No blog for two days -schock!
It had started after a day in London with friends, it exploded as I talked with friends, John and Ros and William about a way to democratise the future of pension schemes such as those that we are in. At 6pm my brain could not cope, it overloaded and while the others carried on, my partner carried me away and called in an ambulance. I had had, what it later turned out – a seizure.
That ambulance carried me away to Wexham Park Hospital and a queue of ambulance beds that stretched around the corridors so that over a day I moved to the front. After a couple of body and head scans I went home by bus to Sough and so home. I had not changed clothes nor picked up a laptop, having only my phone and my voice.
The experience of ambulance and emergency in a major hospital gets fairly grim in the winter when the winter has its grip on us. Wexham is no different ,I’m told, than its peers.
After my turn in front of my peers came a long time where I spoke with many, mainly men and mainly over 70, in the trolley queue. We talked of our conditions and of football and of family and not of money. There is no need of money when your thoughts are of death. With an Islamic Man, I had a long talk of God and what was expected of us.
Finally, after two scans, one extensive, I was led aside by a young doctor, we went into a number of rooms, all occupied, till we found a furniture less ward and there he told me that I had not had a stroke, as I’d been told, but another form of brain attack similar to the migraine that has no headache but brings disability. Such are things you need to live with neurological problems! Being treated in a corridor is not the chaos and agony that some news report.
The net result for you was no blog yesterday and none this morning as I slept in till nearly 7 am.
This is not to discount the events of the last four hours which I hope to catch up on as I keep a chronicle on our progress (sometimes regress) towards a fairer system.
I had had meetings with David Pitt-Watson, on his way to the House of Lords, the Ruarri Profmi , now of the Pensions Trust . I should have met with my old friend Adrian Boulding (we will rearrange). We have had a revised VFM to consult on (mostly to my agreement) and we have two actuaries doing their thing on the VFM podcast (more later).
Life goes on , teams meet and emails fly. It is not as though somebody’s seizure changes anything. I had not had a stroke (whatever that is) , though I had been told I had. I am now well and on some medicine. I know what it is like to lie in AE queues for a day and wonder what your fellows feel as they face the fear of capitulating brains and bodies.
It was an accident that we all were there, chucked out of Slough and district into a grey concrete box with “high tax scanners but no pharmacy” as a perceptive veteran of the experience told me. I am told that Britain’s hospital emergency units are generally overworked and under regarded and I would consent. Although it seemed chaos, some order had been generated and the old sick clientele were treated.
It never seemed an emergency , even when some youngsters arrived, accompanied by adult police officers ~(to ensure they did not run away – we supposed). There is something calming about a medical environment which is authoritative in a way school or work is.
I came away having been under observation (I suppose) and having been scanned, but otherwise no wiser. My partner had me back shattered but at least aware of the nature of the brain damage I have suffered. As for my colleagues on that call- who knows? How tolerant of others frailties, the weakness of their brain and their body. That I will find out in the months to come.
For you, reading this far, without spending 24 hours in an accident and emergency queue, be aware, it is an introduction to selves other than yourself. It is a time for you to compose your thinking with your God and a chance for you to get on with your nurses and other hospital staff.
It has helped in a strange and mysterious way , with my composure! I hope you fee it in my writing in the weeks and months to come.
Henry, I am sure I speak for all you friends here on the blog when I say I am so sorry to hear you suffered a (partial) seizure.
We love to hear from you – but a message just to say you are OK is just as valuable to us as a thought provoking analysis of a seemingly intractable problem in the pension world.
Well said
Hey Henry, I’m sorry to hear about your seizure and your appalling treatment at the hospital. I sorta had half your experience just prior to Christmas (a blackout that was ultimately found to be a heart rhythm anomaly that was resolved with a pacemaker implantation). But thanks to the efficiency of the much maligned U.S. healthcare system, that whole episode took less than 24 hours from the blackout at home to arriving back home with the new pacemaker installed. My wait in ER was less than 30 minutes.
Coming originally from Canada, which also has a “socialized” medical system, I have to say that we get what we pay for. The U.S. system, aside from the treatment efficiency, is indeed very expensive to run, and from the patient’s perspective very convoluted to manage. I’m currently wrangling with my two insureres over coordination of benefits, and this will probably reverberate on for at least another month.
So I do yearn for the bureaucratic simplicity of the Canadian system, but I don’t miss the long wait times at the ER!
I don’t think it was appalling treatment, John. Everyone gets it and it’s the result of there being too little space in the AE wards. The under-investment is a problem with our expectation – right now we ought to think of emergency treatment as exceptional and not guaranteeing ward space at any point
Henry, having spent the last 13 days dealing with my Fathers admittance to the Queen Alexandra hospital in Cosham, and his passing on Wednesday, all I can add is that there are many caring NHS proffesionals working under pressure who do a brilliant job. But there are also many who are there to earn a living who would rather be somewhere else. You never know who you get to look after you, so clear moral of this note, best to keep yourself fit and healthy. Please take care of yourself Henry, that means taking time out to enjoy yourself on a regular basis :-).
Hello Henry,
I’m very sorry to read of your above experience. Good news that they were able to successfully diagnose your condition with their scanners. Speaks well for all the technical innovations that we happily accept from the Health Service nowadays.
Fingers crossed that you have no more such experiences.
Kind regards,
Tim Simpson
Sorry to hear you have been in the wars again Henry!
Take care.
May you be fully better real soon.
Nothing like having a brush with mortality to help one realise that God has a purpose for you or as St John Henry Newman wrote:
“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.
May Christ support us all the day long,
Till the shades lengthen and the evening comes,
And the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over,
And our work is done.
Then in his mercy may he give us a safe lodging,
And holy rest, and peace at the last.”
Thankful all good with you Henry and look forward to your next chapter.