Pain Management.

This is not a moan. It is just a quick explanation of my personal health which goes someway to explaining why this blog is intermittent as I jump from mind state to mind state.

Since the quacks at the Pain Clinic I am attached to decided to change my medication I have never been at such a high level of constant pain as I am currently. Being winter as it is here right now does not help matters either.

The previous medication, while not perfect, in that it did not completely erase the pain, at least allowed me to control the pain I have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now, since they changed it I am a wreck. Both mentally and physically. It is hard to express how tiring pain can be on both the body and the mind but suffice to say it is extremely tiring on both. But, outwardly, apart from the walking stick I need for stability, no-one would ever know as I try desperately sometimes to keep it within the family. My wife is very supportive as are our children which is something I am very very thankful for.

The pain I have stems from a fall I had when aged 4. I fell 40ft out of a tree on to a rockery garden. This led to me being in traction for 2 years after which I had to learn to walk again. Years past and I played many sports such as football and rugby league and many others, even though after every game I was in pain I continued to play until I could no longer suffer in silence. I traveled the world and had been around it twice by the time I was 21 years of age. Mainly because my father took me on long trips where we would get onto land for anywhere between a few hours to several days. I had done many other things such as  water skiing, sky diving and bungy jumping amongst  all the things I had done. Maybe at the back of my mind was that later in life I would not be able to do such things.

By that time I was 28 years of age. Shortly after giving up playing sports, which was a hard thing to do for me as I enjoyed playing so much, I went to the hospital to find out why I was in constant pain. They did an MRI scan from which they discovered I had several slipped discs along my spine. After fidning this out I had keyhole surgery  during which they dissolved the discs and welded my lower spine. This allowed some years  to be relatively pain free.

After about 8 years after having had the surgery the pain started again. Another MRI scan revealed that the area where they had operated some years earlier was starting to fracture. A piece of fractured bone had lodged itself into my spine higher up my back. Added to this was the fact that that same area had become arthritic. All in all this meant a return to the pain i had suffered in my youth.

Fast forward to today and the arthritis has quickly spread to every joint in my body. This is  bloody painful and the pain is constant. Over the  course of the last 4 or 5 years they have swapped and changed the medication I am forced to take many times as they try to work out what medication is best for my personal circumstances. So far they have never managed to decrease the pain 100% but have, from my own feelings, manged to alleviate it by some 50% or so. At least they got it to a level where at a personal level I could manage what was left. Of course, there have been good days and bad days and more recently more bad than good.

Then they go and change my medication again to something they said was stronger than anything they had advised me to take previously. Sadly, for me, while it may well be stronger it certainly does not work. My pain levels have shot through the roof. I am duee to talk with then again soon and will be telling them I cannot continue on the present medication and hope that they put me back on what I was taking previously. I somehow doubt they will though as they expressed caution that it was damaging my liver. So, i guess it is wait and see what else they can come up with.

On a personal level I am within myself happy even though walking is particularly painful. My hands constantly shake which makes typing fun but doable. My gait is bent double and my right leg is all but useless at times hence the walking stick mentioned earlier. I try not to moan and by large I succeed but it is getting harder especially since they changed the medication.

Pain management is not just about the medication though. It is also a mental state which I think I succeed at.

Child protection.

No right minded thinking adult would ever consider hurting a child, much less their own child.

With seemingly the front line people, who have an undertaking to first and foremost protect the nations children from harm, not only from those outside the family circle but also the child's own parents, being in total disarray following some high profile,and not so high profile, cases where said front line people have neglected to do their duty, is it not time for a total and complete rethink on how we consider these things?

As a parent of five children myself I abhor any acts of real violence directed at children who cannot protect themselves and even though as a parent i can understand the why i cannot understand the how they can do it to them, much less their own child. With each new case that is highlighted in the press there are probably thousands of cases that go unreported. And that is a scary thought that all decently and right minded parents should never lose sight of.

As a nation we are seen as a set of compassionate people. But, it would seem, we love our pets more than we love our children. One of the major problems under the current  child protection scheme is not the scheme itself nor the rules and guidance which manipulate those scheme but is, as seen from my own eyes, a lack of people on the front line who are parents themselves. Many, many times I have seen social workers who are barely old enough to have children let alone actually have children of their own who have been on cases. This surely cannot be right.

There are many complex reasons underpinning why a child is in danger. Some of those reasons are never immediately clear. Some parents on the 'hit list' of suspected child abuse, at any level, go to great lengths to hide whatever it is that is a danger to their children and it is only one who is a parent themselves that will see through the smokescreen as they know what parenting is all about. It is hard to see how someone who has never had children themselves could ever see through these smokescreens but within the service itself there are many such people.

It is impossible, not to mention irresponsible, for any one to say they can fix what is so obviously broken in an easy and effortless way, though fixing it is what is needed as currently it is so obvious broken. There is much to moan about and not a lot that can be immediately fixed, but our legislators must endeavor to that aim. One thing that can be and should be fixed within the system designed to protect our children from harm from their own parents is to immediately and without question remove those from any position of first person contact without any parenting experience from within the system. While this by itself will not fix  the obviously broken system it will give  the system a boost in the eyes and minds of all  right minded parents around the country. It will also help to shore up the back feeling directed at such services.

Another thing that should be immediately remedied is the current thinking of try at all costs to keep families together even though the child within the family is known to be in some danger from its own parents. Instead any parent suspected, and more importantly properly and correctly investigated, should have their child or children moved out of harms way. While that is open to abuse it will ensure any child or children deemed to be in harms way will not be harmed. I am not for one second saying they should be moved into that other broken system  children's homes. No. They  should be moved into another family circle where children are known to flourish.

Two very simple ideas that should go a long way to fixing this problem area.

Karoo - A shot in the arm.

A while ago I mentioned taking our fight with the incumbent broadband provider for our area to the E.U. This is gathering pace since I set things in motion.

Of course, once I had blurted it out in an email to them they immediately cut off all level of contact. Total and utter silence is what is coming from their end. Even legal and proper questions to Customer Services go unanswered. Not  surprising I guess but slightly annoying for reasons I shall now explain.

They have both an AUP (Acceptable Usage Policy) and a venerable T&C (Terms and Conditions), like all companies as small as they are they try to cover every conceivable angle in as few words as possible while wrapping the whole thing up in big words. This creates documents that are at best ambiguous and at worse have no legal standing in a court of Law. They know this, of course, but the hope is that your average person never looks at said documents so that when your  average person crosses whatever line they, the company, can point at some ambiguous section and cut off said user. Over the years I have taken several steps to address the ambiguous nature of these documents all to no avail. Now the E.U. is on their tail and they too agree the  documents are too ambiguous and should  therefore be made more legible by your average person.

As to what action the E.U. can and will take I am not allowed to say in detail. What I can say is that the organisation will be looked into. That much is a given. What  will come of it I do not know but as they, Karoo, have annoyed me to this level I do not care as long as it costs them money and they are inconvenienced to the max.

A nice, gentle walk.

As Autumn has given away to winter the fields around here take on a very different look, not to mention smell as the various foliage gives off that winterly aroma. To my surprise Edward, my 12 year old son, asked if I would take a walk with him last night along the field trail we have walked many times since we moved here. The same trail we walk when we walk our dogs. A gentle walk on a cold and frosty January evening is good not only for the soul but also ones personal health.

He said he had been studying at school how plants, trees etc changed through the seasons and that he wanted to take a first hand look at those changes. Because we knew the paths so well he had decided that that would be the best way to go rather than we two looking for new, different routes to take and new, to us, fields to transverse. While taking this familer walk he could see for himself how nature changes from one season to the next. Autumn to winter he said was probably natures most violent change as the leaves on trees and plants die away to make way for new leaves on trees and plants come spring time.

Suitably enamoured by his enthusiasm with walking stick in hand we set about the walk at 6pm on a wild and windy, but dry, cold winterly Sunday evening. Off we walked down the road to the park area, down the side of where the park is there is a longish field. This field leads to an area free from mans meddling. In other words is it nature at its best. Free to grow as much as it likes and it does.

The whole area of fields is as unencumbered as a field can be so. It is here that my son decided was the best place for what he wanted to see. During our time looking at various flowers, weeds, bushes and trees we also saw some of the lowlifes that make such areas no-go for a lot of people. They did not bother us but the threat was always in my mind. As it turned out they were more interested in their glue or whatever it was that was amusing them than they were us two. Anyway, we carried on doing what we wanted to do as if they where not there. After 3 hours it was by now very dark and very very cold, because there is no lighting in that area very dark it was indeed. My son had the forethought to bring a torch which is how he managed to work in the dark. We also brought with us a digital camera, with flash, and a video camera both of which he used as he moved from patch to patch.

After 3 hours he decided he had seen enough and more importantly he had enough information for the homework he had been set before the Christmas holiday breakup. On returning home we were also very cold as the night air was starting to bite. After getting home he immediately headed for his bedroom, forgoing the hot pot of coffee my wife had made to complete his homework. Very quickly he told me to go away and leave him to it promising to show me it as soon as he was finished. He took the digital camera and the video camera so he had the information with him which he turned into words and pictures via the Open Office suite of programs on his Linux based machine. I know he is my son but the work he produced (which I read as soon as he made it available to me, which was later in the evening just before his bed time) was outstanding for his age group. Time will tell if his teachers agree as the work is to be submitted laater today on his first day back after the holidays. He said he should have his results by Wednesday so he will know what the score is. I can't see him getting any less than 90% but I am not his teacher (at school anyway).

It is nice in this day and age, an age where our youth is often daemonised to the point of total and complete mistrust from those from the older age groups, to see a child of that age actually doing something he plainly enjoys and something that does no harm to anyone. The fact he is plainly taking an interest in his environment is also surely a good thing.

A proud father I surely am.

Guilt by name association.

Maybe not guilt as such but certainly touched. For an example of what I am writing about see this BBC article. Read what it is about then look at the name of the guy who purportedly wrote it.

This sort of thing happens all the time, especially in the science world, but that does not make it any less annoying that it happens at all. Furtherance of ones own country, and by extension ones own countrymen, even those who lived centuries ago is something to be applauded, especially if the reason for said furtherance is previously an unknown fact or two, but again that does not make it any the less annoying.

No one, least of all myself, would disagree with the sentiments of that article but does any one outside of the science community really care who did what centuries ago? Does it really make any difference to what we do now, or how we look and use something, on a daily basis? While history as a subject was something I personally enjoyed at school and since leaving school linking ones own birth name and place to someone who purportedly furthered what science knew at that time is in my opinion a futile exercise in the extreme.

Which make it all the more surprising that the BBC can give up resources, money and airtime to such things, but do all that they have.

Look again at the authors name and  tell me you cannot see what I see. Am I really so cynical? Obviously I am but that alone does not make me wrong. Does it?

Oh stop it!

Please. Stop it you are making me laugh so hard my sides are aching. What is it that is causing this? Climate Change. Global Warming. Call it whatever you like but please stop with the lies.

It has been proven many times that a lot of the problems various plant life, both surface and seafaring, has nothing at all to do with climate change. climate change itself has been proven to be something of a lie too. While the planet we live on may be getting warmer it is getting warmer because of a perfectly natural  weather  cycle. It has nothing to do with Man or what Man has done in the last 100, 200 or even 300 years.

I have said many many times it is all bollocks and now the proof is out there to back up my claims. The polar region has more ice now than at any time since records began and yet there are still those with a vested interest to keep the myth running who claim otherwise. And what is worse of all this is the governments the word over have fallen for the lies. Not too surprising i suppose given the collective intelligence of those we entrust with our countries affairs.

Still, at least you lot trying to keep the myth alive are giving me and other who like me can see through the lies a good laugh.

Privacy.

Yours in particular.

Have you noticed how much Government interference there is in your everyday life? They have cameras everywhere watching your every move. They are planning a huge database of every possible communication you can do. Email, telephone, mobile phones, web interaction all being stored so they know everything you do in your daily life. Combine the two together and you will get a very good map of what each and every individual does. It is  scary. Think about it for a second or two. Doesn't it scare you too? It should.

We are walking directly into a surfailence society where the government can and will track each and every individual.

on another level of interference by our government, who  are supposed to be serving us not watching us, we have various things happening. Take this BBC report as one such example. While no-one can say we  do not have an obesity problem it is not and never will be as wide spread as the government claims it will be but onward they go towards yet more meddling in peoples private lives.

The current government has done more to break down the privacy barriers of people than any other government in our history. Some they claim is to combat some hidden boggymen but mess with your mind they do and there is little you can do about it. Wake up now and rise up otherwise before you know what has hit you you will have absolutely no privacy from government level interference at all.

It not hard to imagine them putting cameras in your home so they can keep an ever watchful eye on what you get up to. It is but a short step for them to take and if you don't do something now it will happen before too long.

There has been many Laws squashed, passed or rehashed that take way another strip. And nobody appears to listen to those who are shouting against  them.

I fear for the future of my children in this country more now than I have every done.