Uncle David and Aunty Michelles visit (by sarah)

Just before Mary was a month old my brother and his fiance came to visit 🙂 Mainly we hung around the house due to me not really being well enough to go out though I did manage one outing to the Beefeater at the Twelve Bells which was lovely 🙂

There was lots of film watching and chatting and Mary and Jean snuggles 🙂 Complete with new cuddly toys for all and some funky pens with stamps at one end which Jean has been using continually since the visit! (Though annoyingly sometimes on herself :/ )

The Two Bald Ones (by sarah)

Mary and Dad were sitting on the sofa and I just couldn't help but think of them as the two bald ones - this was not helped by the fact that Dad pointed out that Mary has hair round the back and down the sides but not much on top!

I am now carrying out my threat to put the photo on the blog under the title of The Two Bald Ones 😉

You can’t get the staff these days! (by alaric)

We've got houseguests over, and we left them at home while we went for a walk in the countryside.

However, when I got home, I found they'd decided to go to Tesco many hours previously, and had gone off leaving:

• Jean's rabbit outside in his run
• The shed unlocked
• The front door of the house wide open

When asked why, they said "Oh, Barbara (the next door neighbour, my aunt) was around"...

Had it not occurred to them that Barbara might decide to go out herself, and is not supposed to be responsible for locking up our home? Or that Barbara might not actually take it upon herself to guard our open doors from passing opportunists, and sit watching, but might have her own things to do?

sigh

A Case For the GMC (by sarah)

As some of you know around the time we started this blog my uncle died in horrific circumstances in Hospital and it has only just come before the General Medical Council which will probably produce little result.

There have been arguments over weather it was mansluaghter, murder or gross negligence etc...

I ended up holding Benny down whilst the emergancy physiotherapist attempted to manually pump his lungs out where the feeding tube had been switched on whilst in his lung 🙁

This broke his ribs but was the only hope to save his life by this point plus there were many things wrong like no water reservior in the breathing machine so he was drying out. Benny had Downes' Sydrome and was very scared that night, he was getting better and though it could be argued his quality of life was low - he thought he had a good deal as long as there was enough cake.

Basically even if it was done as a mercy act it was definatly NOT, it was horrible and he was scared and the knock on effect in the family where people have held themselves to blame becuase they trusted doctors to know when to switch the feeding machine on. (Benny when scared could fight over being fed).

Anyway - this is not the only case like this I have been hearing off. Al's grandmother was put on a drip with no Gloucose in it (as was Benny and also a friend of mine and Al's who was in hospital due to forgetting to eat :/ ). The Doctors told family that if they fed the old woman they would no longer get any state help to look after her. A nurse has told me a similar story about her grandfather which was one of the reasons she wont work for certain hospital trusts.

So as far as I can tell there is illigal euthenasia in our hospitals or something very amiss in the way we educate drs and nurses! And worse people who want to die and plead are kept alive and those who can not defend themselves are dying in the most horrific ways such as being what amounts to being starved to death or drowned.

I can only hope that it is ineptitude and they aren't really viscous killers and that an education reform could fix these things. My own experience of hospitals is that they are indeed very broken and need a massive over haul. Including sacking all the foot shufflers who pretend they can't here you're heart monitor alarm go off >:(

Anyway I started this post becuase I've written a poem about that night at the hospital and was intending to post it but thought I should add in some background.

A Case for the GMC

Wizzen broken monkey
Skin grey
Wrinkeled crepe paper
Downey whiskers
Sharpe dowdy white
In striped pajarmers
Convict of the ward
On death row
Drowning in food
A mistake
A cull?
Tortured
by those who save
Broken ribs
From pumping you out
Cracked lips
From resusitation
Now blue
Eyes revolve
As a horse in panic
They can not save you
They can't now
But they did not want to
Did they?

Sheds – stress (by sarah)

Barbara came back from holiday yesturday and I excitedly showed her the shed - but I got this sinking feeling that she doesn't remember the two or three conversations we had about putting a shed in early this year 🙁

I am now awaiting her getting really upset about the fact that it appeared whilst she was on holiday.