the irish bailout- is it glorious? i don't feel it.

ireland now is exiting this bailout which caused our county to land on knees.
the trouble being, the knees were those who could least afford this.
we saw far more homelessness, we saw disabled and elderly being crucified and will be crucified for many years in the future because indeed we are told already that there will be more social and medical health cuts in budget 2014.

i do feel that the austerity has been profound for the least able.
we didn't have equable responsibility as a state.

the rich saw no cuts.
no cuts at all.

when people talk today in the media, we are talking about the positiveness of increase in jobs and economy.
but not one person who is working within the disability sector has been asked questions in the media, only those in business, policy makers and economists.
who is asking those who are ill, disabled and vulnerable how it is to be exiting the bailout today?

i can say on the 'historic weekend ahead'  that i have had prescription charges trebled in the cuts.
no services provided for my health care which will make life or my health anyway better or my quality of live, health any better.
i am being denied even a wheelchair of any use.

i have at present a wheelchair so clapped out and reconstituted that it continually breaks down continually lose body parts and now been told that before released to me, that the bolts which hold the wheels on are in fact the wrong ones.
yet always the HSE has consistently said that wheelchairs are vetted by engineers before being allocated to disabled people.
this isn't so.
this one wasn't and this one lost wheels.

i think people have to start to wake up and feel for us.
because as a commentator said today we better not sleep walk back into the future.
can we ask the irish nation not to sleep walk all over the people who are your brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, your wives, husbands, grannies and grandfathers.
because, believe me we are leaving a vast swathe of our fellow human beings unaccounted for in quality for their life which is about the only life they will have.

when i think about preciousness of life i do look on this as equal for everyone.
not just those who can contribute to the pot.
not everyone is equal in this and a lot is down to luck and good fortune of who you were born and how you were born.
but does that actually say 'well that is just tough bloody luck for you, none of my business.?
this is what is being said.

I have not, ever in the past few years been supported by a family who have the means to support two very sick ladies with chronic, neurodegenerative disorders.
neither my twin or i have received the following:

a gesture of a meal at the family homes and extended family homes, only at festive times.
a gesture of a trip out for lunch, theatre, film or a drive, not once, oh, ah yes, once and we had a ball when we were taken to a film "the life of Pi"

further, we have not had support by way of anger by our family members at the state of the wheelchairs we have been provided with, instead we have received the anger from siblings for trying to start a fundraiser for these chairs.

i have not had nor has my twin, being delivered a simple meal to either of our homes, by more healthy family members, extended and other so that at least we might have a meal we didn't cook, have to go to shops and struggle through checkouts for.

we have not had either a family member support us to a doctors appointment, speak to a medical person about our situation and ask questions about our future, or our health or our disabilities and illnesses, they wouldn't be that interested and some hardly know what is wrong.

we have not in all these years had help by way of  another family member suggest a carpenter, builder, van repairer, electrician or other when we needed such advice.

we just have felt totally alone in everything with the only suggestion ever made being we should go into the funny farms of sheltered accommodation.

it is fact...we are in dangerous times for sick and elderly and disabled.
even some of the carers we have, (and we have only a limited amount we are by no means being 'cared by the state.' a belief of the wealthy family and extended family), been told that most sick and disabled do have family support and its tragic that we do not.
this has been said from the district nurse, by the doctors we have and by the home help providers.

they all tell us that we are unfortunate because in these times, those who have family fare better and its rare to not have family.

do you think then that my twin sister and i are not grieving right now?
we are, we feel the loss of this support and never having it when we could do with it.
we feel frightened of the future.
we feel alone and frightened of the future.
we feel frightened of the level of health care, for honestly, those who have family who can demand better usually get better.
when you do not have this behind you, you are at the mercy of the state who couldn't care a shite about you whether you lived or died.
if you have family who cared, then you have a chance or half a chance of living because they will make sure the state will not kill you off.

if you think this is extreme thinking, its not only my thinking, its that of others who have said the same and to me and also when in conversation with disability groups, media, commentators who are not the commentators on the radio right now, they say the same.

we as a nation need the support of each other more than every before.
my twin and i have no one bar the few home help ladies who come and help us for the few hours they do.

there again the family can retort that we are 'lucky' and feel fully convinced that these helpers are doing everything, that is cooking, cleaning, washing and shopping.
this is far from the truth and is self soothing perception to help them and help them get off the hook with ease.

what about love in all this?
isn't that too part of being family?
we don't feel loved.

we have been told already that one sister is taking out a barring order so we wont go onto her land, but this threat has passed and never came to pass, but it was said,  because we shouted in her car park and some of her staff might hear.  We shouted for good reason, not because we were obnoxious.

we do not feel loved when we were not invited to a family wedding and nor a 90th birthday to a now deceased aunt we adored and the pain of being left out is enormous for myself, i loved this woman and i was not there for a great occassion, because i was not invited.

we do not feel loved for being left out of not attending a sisters wedding before her husband of decades died a horrible and sad death.

At christmas time its about 'where and what will we do with the twins, ' in other words, who will have them.
and sometimes no one has.
one year our first away from the county of our birth no one had us, we were together alone and saddened.

this year i am having my brother and his family and thoroughly looking forward to this and hope i will be able to do it well given i am so jaded tired.
but i am looking forward to this.

but we have all these sorts of things happening right across holy ireland right now.

wealthy still wealthy.
some have support and others completely and utterly abandoned no matter what the social class or criteria.

we must all pull together to give everyone a chance for equality.
that means the disabled count.
the sick count.
the elderly count
and family count.

all count in a fragile world where we are living for only a very short while.
does it feel that fair that some are abandoned to constant pain, struggle, fear and lonliness and poverty and homelessness and suffering?
especially when we all can do more and do our bit to make it easier.
if you helped you are giving and the feeling of giving is more than the feeling of taking.

i am angry tonight.
we will as a country not change much before i die.
and i am dying believe me i am dying and dying in pain and misery left as a piece of shit amongst both family and society.
the only reason why i have a roof over my head is because of my dad's wonderful gift of leaving my twin and i the home of my sister above us who died prematurely.
we owe the roof over our heads to the dead.

but myself never having worked, only have a disability pension.
that is it. final.
so will my end be that.
final.
i am a frightened lady.