministers state that they believe the hse has gone beyond their station and is unfit for purpose.
if you write to these departments complaining about them, you are written to to say its not the job of that department but the local area (wait for it) HSE!
so even if they say the hse is too powerful and not fit for purpose, if you have a really horrible complaint against the hse and write to the minister for health in a plea to try and right something here, your letter, without your permission is forwarded on to the right department or persons, eg straight back to the arms of the people you are complaining about, the bloody hse.

this by the way is all in the name of democracy.
and there isnt anything democratic about it.

from this hospital bed it isn't either.
its delusional

it is nearly one am in them morning, thinking of Johnny Cash

                 thinking upon Johnny Cash

come away o human child

to the waters and the wild

for the world is too full of weeping

for you to understand.... 

yep, i am.

To see the great man at the piano...his last...great.

weeping buckets.

i knew then how he felt as i feel it now.

today i had bone eating depression.

trauma.

wicklow.

health

future

friendship

kindness

love

family

equality

Ana Chi my lovely eldery chihauhua

i am so so saddened at what has happened me on coming to what i really did think would be the place i would be finally happy, happy to die here, happy to have this decade, this window away from threat and harm.
away from terror and sleepless nights.

what have i got.
i have got harm.  plenty of sleepless nights.

no, no one shoots at me here.
no one spits at me or rings my door bell in a drunken stupor at all times in the night.
no one jumps walls to attack.

nor do i have children throwing hurley balls at me, juice bottles, water bombs or sitting on the high boundary walls and taunting me.
that prison of a tiny place away from all i had known.

Please try think on this.
i was born in a posh area, it was leafy and green and gentle and quiet.
birds sang.
but even then the times were hard in my house.
there wasnt any money there, and a fair bit of charity towards us.

leaving school i was very troubled and got into trouble.
i was abused by a priest, Fr. Richard Lohrelein of the Marianist Order which are based in Ohio USA.
i was also raped in the bushes of St. Patricks Hospital Dublin.
these things happened.
i ended before i returned to suberbia, in a tiny unit, so small you couldnt even open a standard manual wheelchair to sit in it.  there wasnt enough space.
so small there there six floorboard lengths between the fire grate and the only chair in the sitting room.
so small i couldnt do a floor exercise regime i had done before being moved here.

the child with the gun
who shot at me as i lay on the
swingseat below her, she peers
down with distorted facial
espression.  i have snapped
her with the camera i was
learning about.

so small i couldnt even have my exercise bike or my large ball.
nor could i do my artwork as there was no space.

finally i was shot at.
here is the image of the child who shot at me.
look at this face and ask yourself should these things be happening in ireland?

and if they do how should the authorities behave and act.
how can it be so, that even when all knew the unit was not suitable for a very sick and single lady in the middle now of alcoholic men as only one or two women remained.
all were moved with their children.
so while they were moved for safety, i was moved in!  Literally.

why so.
why did this happen.

but i managed to flee with the help of my twin sister.
gone were the threats of violence against my person.
I had an OT manager there say 'this is all very distressing'  she was genuinely upset.
i had a physiotherapist try to help me set my new place right, picking between my belongings and broken furniture as it had all fallen apart when i had arrived here.
slumped both the above found me in my new home bereft.
i was alone then.

but then i escaped to the Garden.
the Garden of Ireland.
economically it is what i could afford.
i had to move toward country in order to get a roof over my head.

did i know that in the best place to live in ireland, according to the sign on entering this township what would happen me here.
certainly not!
i thought i was coming closer to what i had known and most do better in such a place.

socio-economic status and all that, does count.
you do generally do better with the class you were brought up in, and that isnt being snobbish.
its just fact.

how could it have gone so pear shaped here?
how can it be that i am weeping every day here?
far more than in the small unit where i was shot at.
How come this county brought me back to therapy and yet, the last place a social housing unit so tiny it was worse than a prison cell and violent never brought me so low as to return to therapy.
therapy to try and boost the morale of trying to cope here and live here when everything says i want to be elsewhere.
no, the people here have done no harm.
only the care teams.
these people who are entrusted to care and watch over the vulnerable.

i wont have a person like the OT in my last place.
i have one who laughs in my face down the phone.
who threatens to take away powered wheelchairs

saying good bye to a trusted friend and helper, the tired metal has to be returned to the heartless hse

threatens me.
bullys me.
i had nothing like this in my last county.

but i am truly frightened now for the future.
what will become of me in a callous area of no care?
how can i get the care i know i need and will need.
to be suffering a rare disorder and disease you absolutely need the care and i am awake again with sickening fear for the future.

my twin who i love very much discussed with me the possiblity of moving away again.
to London uk.
to get as far away from here as possible.

we have in essence nothing to hold us here at all.
we are two souls lost but lost together.
two souls who understand about abuse and reign of terrors.
who feel frightened on a daily basis by most things.
especially the human species who have educated themselves to be involved in health.
i weep here now.
i could let out bellowing screams as i am in so much pain, physical pain.
pain that is not being attended too.
suspected broken fingers, three weeks since the fall.
an agonising knee three weeks from the same fall.
an achilles tendon that is now damaged beyond repair due to inaction of the hse to provide me with appropiate shoes and when the shoes do come they are found to be most inappropiate.

in fact the hse have damaged my health.
in response to inaction on the shoes, i am receiving more shoes, and more physio on the achilles.
thats more hse money.
inaction with the knee could mean a knee replacment or worse.
i wont be able to have a knee replacement because i have a muscle wasting disorder.

to think, my friends that i have a soul that loves the inanimate object of a mobility scooter.
i have a soul that loves a little chihuahua or two.

but the hse have no soul to cherish and care for a sick, disabled, elderly woman who has been raped, abused and traumatised.
instead they hate me.
certainly the venom has been stinging and strong.
not only have i seen it.
but a doctor has.

i yearn to see my erika and achmaat again.
these are the district nurse and physio i had up in dun laoghaire.
i loved them dearly.
down here i have no one to love.
no one who cares.
these two people visited me often because they liked me and cared.
down here no one visits me.
they dont care.
no one cares here in my adopted end of life county.
i hope people from wicklow read this.
they have destroyed a very good woman.
i am left feeling useless, apathetic, wasted and rotten with depression.

i am left feeling hatred of wicklow with every fibre of my being.
only because of the hse here.
if they realise that i can turn this all around and thank them.
i could be praising them.
thanking them
and expressing gratitude.
instead bitterness, sadness and traumatised by the way they have dealt with me and my arrival in this country.
If the TD's of this area read this, take note. these td's are simon harris, anne ferris, and others.

the silence of annoyance on your part, is the sadness of regret on mine.
i am lonely beyond measure.
i want to go home.
i want to go home.
i yearn for my home.
please, please, if someone who is kind and good reads this, help me get out of here and return home.
asap.

being who you are/interesting conversations

this is a clapped out scooter the HSE demand BACK. its not in any shape now to give to anyone but means the world to me, as very very happy memories are in it.  

a few things happened today:

A brother called.
A letter came
The builder mucked cement
It rained, rained and rained.

and conversations held
tears shed
tears rained and rained and rained.

solutions.

none
but one

today i had a letter that was quite shocking.
it certainly is a long university course, the school for hard knocks.

this letter tells me that blah blah but 'you were uncontactable when we were to offer you a new social housing unit that was more suitable to your needs.'

Well, it wouldn't have been hard, the 'more suitable' any place would have been more suitable.

as for i was uncontactable, well we are not exactly London with over 8.9million people, we are a full country of 4.something million.

Not to be found in Hackey!

or less.

I had not moved far and certainly if i couldn't be found then you should have started to seriously worry and contact the police.

not finding an individual in a country the size of a pimple is a bit of a joke really.
especially a disabled person who had been in contact with the social services, police (anyway due to being shot at) and more besides.
i was known to every doctor imaginable and even the dentist could be sourced.
i have a twin sister and if they couldn't find me they surely could find her so if they couldn't find her either well then our detection of missing persons is utterly useless.

i think our detection on this aspect of tragic life isn't too bad.
so how on earth could they not find me?
open facebook for instance?

look at my art work and local exhibs cos i am there too or should be.
books i have written, there too and known in a minor way with them.

but you know, i can be found.
i wasn't hiding.
i don't think.
certainly the HSE knew where i was, for the social worker in the last place sent a change over letter to the team in this place.
yep.
so i was known.
both areas are co-ordinated by the same managers so the co-ordination is off too.
but we knew that at least, so there i am not wrong.
i am right there so i am. very.

also the HSE told me that 'you would be dead before they offer you a place'
actually no, i am not dead before they offered me a place.
they offered me a place before i bought this place.
that's not being dead and that's two years ago.
so i was far from dead.

so someone got that wrong too.
but they always get it wrong for nothing that the HSE has done or contributed to my life in any shape or form has been right!
i am right there too.

Oh, now on another matter of the HSE.
i have made the first move in desperation because the HSE were indeed in a nasty process of killing me off, and i was feeling as if my body wasn't going to take anymore of it.
slow slow death in all ways.

the HSE are



 Any one for therapy?
determined in this course of action so i had to take action myself to try and appease the gods.
short of slaying anyone, i made my own personal sacrifice
i better be careful on making jokes abut killing anyone for the last time i had the label of 'dangerous' slapped on me and it has stuck.

so dont ever say metaphorically to anyone in the HSE you feel like killing someone, they dont deal well with metaphors at all.

but i was seriously worried of my fragile state and the way it was going with the HSe.
i felt poorly, very.
the HSe have been slowly making me drown, as if in sucking the life blood out of me.
not so much a sink hole as a stink hole.

i had to try and get them out of me.
they were in my brain, my stomach and my breath.
i am not sleeping because who takes over my thoughts on going to bed, the HSE.
what do i dream of The HSE
why do i cry so much The HSE
and why do i write so  much about the HSE, the HSE , again.
so i made the awful sacrifice of telling them to come and get the powered scooter asap.

they had asked for it back or the wheelchair back, i couldnt have both.
so they said to me.
but there is no policy document saying i couldnt.
both are broke anyway so, both are equally dangerous so i hope they dont give over the scooter to some poor sod and have the wheel shoot off, as happened the clapped out wheelchair they had given me (who did they threaten, when they gave this to me)
ah i should not have said that why?
well when the request of 'either or' didnt work, they changed that to 'someone is waiting for the wheelchair'  yes, they felt then that they were on to a loser with the scooter so switched tack.
finally they were not getting very far there and decided to say i had to give the wheelchair back because it was given by mistake.

yes, so they made strong demands of me to have a wet room because i have a neurodegenerative disorder, they decided that i simply had to have a wetroom but even though i was thus needing this so badly i wasnt needing a powered chair at all it seems?
does any of this makes sense?

so at least one of the bones, of contention has been eliminated.
why the vitriolic response on my blog.

i will explain to you so.
because the day i get a decent kind word or action by the HSE in this neck of the woods anyway I will drop dead with shock.
cos so far in over two years nothing has been positive from them toward me, absolutely nothing
they think me slime that slummed out of the slummer.
no no such language but for sure there isnt any for the HSE.

i am dying to write a good word about the hse.
so i shall wait, for the gesture in return.
lets see if tides turn around here.
if they dont i am not in a sink hole but a whirlpool.

its certainly been that way for a long while, too long.
talking of slime.
or muck or something.

the builder, a worker anyway not the builder per say.  a worker of the builder came at 8am.
and he mucked up cement on a board from 8am til 4pm.
it lashed, now i mean lashed and there he was mucking cement which is a mixture of liquid and whatever but certainly it starts as liquid and how on earth was this supposed to SET next to my house in the torrential downpours.
we had slapping slurping waterfilled cement being slapped against my home and me crying.
all that time.
could i get him to tell me if it was ok.
no, he just continued and shrugged his shoulders when i asked the question 'surely it cannot be good to be putting down cement in this weather?\
shrugg shrugg.
I ring the builder.
he doesnt respond all day.
i ring the architect
he didnt respond either.

so by the end of the day, water was coming out of the heavens and outta me, which is very surprising because i have sjogrens syndrome and little water does come out of me cos there is none much left to in the first place.

thats a moisture dying disease, i have it.
venus williams does too.
its not nice, ask her.  she will tell you its not nice.

my breathing too was off.
it was humid today, despite all the water i couldnt breathe.
but i did once the rain cleared this eve, until i put the heating on and then the breathing went.

when my twin left (thank you twin for staying so long cheering me up) she nearly died tonight and i had a sense of deja vu because her dog legged it out my hall door like a bat from hell across the road and away.
just as happened when i screamed and roared after this same dog and i in my ffffff...ing and b... when the home help was here was labeled 'dangerous.'
i never actually knew that trying to get dogs back in to the house and expletives amounted to dangerous behaviour, especially when we had a dangerous situation of dogs and cars out there and they dont mix that well.

anyway a bit of taste of something there for her.
whatever.
when twin went i turned off the heating and opened some windows.
my breathing is better.

ah forgot to mention the 'interesting conversation' with my brother.
deafness.
yep
we were talking about a deaf couple who had a child and i was asking about the child since grown up.
he noted and said that they were an odd couple.
to which i wondered what he meant.
he told me.
i guess you could say he was explaining me.
but he didnt know that and didnt realise this.
i am very deaf.
this is one of the reasons i can be considered 'sharp.'
how many of you know deafness in your life or others and known to you is a brusque, sharp way of communication, short spurts and gruffness at times with no subletly etc.
did anyone ever get to realise if you dont hear subtle then you cannot do subtle.
its not odd, it makes perfect sense.
also those who are deafened sometimes call a spade a spade and shoot from the hip.
its called direct speech and we are good at it.
it is a product of not hearing enough to learn any other way.
it doesnt mean we are bitch material, bad material, mental material. we are deaf.

when the HSE begin to learn that then the education has started.

i will await developments from the HSE regarding a softening of touch there too, with me giving back a scooter they say they own and yet they owe me 450e which i am not legally entitled to pay on its maintenance.
but they can it seems legally demand it back.
Oh gud don't start.

did i tell you at the onset that the HSE and their ways is now part of my cellular makeup?
i did.
do i like it.
no i don't.
will i lose sleep over it.
very probably.

Some very interesting developments and some sadness

Indeed, today was sad.
the weather, the first day indicating winter had arrived went a long way to bring despondency.

but also a long journey from one hospital to another found me bursting into tears all over the place.

I arrived at the first hospital a day early.
the travelling was tiring, it was wet and forever long.
i burst into tears and again St. Vincents must have it written down - 'if a patient becomes upset, hand em water!'  it happened.  Again!

I find this disability and sickness thing all tedious, dispiriting and relentlessly unforgiving.

down in the coffee shop with my cardiac monitor.  they were so nice up at that unit that a monitor was found for me to go home with.

i saw my neurologist out of the corner of my eye.
he looked very stylish with two rather stylish people, especially a woman in a wrapped headscarf i found very classy indeed.

he saw me as we met eye.
he came over and was so kind, but sean is always kind.
he asked me a few questions and of course, this was the second bout of tears as i expressed to him that things were becoming bad for my twin and i, sad and bad.
we were unwell, unsupported and disappointed with our choice of our forever town, greystones.

More than disappointed.

ON my long journey to the next hospital i was listening intently to the radio.
i like doing that and its catch up time away from personal troubles a plenty.

but there was more trouble there too as  emily logan reported at a gathering what she had found in a case presented to the children's ombudsman.

It was a tragic and case of severe sexual abuse of an 11yr old and how she was left too long before help and therapy was offered.
as i listened to the travesty that unfolded all was too familiar and raw.
what transpired just beggared belief and actually echoed in great detail what Ms. Emily O'Reilly the ombudsman had recounted in her recent departure interview.
she too was disappointed.
disappointed in her failure to develop an adult relationship with the HSE.

The HSE should realise that its made of human beings but what has gone wrong?
most within the HSE i have found engaging and kind, so what actually happens within the structure.  At the level of power that seems to actually reverse the kindness some see at ground level.
No person in a professional capacity in health goes through university and training to turn nasty at the end of it.
but something does happen within the ranks.

We speak of it collectively.
As in this particular case the mother of the child says she can never ever hope to trust the HSE again to care for her child, who will be turning 18yrs of age shortly.
Never hopeful, now,  that the person so violated will, after Emily Logan's decision was read, be treated well and with proper care.

this speaks volumnes for small mindedness.
that if you take a case to the Ombudsman in a 'modern society' Enda is so proud of, you can expect a backlash.

this is not a democratic response to a democratic process.
to have an Ombudsman's office is about as democratic as it can get.
Most societies have one to be independent and transparent and can and does give a judgement based on honesty and integrity.
but that being the case, we then have this judgement used, effectively against the person who has taken the case.

this is serious.
its very serious in a small country too.
the pool for caring staff and professionals is small.
so to have a body called the HSe to even be so badly thought of is a bit sad and more than a bit frigthening.

but some of the sadness lies in the professional manner of the personel.
This does seem to come down to the type of education, the type of systems of that education for which the training is based.
we see it is intrinsically flawed.

One incident found within this case is utterly astounding.
the social worker had rung up the school where this child was attending and told the school not to allow her back to school unless she sees a psychiatrist first!
On another occassion the social worker rang the family GP and requested some confidential information.  Of course the GP was wise and correct to reject this request out of hand.
rightly so.

We do have laws protecting people in this country.
this is good.

I find too that being general is a dangerous avenue to go down.
Just because a woman is angry and angry toward the HSE for not providing for a child threatened with a knife and raped,  doesn't actually make a woman 'difficult' and 'rude' as the HSE had recorded her to be.  Emily found her a well grounded lady.

where  have i heard these types of generalisations before and a complete lack of empathy?

its like saying someone raising their voice in anger and exhaustion is 'dangerous.'
I have heard this happen.

this is serious in my mind and in others.
its serious to jump to conclusions and serious to show no empathy to the situation at hand.

a woman who has given birth to a baby and nurtured that child well to the age of 11 and suddenly this child then is so violated it now seems apparent she, in this case,  will need specialist therapy for a long while to get over all this, should be angry.
11 years in the moulding of a mature adult with stability all undone with violence and rape, should sent a woman utterly wild.

there are times when you have to have 'empathy' with this person and in other situations where trauma occurs, empathy should prevail.

certainly understanding after the fact is important, before you go back to the office, lift that phone and make your pronouncement hastily.
You cannot just say something you think, you feel.
you work with facts, when a professional.
otherwise systems fail.

we should remember too when you are a social worker, occupational therapist, nurse, physiotherapist, you are dealing with fragile minds and bodies because these are the disciplines of health.
when we are dealing with the health of anyone we have to remember we are dealing with a human being just like ourselves.

I treasure the times i was professional in my Arts & Empowerment classes with the elderly, treasure the times i was sensitive to the blind elderly who held gently my maggie mai in their laps.
i treated everyone i dealt with as if so so precious i could not do any harm and never wanted to.
when i taught art to the disability groups i tried to instill in them confidence and hope and to nurture a love of art.
and when i taught the small children, i was trying to do my bit in education so that they would grow strong.
When i was visiting the elderly in the hospitals, close to death i willed myself to continue the bus trips to them, because to let a lady down with so little left in life would be awful.

I had one such lady who was in her eighties and anorexic.
she was like a little bird in the bed.
she never sat up for i never saw her do this.
she kept saying she needed new glasses.
whether she did or not, the fact that on every visit i made she complained she did so.
i heard that this wasn't unfamiliar.
so i asked, why not get her these glasses?
it doesn't really matter if you or i say well, she never sits up, never reads so why should she need them.
she requested them, relentlessly.
for a dying woman who had struggled all her life, what is a last wish about then?
is it about whether its a useful piece of eye equipment or irrelevant?  to us.
it was to her and thats all that mattered.


i also remember that taking the elderly out was important.
we have some dreadful nursing homes, but in the 70's all types of institutions were dreadful, i had been in a few to realise this.
but even if i was utterly livid to discover that all the way to the train station in the car of another volunteer i never knew something i was soon to discover.
a day out with elderly men and women i discovered that i had sat in a car seat where a man had soiled himself.
and when i got up my rear end wasn't pretty.
i had to travel on a train all the way home in this state.
i was fuming, embarrassed, livid etc.
but i see the funny side now and human beings do these things, more so at the end of their lives.

I think after to day i realised one thing.
empathy.
its everything actually.
just  to be with a person for a little while in spirit and kind, and to bond with the feelings and care worn and weary, the abused, the violated and the sad, sick and disabled.
its about caring enough to give someone your last rolo.
the HSE is not made up of demons entirely.
there is the odd one or two where power has gone berserk in their heads, but i have met some fantastic warm HSE workers in all disciplines.
so i have yet to understand how it can go so pear shaped for some individuals who have recourse to be cared for by them!

the body people involved,that is the cared for, is not small either.
its a significant amount of people being injured by the HSE in one way or the other.

I think its time that the HSE receives the curative response and drive that is being driven now relentlessly to improve the economy of this country.  we may turn out to be viable in the markets but stinking in the stalls.

oh and finally i heard another piece of information on the radio.
stats this time.
we are the 13th best countries to live in out of 63 well that isn't TOO bad i guess, but i have not an iota of an idea how we managed to fare so well, actually.
the journey from beginning to end belied a very different story.
its not all gambling lambs and green fields methinks. Often.