How many people did I manage to piss off royally with my previous post! Wow! Many apparently.

So, I have received emails from a good number of people complaining about my attitude towards ‘key’ workers. Namely, assistant district nurses, assistant pharmacists and childish doctor’s receptionists.

Now, ask me if I give a right royal fuck whether I have offended anyone at all?

If you correctly guessed my answer is ‘Seriously? I couldn’t give a flying fuck for any one taking offence at my personal opinion of the people I have to deal with. Your sensibilities are yours to look after. I have enough to do.’ Then have a gold star and go to the top of the class.

I refuse to apologise for people being offended by me about what I have to say. I think I was pretty much on it in my post yesterday, it was crystal clear to me at least, why I was so fucked off with this particular set of workers. What I will say is this, there is no room for stupidity, ignorance or arrogance when people work in the medical field, in whatever role they play. They are dealing with people’s health and wellbeing. The onus is on those workers to do their jobs properly, it is what they signed up to do after all, so that the health and mental wellbeing of those vulnerable people they are dealing with, is not made worse by their lack of due diligence in their work.

So, don’t complain to me about my shitty attitude, I’ve earned it. I am owning it, and I will continue to own it for the foreseeable future. I’ve literally battled for 32 years fighting for my son to get him the help and care he needs to be able to live as normal a life as possible. In the last ten years or so, that help and care has all but disappeared down the pan along with common sense and logic. Everyone thinks they can cut costs on medication by using the cheaper version, on dressings by providing the cheaper ones, the logic being, you can have more that way.
I am here to tell you that is bollocks. I am currently managing a pressure sore that has developed because my son has little or no sensation from the waist down. If I follow the rule that the district nurse knows best, we will be dealing with this sore forever and I am not exaggerating.

So, I don’t follow their rules, I follow my own rules, carved out over that 32 years of caring. I sourced the best possible cream that will actually heal the sore inside of 8 weeks. I know it works, I’ve used it many times on many different sores. It’s expensive, but it works. My GP approves the repeat prescription. He sees the logic and agrees with me.

Is it more expensive than 6 to 10 months supply of dressings and de-sloughing materials, less capable creams and lotions? No. It’s a damn sight cheaper in the long run. So I strongly object when a trainee district nurse comes to my house and informs me yet again, that I should stop using the cream that works, because she has been given a much better one that we must try and it’s a lot cheaper. When I ask her what it is, she provides a sample tube. I open my medicine cupboard and point to the 10 or so tubes of her cream that have been duly tried and which have duly failed to do the job at hand. Now shoot me if you want, but the ONLY thing I’m interested in at any point is the best interests of my son’s health and hopefully a speedy return to good health. And, just in case you are in any doubt at all, it is me personally who cleans and dresses this and every other pressure sore my son has ever had since he turned 13. Because in the past, we have allowed District nurses to come in and take care of them and a whole host of shit has gone down that didn’t need to, on one occasion culminating in my son spending 17 weeks in an isolation unit in hospital when he was 13 years old. Since then, I do it myself.

Do I care if the nurses are upset at my refusal to use their ‘tried and tested methods’? No. Do I worry that they won’t be there to ‘help’ me in the future? No. Why? Because I don’t need them. They insist on inserting themselves into our lives, so out of respect for the few that do know what they’re about, I allow them in, I tell them categorically, they can come, observe proceedings, cast a critical eye over those proceedings and then they can leave. If that offends them, I don’t care. I am way past answering to them.

When people get their jobs right and do it properly, I praise them to the roof tops, I thank them profusely, and I have even, on a rare occasion, written an email to their boss singing their praises. Why? Because they didn’t add to the problems, they created workable solutions and were polite and professional, but more importantly they were efficient and showed competence in their abilities.

Now, I really don’t care if I sound like I’m a know all who is too big for her boots, as one person succinctly put it, I don’t care if you think I am rude and arrogant and out of order. I couldn’t give a shit if you think I am too anything quite frankly. You don’t live in my world, you don’t live my life and you don’t deal with the myriad of problems I deal with on a daily, minute by minute basis. Most of those problems are health based and need an immediate and cohesive action to prevent them from becoming major health issues.

As an added extra bonus, hands up in the crowd all those of you who are living with or live with someone or know someone who is living with epilepsy. Now, how many people have seen a loved one have a fit or a seizure for no other reason than because they were taking a generic brand of epilepsy medication instead of the named brand which works. Had that switch not been made, it’s pretty much a given that the fit or seizure would not have happened. So, switching to cheaper brands makes sick people sicker but at least they saved some fucking money. Whoopee!

I could go on and on and on… I believe I have already said enough to make my point.

Don’t tell me I’m rude, instead, you could just acknowledge that I have the right to my own opinion, broadcast on my own web page, about my own personal situation. No naming and shaming goes on, just a broad sweep of general weariness and frustration and unmitigated anger aimed at the particular group of people I have to deal with.

You could also acknowledge that I shouldn’t have to be the one who has no choice but to do their jobs for them because they continually prove they can’t do it properly themselves. In an ideal world every person who ever donned a medical uniform would be the absolute best at what they do. Sadly, that is so far away from the truth it’s frankly frightening.

I am not saying, nor have I ever even hinted that I view every single person who works in health care this way. I deal with a lot of fantastic, professional, forward thinking people who have made a huge difference to us. I thank them for always doing their job properly. I thank them for their due diligence. It makes my son’s life (and therefore my life) workable.

I hope this clears up any misconception that I might give a rats arse about people being offended by me.

Gemma’s World is exploding! (and not in a good way) 😡🤯

So, the last time I was able to sit down and actually write something useful, was roughly this time last week I think. Since then, a whole shitstorm of stupidity, incompetence and arrogant fuckwittery has landed in my world and I really would like them all to just fuck right off now thank you very much.

I am sick and tired of having to wait for other people to do the job they are paid to do, properly and on time, so that my son’s life (and therefore my life) can run smoothly. I am sick and tired of having to explain my reasons for wanting them to do their jobs properly. I am sick and tired of dealing with arrogant imbeciles who have only been alive 19 years looking down their orange noses at me and thinking that because they are a fucking doctor’s receptionist or District Nurse trainee, or pharmacy assistant that they know more than I do!

They Don’t! Plain and fucking simple, I have been doing this shit for 32 years in March and let me tell you, there is very little by the way of stones left unturned in my world to better aid my ability to do what I have to do on a daily basis. I do not for one moment resent the things I have to do, I do them because I love my son, I love my mam, I love my step-dad, they are my people and I am their go to for everything and anything including a blocked kitchen sink. I have no problem with the workload, I accept it as part and parcel of my daily life and I get on with it.

What I do resent is some kid in a grown up’s uniform thinking they can tell me they have reinvented the fucking wheel and actually their version works better than the original. It doesn’t, do you know why I know it doesn’t? Because their theory has already been tried and tested and failed miserably on many fronts, many times before they even came into the fucking world. One size medicine does not fit ALL for fucks sake.

So, I could elaborate and give you all details, there is little point, the list is long and boring and quite frankly endless and I might actually pop and go postal if I see the list of stupid comments, actions, inaction, incompetence and arrogant ignorance in writing. Instead here is a brief and incomplete précis of my current week.

Right now I want to physically do someone some harm for the shitstorm that has been caused in my house with my son’s mental health and wellbeing because of their stupid actions and comments. It has caused him to lose the plot somewhat and declare he is so sick of being disabled and forced to be at the mercy of these imbeciles constantly and he has had a right royal fucking meltdown.

I have fixed him, again, I have straightened his head out on the whole subject of his disability and how he feels about it, again. I have moved mountains and buried bodies in order to help him back to his normal happy countenance but it has been very hard and I am officially fucking exhausted mentally and emotionally. All of this has happened because District nurses don’t pay attention to what they have been instructed to do, what the rules of my house are, how they deal with my son, how they don’t come in and demand and order and expect to find they have seniority in my household. They fucking don’t. They are annoying blips on the radar of life that occasionally have something useful to offer albeit a rarity.

Doctor’s receptionists need to learn they do not have the right to know the ins and outs of the cats arse before they do the job they are paid to fucking do and that is transfer my call to a doctor, or make an appointment for me. They are not medically fucking trained nor do they have letters after their fucking name that declare them part of the medical profession, and therefore do not have the right to know private and confidential medical information about my son before they decide who I should be speaking to. I know who I should be speaking to, he’s called DOCTOR, he studied for a long time to be allowed to use that title. He did not come up through the fucking secretarial/receptionist rank and file. Jesus I will literally do someone some harm if this shit keeps coming at me.

Pharmacists assistants who believe (wrongly of course) they have the right to change a named epilepsy medication for a non branded generic version. NO THEY FUCKING DON’T HAVE THAT RIGHT!

This will be the fourth time in the last 12 months I have had to go back to the pharmacy and demand the proper scripted medication listed on my son’s prescription. Each time I have been told the generic version of the medication is identical to the named version. No it isn’t. There is a reason the generic version is so fucking cheap by comparison, it doesn’t fucking work even a quarter as well as the branded version which uses quality ingredients that actually do what they are supposed to do and stop fits and seizures from happening. Guess what the fucking generic version doesn’t do? That’s right, it doesn’t stop fits and seizures. I might as well give him fucking sugar tablets to take for all the good the generic version does. I am sick and tired of having to explain this each and every time to a silly fucking assistant who thinks they are more qualified than I am to make that decision. The only way to get through to them is to ask them when they qualified as epilepsy specialist nurses? Four assistants, four times asking the question, four times they confess to being dumber than shit for thinking they can do the same job as an epilepsy specialist nurse. If she is demanding that my son has the branded version of the medication, then she is demanding that for a fucking good reason, its because she knows the branded version will do the job of controlling his fits and seizures properly, and in turn allow him to live as normal a life as possible under the cirmumstances.

I am just fucking sick and tired of the long and arduous task of never being allowed to be off duty, or letting the ball land where it may in case it pops and everything explodes with it. I am tired of all of it.

Rant over… for now.