Cutting it Fine
Today is the first time I have been able to use a keyboard for nearly a month. The reason is something to do with my wild and reckelss youth when I was a film stunt man and crashed motorbikes and drove cars for films and television, great fun then but there is no such thing as a free lunch
Now I am paying for the gorgeous girls and fast cars with a damaged spine which seems to be deteriorating and leaves me flat on my back. By rigging up planks and suspending screens and keyboards like some sort of crazy-house in a funfair, I can keep my neck in traction which releases the nerves so I can type
The worst thing about the last month has been the painkillers, living in France we have the good fortune to have doctors and specialists on call 24/7 and half a forest must have been cut down just to provide the prescriptions for a seemingly endless list of drugs. After weeks of living in never never land with the fairies I though it better to simply lie still and stop the injections and pills.
All this has given me time to read and keep up with the news. We do get English newspapers in the village shop - well the Daily Mail and the Daily Express which have dropped to the level of the Sunday Sport or National Enquirer of ten years ago, but with Google I can get some "feel" for what is happening - interestingly health, or rather the lack of the UK health service, seems to be a big issue in the UK press. I have often praised the French system for health care, but from what I hear and read I would be very worried to have had the same back problem in the UK.
In the last few weeks I have had three MRI scans, two sets of X-rays and countless meetings with specialists to sort me out. I have never had to wait more than 30 minutes, often an appointment is exactly on-time. The local GP will come to the house within an hour of being called and a nurse will come three times a day if I need injections. We pay much less for our social service and health insurance than in the UK.
Two years ago my Mother suffered with a hip which left her in agony for months, living in the UK she was told she had to wait up to nine months for a scan, or pay £1,200 to have it done privately in three weeks,she came to live with us in france and had a successful operation the day she chose. Here, in the middle ofthe French countryside, I have at least three scanners within ten minutes of where we live, can arrange for a scan within three days and if I wanted to pay privately it would cost under £80. I get the results immediatly and can look at my insides from the CD they give me as soon as I get home.
I know the Brits like to complain all the time, but from the tabloid press I am absorbing it seems there is good reason - can it be really true that in the UK refuse collection will only be every two weeks (here we get refuse cleared three times a week) - are people really fined if their child drops a sweet on the pavement - are there really schools where English is never spoken. Please, someone write to me and tell me this is all part of the morphine dreams I have been having otherwise I will think that anyone wanting to go to live the UK must be raving barking mad.
Now I am paying for the gorgeous girls and fast cars with a damaged spine which seems to be deteriorating and leaves me flat on my back. By rigging up planks and suspending screens and keyboards like some sort of crazy-house in a funfair, I can keep my neck in traction which releases the nerves so I can type
The worst thing about the last month has been the painkillers, living in France we have the good fortune to have doctors and specialists on call 24/7 and half a forest must have been cut down just to provide the prescriptions for a seemingly endless list of drugs. After weeks of living in never never land with the fairies I though it better to simply lie still and stop the injections and pills.
All this has given me time to read and keep up with the news. We do get English newspapers in the village shop - well the Daily Mail and the Daily Express which have dropped to the level of the Sunday Sport or National Enquirer of ten years ago, but with Google I can get some "feel" for what is happening - interestingly health, or rather the lack of the UK health service, seems to be a big issue in the UK press. I have often praised the French system for health care, but from what I hear and read I would be very worried to have had the same back problem in the UK.
In the last few weeks I have had three MRI scans, two sets of X-rays and countless meetings with specialists to sort me out. I have never had to wait more than 30 minutes, often an appointment is exactly on-time. The local GP will come to the house within an hour of being called and a nurse will come three times a day if I need injections. We pay much less for our social service and health insurance than in the UK.
Two years ago my Mother suffered with a hip which left her in agony for months, living in the UK she was told she had to wait up to nine months for a scan, or pay £1,200 to have it done privately in three weeks,she came to live with us in france and had a successful operation the day she chose. Here, in the middle ofthe French countryside, I have at least three scanners within ten minutes of where we live, can arrange for a scan within three days and if I wanted to pay privately it would cost under £80. I get the results immediatly and can look at my insides from the CD they give me as soon as I get home.
I know the Brits like to complain all the time, but from the tabloid press I am absorbing it seems there is good reason - can it be really true that in the UK refuse collection will only be every two weeks (here we get refuse cleared three times a week) - are people really fined if their child drops a sweet on the pavement - are there really schools where English is never spoken. Please, someone write to me and tell me this is all part of the morphine dreams I have been having otherwise I will think that anyone wanting to go to live the UK must be raving barking mad.
posted by Harmony at 9:06 PM
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