Lack of communication

Soooooo, today I am going to have a RANT about lack of communication within the medical professions.  Actually I could rant about lack of communication within a lot of professions but lets just stick to one at a time!

5 years ago I had breast cancer.  I only found out that I had breast cancer because I went for a mammogram, aged 52, at the mobile screening unit that visited my town.  I had no lump, I didn't feel unwell.................... if it hadn't been for the routine screening visit I would never have known I had cancer.  After a few trips to the local hospital for more tests, and a very bruised boob, I was told the news that no woman wants to hear - 'you've got breast cancer.'

My first question was; 'Am I going to die?'  And the reply, 'No, not from this you're not.  I'm just going to get a breast care nurse to sit with you.'  Obviously dealing with a hysterical middle aged woman is not part of a doctors job.  They have minions to deal with that kind of thing!!!

.................BUT my rant today is not about reliving the trauma of having breast cancer though I do actually have a lot to say about it. Lol!  My rant today is about the lack of communication about what happens next.

At the beginning of the week I went for my final mammogram.  Whoopee doo.  Except it's not actually whoopee doo!  For the last three years the hospital has ran a 'drop in' centre for breast cancer patients.  That means that I have to remember that in September I have to go for a mammogram.  I'm very organised so I always go.  But what about the people who aren't organised or don't remember to go?  Does anybody actually chase them up?  This is peoples lives we're talking about.

I've had breast cancer and I've read that one is never actually free of cancer so maybe I've still got it.  But the 5 year period is up so now I just go back to visiting the mobile breast screening unit that visits my town once every three years. 

So I said to the mammogram lady, 'This is my 5th year, do I need to come here any more?'  And she tapped away on her computer and said, 'No you can go back to 3 yearly screening now.'  And I said, 'When is the mobile unit next visiting my town?'  And she said, 'November but obviously you won't need to go in November because you've had a mammogram now.'  Sooo actually it's going to be more than 3 years before I'm checked again ......................and in that time I could be dead!!!

Then I asked when I could stop taking the tablets.  Anastrozole- I was told I had to take them for 5 years.  'Mammogram' lady didn't have a clue.  Apparently she just takes the mammograms.  What a boring job - squishing boobs onto x-ray plates all day long!  She said,  'Would you like to speak to a breast cancer nurse?'  I didn't want to speak to a breast cancer nurse but I wanted to know if I could stop taking the tablets, so I said, 'That would be great, thank you.'

So back I went into the waiting room with magazines from years ago and eventually got called by the breast cancer nurse.  Conversation went a bit like this:

Nurse - 'How can I help you?'

Me - 'I'd just like to know if I can stop taking anstrozole now because I was told that I had to take it for 5 years and the 5 years is up now.

Nurse - What has your doctor said?

Me - 'I haven't seen my doctor.  As far as I know my doctor doesn't even know I've had cancer.'

Nurse - 'I'll just check for you.'  A lot of frantic tapping away at the computer ensured, interspersed with comments like, 'the system is very slow today.'

................And then eventually 'breast cancer nurse' told me that I could stop taking anastrozole because she could see from my records that I had actually been on it for 5 years.  At which point I said, 'Do I not have to see a doctor or someone who will tell me that I'm now cancer free?'

Apparently not!!!

Breast cancer nurse asked if I'd been told what would happen re mammograms in the future and I was sent on my way.

........................And that was it!!!  No reassuring little chat that I'd survived 5 years.  Nothing??!!

.......................And then two days later I get a letter saying, 'We have been unable to contact you by telephone to inform you that your doctor would like you to make an appointment at the surgery to have a routine medication review.'  Well that's a load of rubbish for a start - nobody has left me any messages from the surgery at all.

Sooooo.......................... I phone the surgery (after 10.30am as requested in the letter) and get an automated message.  And I hold on for 7mins & 40secs before I actually manage to speck to a 'real life person'.  And the 'real life person' says, 'Who is your doctor?'  And I say, 'I haven't a clue?'

I registered with the doctors surgery more than 14 years ago and have never, ever seen a doctor since.  'Real life person' takes a lot of personal details from me and tells me who my doctor is.  She follows this up with the comment, 'He's really booked up.  The earliest he can see you is 7th October.'

I suspect that 'my doctor' just wants to tell me that I can stop taking anastrozole, but as the 'breast care nurse' has already told me that I can stop at the end of the current packet; I suspect that a visit to my doctors in a months time will be a complete waste of time.  But it would appear that the hospital does not liase with the doctors surgery so I am going to have a wasted trip and the doctor is going to have a wasted appointment, but hey ho, as long as everything is recorded on some database somewhere then that's OK isn't it???

In the 1960/70s the hierarchy of the NHS system was so much easier, so much more caring and so much more empathic.

At the end of the day................................ I just want someone to care about me.  I want someone to hold my hand and tell me I'm going to be OK.  I want someone to say, 'You've had breast cancer but now you've beaten it'.  I want someone to reassure me.

................That's not going to happen is it?????

There's far too many so called professionals involved these days.  And none of them seem to communicate with each other?? 

What on earth was wrong with good old fashioned doctors, nurses, matrons and surgeons?

Grammar schools verus comprehensives

Just been watching tonight's 'news' and I am sooooo, soooo angry, so obviously need to have a bit of a RANT!

Apparently 'Theresa May' wants to reinstate Grammar Schools.  Or at least that's the rumour.

As someone who has experienced both the 11+ system and the comprehensive system, I would just like to add my views into the mix..................................

Firstly; life is not fair......................

Secondly; there will always be people in life who are cleverer/stupider/richer/poorer than you.

Thirdly; life is not a dress rehearsal.

.....................When I was 11 years old, I failed the 11+ exam.  Now I am 57 years old and yet I can still remember the shame of failing this exam.  From my very first day in infant school aged 4 years old I was being groomed to pass the 11+.  When I started school we didn't have uniforms but for most of my time in the infants I wore 'green' clothes and when I asked my mum if I could have a grey skirt or a blue skirt (because that was what all the other kids were wearing) she said, 'When you're 11 years old you'll go to the Grammar school and will have to wear a blue uniform for 6 years. 

I'm sure at 4 years old I didn't know what a grammar school was, but I knew, in that moment, that it was where I should aspire to go.  From that moment onwards there was never any doubt that I wouldn't follow an academic career.  It was ingrained into me.

I absolutely hated school.  Apparently when I was in the infants my mum used to drop me off in the playground and I'd just run home after her.  Can't imagine that happening these days - someone would have been sued. Lol!  And Junior school was even worse.  I hated every minute of every day.  I wasn't clever, I couldn't do the work, there were more than 40 kids in the class, there was no individual teaching, no caring or concern for anyone and if you couldn't keep up with the majority you just got left behind.  I remember vividly being asked to stand up in front of the whole class when I was 7 years old and spell 'September'.  I'd just moved from an infant school where we had been taught in phonetics and yet all the kids in my new class had moved on from 'baby language' (as they called it). I can still remember the humiliation I felt because I could only spell it phonetically.

I'm not sure whether my parents actually realised just how thick I was? For my first three years at junior school, I always got sat in the second row.  Not really quite sure why.  Maybe my mother had kicked up a fuss.  But then in fourth year, with almost 40 kids in the class, there were four rows and then me and 3 others in a row by ourselves.  I remember going home on the first day in fourth year and the first thing my mum asked was, 'Which row are you in?'  I said I was sitting with Diane by the window because there wasn't any room in 2nd row.  Whether she actually knew I wasn't in 2nd row, I'll never know??!! 

..................Perhaps she did.................. because for the whole of the time I was in 4th year juniors she used to make me do IQ tests every single day after school.  Years later she told me that the headmaster had told her that I was 'borderline' for the grammar school.  However the whole point of IQ tests is that they are testing your intelligence.  They're not actually relying on something you have learned via rote.  Needless to say I failed the 11+.

But what is really interesting is........................  out of about 40 kids in the class there was only a handful of us who failed the 11+.  Obviously there were no league tables in the 1960s but most of the kids in my junior school were predominately from a 'middle class' area.  And when I say 'middle class', we didn't have fathers who worked down the mines.  From the other junior school in the village, only a handful passed the 11+.  But those kids came from council houses and were deemed to be of 'lower class' than us (according to my parents).

...................So off I went to the secondary modern school aged 11 years old and I absolutely loved it.  For the first time in my life I LOVED school.  We didn't have to wear a uniform like they did at the grammar school because we were being taught life skills.  And who wears a uniform to look after a home and a family.  We didn't have to carry a school bag like they did at the grammar school because school bags weren't part of real life.  Us girls took our books to school in a basket with a plastic cover in case it rained.  Can't remember how the boys carried theirs. Us girls were being taught how to look after a family. We were taught how to cook, clean, sew, shop, budget.  Real life skills which to this day, more than 45 years later, I've never forgotten!

By the end of the second term at 'secondary modern school' us girls could cook a three course meal for a family, the boys could do woodwork & metal work and mend stuff.  We all took part in PE classes and regularly ran the 3 miles back from the sports field without any supervision.  It was called 'cross country running'. Lol!  And in the last term we swapped - the girls did woodwork & metalwork and the boys did cookery & needlework.  We made pendants in metalwork and I can't remember what we made in woodwork but whatever it was I really enjoyed it.

The school that I went to in 1970 has now been bulldozed to the ground and there is now a housing estate in its place.  However, I will always remember it with fondness for the skills that I was taught there.

..................And at the end of my first year, at the only school I have ever enjoyed, we moved out of the area and I got moved to a 'Comprehensive School'.............................  And had to endure another six years of hell!!

I wasn't academic, but I was made to be academic because 'comprehensive schools are for all'.  Lets all see how many exams we can pass. Whoopeee dooo!  My parents loved the idea of me going to a newly built comprehensive school.  They loved the idea that everyone was equal except we all know that everyone isn't equal and even though I'd already failed the 11+, here I was going to a comprehensive school where I could shine!  The list of academic qualifications I could take were endless - Chemistry, Physics, Biology, French, German, Russian, Spanish.  In my secondary modern school we did 'science' (which consisted of mixing a few different coloured things in test tubes) and French (which consisted of colouring in cartoon characters wearing stripey sweaters with a string of onions round their neck.)

...................And then when (at my horrible comprehensive school) we had to choose our subjects to take for 'o' levels, us kids didn't get a choice in the matter.  Our parents went to a meeting and chose for us.  I wanted to do typing, shorthand, business studies, food & nutrition and art. My parents chose Chemistry, French, German, History, Geography.  Needless to say I failed everything apart from the geography and history.

Oh dear, this RANT seems to have turned into a bit of a reminisce about my horrible school days.  All I'm really trying to say is..........................  I agree with 'Theresa May'. I personally think it would be a good idea to bring back grammar schools.  People aren't equal and never ever will be.  If I had stayed at the secondary modern school that I went to in 1970 I'm sure my life would have turned out a lot different to how it is now.  I probably would have been a lot happier and a lot more content with my life, a lot sooner than I was.

I don't regret how my life has ended up.  I love my life.  I never have regrets.  You can't change the past.  You can only shape the future.  Educationally, I would have liked to have had a better experience at school.  However, if I'd breezed through school loving every minute I wouldn't have turned into the person that I am today.

'Teresa May' is right in bringing back the grammar schools.  Give the clever kids a chance to shine without the disruptive ones bringing them down.  .................And give the ones who are not so academic a chance to shine too.

Let's bring back the teaching of a few 'life skills'!!!

...................And perhaps then we won't have to watch 'Jeremy Kyle' on TV for an hour every morning. Lol!!!

The Cost of Charity

'Go sober for October',  'Hold a coffee morning in September.'  ..........................Just text for your free information pack.  Just how difficult is it to give up alcohol for a month OK I haven't gone a whole month without alcohol for years but that's not the point! or hold a coffee morning?  Stick on the kettle, bake a cake, invite a few friends around and hey ho off we go!

In an ideal world charities shouldn't have to exist.  But this isn't an ideal world so I accept that charities do very good work and raise a lot of money for very good causes.

However what I don't really agree with, is all this so called 'free' stuff that they keep sending out in an effort to entice us to donate.  I will freely admit that I have absolutely no idea how much all this 'free' stuff costs the charities in relation to how much money is actually donated.  But the cost of employing people re the administration/packaging of these items must be astronomical.

I frequently get sent personalised address labels with a cute little dog or cat in the corner.  Address labels?  Seriously?  It's 2016!  Personalised address labels were trendy in the 1970s.  Does anybody even send letters these days?  These charities need to move with the times.  I'm sure a free app would generate more money for the charity than a personalised address label!  ..................And while I'm on the subject of free gifts......................... how many of you have received one of those nasty scratchy charity pens?  Pens, you would have thought, would be a useful free gift.  Not so the ones that the charities send out.  If they do actually work (and quite often they don't) they are the most scratchy horrible pen to write with.  As soon as I receive one, I chuck it in the bin along with all the other blurb that is in the envelope.

'Brieflets' (notelets or whatever else you want to call them) - is another very popular 1970s item that charities delight in sending us.  After Birthdays and Christmases, when I was a child, I used to write all my thank you letters on these and while I appreciate that it is still very nice to receive a handwritten thank you card; just how many people these days actually do so?  Why don't charities devise an app that can be downloaded for free I'd design one myself but I'm not clever enough and then every time one wants to send a 'brieflet' (but it wouldn't be called a brieflet - it would have some high flying marketing name) one can do it instantly but £1 would be donated to charity.

Just think of the amount of paper that would be saved if all these charities stopped sending reams and reams of stuff that one never reads.

I donate to the 'RSPCA' & 'Dogs Trust' on an annual basis.  I do so because I own a very gorgeous little dog, that probably would not even be alive had one of the dogs charities not intervened and 'rescued' her from her horrible life.  And for that, I am eternally grateful.  However, that does not mean that I want to 'hound' people to support the same charities that I do.

Every year these charities send me raffle tickets to sell.  The first year I received these, I duly went round friends and family, sold all the raffle tickets and sent off the money to the charities, along with the raffle ticket stubs ready for the draw.  Never heard anything back re who had won?!  The second year I was sent two books of raffle tickets, at which point I returned them with a letter stating that although I was happy to support the charity I did not feel comfortable pursuing others to support a charity that they may not want to.  I got no reply to that letter I suspect because the charity databases, like everything else these days are unable to respond to a personal request! And ever since I've received at least one book of raffle tickets to sell each year from both of these charities.  Needless to say they have ended up in the bin, along with all the other c*** that they send me.  I didn't ask for these, I don't want them and I'm certainly not going to pay to return them.

.................But this has got me thinking.........................  When I did sell my book of raffle tickets, I made about £20-£30.  (Can't remember exactly how many I sold cos it was about 10 years ago).  I then had to write a cheque ('cos obviously I couldn't send cash through the post).  This is obviously quite a lot of hassle for a busy person who is not organised.  ...................  I didn't actually have a problem selling these raffle tickets because I like to consider myself as a very good salesperson.  But I'm sure there's a lot better salespeople than me?  Just what is to stop people selling zillions of books of raffle tickets for the 'RSPCA' or 'Dogs Trust' and then just not giving them the money for these or entering them into the draw?  How do these charities keep a check on what is going on?  The answer is, they don't!!!!!  For the last 10 years I've just thrown away all their raffle books and no one has contacted me to find out where they are, but if I was a dishonest person I could just have sold all these raffle tickets, not sent them back (because lets face it, how many people would even think to check that they've been submitted - and how do you check anyway?) and then kept all the money for myself?!!!!

Oh and another thing.............................  Charities paying people to persuade others to donate to them is not a new thing.  20 years ago I had a temporary job - very temporary, I think it only lasted two weeks - selling badges for a charity.  I have absolutely no idea which charity this was for.  I just can't remember.  At the time I wasn't interested.  To me it was just a sales job that I knew I could make money from.  It was a job selling badges to people in a city centre for charity.  The badges cost £1 and for every badge I sold I got 30p.  At the time, I remember a very good friend saying that she really didn't agree with charities employing people to sell badges.  And to be honest, before I got the job, I just thought that all these 'charity badge seller's' on the street were volunteers.  ...............But 20 years ago I was making at least £10 per hour selling these badges.  (And this was in the days when £3 per hour was the minimum wage - though minimum wage hadn't been invented then) I just used to find somewhere where there was a queue and 'work it'!!!  And I remember the 'manager' who was in charge of us telling us that if we were really good we could probably make about £6 per hour???!!!  ......................I've obviously missed my vocation in life. Lol!!!

.....................But I digress..................  The cost of charity............................

...................As far as I'm concerned..................... the cost of charity..................... is a lot?????

There again I may be 'ranting' unnecessarily because as I said above, I have absolutely no idea re the economics and the financial costs of all this so called free stuff that all these charities are giving away.???

Maybe these charities are making a lot of money from 'employing people' to hassle people on their behalf.  But actually............................ as far as I'm concerned.................. donating to charity should be a voluntary thing and being hounded to donate should NEVER EVER be an option??!!

CVs

I am 57 years old.  I have spent my whole life doing a variety of jobs. 

Since the age of 13 years old;  I have been a paper delivery girl, a catering assistant, a table clearing assistant, a chambermaid, a waitress, an usherette, a barmaid, an ice cream seller, a café assistant, a bakery shop assistant, a switchboard operator, a clerical assistant, a typist, a data entry clerk, a primary teacher, an aerobics instructor, a video shop assistant, an educational holidays organiser, a charity worker, a general assistant in a hotel, a hotel assistant manager, a landlady of a pub, a self employed secretary for a surveyor, a receptionist/auditor for a holiday letting company, and an office administrator/PA.  .........................And have had numerous jobs in each of these areas over the years.

I have lived in England, Scotland, Guernsey, Canada, America & Spain.

I can't really remember what GCSEs they weren't called that in the 1970s I got because it was more than 40 years ago but needless to say I got enough qualifications to get into 'teacher training college'.

Over the years I have done umpteen courses - RSA typing & shorthand (the most useful courses I have ever done in my whole life and don't like to boast but I reached level 3 in both).  First Aid courses.  Food & Hygiene courses, SKFA (Scottish Keep Fit Association) courses. Open University courses - Sociology, Psychology, Photography.  Landlady licensee course.  I have got a whole folder full of certificates that I have amassed over the years - the first of which I think was for coming third in the 'scooter race' at my Junior School Sports day.

.....................And now at the grand old age of 57 years old, I am trying to write a CV.  I'm not trying to write a CV for a high flying career job.  I'm trying to write a CV for a 'minimum wage' job which at the end of the day requires little more than a bit of common sense to be able to do it.

...............And here starts my RANT!

I don't think I've ever written a CV in my life, although to be fair, when I was applying for my first teaching job I must have had a CV or said something right at the interview 'cos I got the job out of 250 applicants.  OK boast over.

BUT why do 'minimum wage' jobs need you to hand in a CV?  They're 'minimum wage' and by default it is the lowest wage you can get. 

Why does everything have to be so 'academic' these days?

......................For example - in the tourist town where I live there has been huge problems this year finding people to clean the public toilets.  On the 'jobs website' it says, 'drop your CV down to us.'  'The powers that be', have been going a little bit mad all summer thinking that nobody wants to work??  .................But just how many people are going to 'drop their CV down' for a job cleaning toilets?  And to be honest; if you were an employer would you really want to plough your way through a load of CVs stating how many academic qualifications people had when all you really want to know is............... can they clean toilets????

The world has gone crazy!!!  Everything is just too 'politically correct' these days and it's doing my head in!!

It's the end of summer now but the touristy town that I live in has found it really hard to find seasonal staff this year.  From the beginning of June practically every shop and restaurant has had signs in their windows saying, 'Staff wanted, drop in your CV'.  That surely will put off a lot of the non academic, but very practical kids.  It puts off me and I'm 57 years old with a lot of life experience.

I have been the position where I've had to employ seasonal staff and I really couldn't care less about their academic qualifications.  To me, if you're working with the general public, your charm, wit and dazzling personality, common sense and ability to interact with your colleagues, bosses and customers is far more important than whether or not you have 10 A star GSCEs, a fabulous CV, and have done the 'Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme or a load of charity work.

A lot of the kids in the town that I work in just need a job.  Life is NOT all about academic achievements.  It's not all about fabulous CVs.  I live in a small town in the SW where most of the jobs are in the tourism industry and most of the jobs are only paying minimum wage.  The town where I work needs seasonal waiting staff/bar staff/shop assistants/lifeguards/kitchen porters/chefs/cleaners/chambermaids, etc, etc, etc.

Putting an advert in a window saying, 'Drop in your CV', is not exactly going to attract a lot of kids!  And it certainly wouldn't attract me either!  I'm sure an advert saying send us a text or a FB/twitter/Instagram/snapchat message would attract a load more kids who just want a job for the summer.

'Minimum wage jobs' - you don't need to have zillions of GCSEs to do them.  You don't need a fabulous CV.  - You just need a bit of common-sense, practicality & personality??!!

I'm 57 years old - I'm trying to apply for a 'minimum wage' job and I have to send in my CV.  I've just goggled, 'how to write a CV' and apparently it should only be two pages long.  I'm not allowed to put my age, or my marital status or whether I have children, or my nationality, or attach a photo????

Seriously???.................................

No wonder the town that I live in can't find any seasonal workers????