Wednesday

Spoke Too Soon


Here comes the rain again…the rain of meteorites that seem to pick their moments and shower down all at once on the day you decided to leave the house without an umbrella.

So, spoke too soon about breathing space. Really, what was I thinking?

The sodding TV has stopped working again. Nick has broken a fifth, or is it sixth remote control, and now can’t even switch the television on at the plug.
Like everything else, it’s just not Huntington’s proof. Simon spent the whole evening fiddling with it but neither of us are technicians and the manufacturers in the call centre are only able to do so much of a diagnostic from a distance. Is it worth just throwing money at it and buying a new television altogether, I wondered, and then looked at the prices and felt like crying.
And even if either of us could afford it, I can’t see what difference a new TV would make; of course we could get a cheap television quite easily, even a secondhand one, but no. He wants a smart TV so he can have a wide choice of channels, radio, films, iplayer and most of all Netflix, all the things that brighten up his days.
And smart TVs have software that goes wrong, and can only be operated by remote controls that break when they get thrown on the floor. Why aren’t there any TV repair men any longer, like we had the olden days? The smart TV revolution has changed all that. There don’t seem to be televisions that can be fixed by twiddling a few knobs and switches now, it’s all done now over the phone via a call centre.

The thing is, Nick has nothing else. He likes the newspaper but it takes him a week to read the small tabloid sized i, his powers of concentration are dwindling, and his constant chafing and plucking shreds it to a rag after a couple of days. He can listen to the radio but has to keep the sound down because of Vic, and really he just wants to lose himself in the box set binge and the escape of the moving image.
It’s the mainstay of his life – apart from wine, and actually I’d almost say he’d rather have the television than the wine. Especially Netflix. Whenever Netflix goes down, for various reasons, it seriously affects his mood. He drinks more, he’s low; it might sound like a First World Problem but think about it, he has so little else. 
So we have to sort it out.

In addition to this, we’ve had a letter from the NHS business centre fining Nick £100 + costs for ticking the wrong box for a prescription in September.
Ridiculous! We said. Of course, he’d done no such thing. But the computer said yes he had. I did a bit of investigating and it turned out that a few months ago the District Nurse had alerted the GP about the sore looking cracks in Nick’s fingers. A cream was duly prescribed and delivered, which the carers have been using assiduously (once they realised that it was for his hands, not his bottom) and his fingers are much better.
I had nothing to do with this, and apparently it was the GP who made out the prescription and ticked whichever box on his behalf. The surgery say it wasn’t a GP, it was the pharmacy. The pharmacy say they can’t trace that and it was probably the carers who ticked the box when they collected the meds. No-one can admit accountability, so it’s our problem. So-ree.
I’ve written back to NHS business to explain that it was evidently an error by a medical practitioner and could they please take it up with the GP surgery and pharmacy themselves, but they’re having none of it.
As far as they’re concerned, Nick is liable to a penalty charge for fraudulent behaviour. They expect a written response from Nick himself and won’t even talk to me until I’ve submitted original documents proving my Power of Attorney, and a covering letter signed by a medical professional vouching for my authenticity and for Nick’s lack of capacity. By next week. 

When I think of all the high end fiddling that goes on in the business world, the absolute shambles of Brexit and all the people who are PAID TO DO THEIR JOBS, it seems even more iniquitous to target the vulnerable who are already struggling desperately just to get through each day.
The general opinion is that it doesn’t matter that this was a practitioner error that should surely be dealt with through the system not the patient, it can’t (won’t) be sorted out internally through the NHS and it’s poor Nick who’s liable.
I just have to suck it up and provide the documentation like a good girl and alongside trying to sort out the sodding television, kiss another few hours of my life goodbye and try to wade through all this treacle.