Kates Journal

Before I start, it’s the 23rd of May; get recording, peoples…

So, this is kind of a whine brought about by reading off the map (which I’m still reading) – and thinking about my life, and the fact that despite plans to the contrary I start most days by spending an hour or two reading journals and news sites and browsing, and just generally consuming other people’s content. Despite big plans for zines, books, videos – I never seem to get around to producing any more, or creating any more than I ever have done.

I don’t – in a way – mind that I’ve been sucked in to the whole capitalist dream of owning a house and a car and whatever – because I put my own very distinct spin on it. Those status symbols of capitalism that I have, the house, the car; they are my own works in progress. Now they are mine-and-Kathryn’s works in progress. While it may be furnished from ikea and John Lewis, the art is ours; or found on the streets of Toronto. The bookshelves contain the eclectic and bizzare, the selfpublished and the interesting. And much of what is in is recycled, second hand and home made. It is not your standard house (but then, perhaps, that’s what everyone thinks).

But I find myself frustrated by my lack of creativity. By my ability to sit and suck-up though a straw that which I place in front of me. Yes, I hunt out journals and sites that match my interest and ideals; and I imagine that I’m better informed than the people who sit reading the daily mail cursing everyone who’s not english, white and middleclass; but I don’t give anything back. Some of that I blame on ‘lack of time’ – when I have the energy that could be used to create I’m trying to sort out the car, the bike, the house, the garden. Although the garden doth rock; and the house is more and more a home.

And I make promises over and over again – “I shan’t spend today in front of the computer”. “I’ll fish out the bits for the zine”. That kind of thing. I ponder, over and over again, how I came up with “7 minutes into the future” – and the faint sadness that comes with the fact that I made that over 3 years ago and have yet to do anything even as good.

And so, perhaps I can manage today – the day I’m recording random bits for A.M. – to make that committment and stick to it. This week off is, ironically, reserved for the house, the bike, the car and the garden… But perhaps Kathryn and I can slot into it some creative time.

So, whilst I may not feel lucky, I was, in fact, incredibly lucky yesterday.

I had what I can only describe as a nice day at work and headed home. Part way home the Viva overheated and I pulled over. Cutting a long (and dumb) story short I ended up with a hand and face full of boiling hot coolant and steam. Slightly panicked I realised I needed (a) an ambluance and (b) (rather more urgently) something cold. The car proved to be lacking anything cold (like water, for example), and so I dashed of down the motorway spitting furiously on my hand to try and cool it, and dumping, some what unsavourily that onto my face to try and cool that. Sadly the first marker post I reached indicated that I’d set off in the wrong direction, so I headed back the other way.

Fought with the car which had a bay full of coolant now; and got it to limp to the next emergency phone where I called for an ambulance and a recovery vehicle. The Highway Officers turned up first bringing with them much wanted water – which cooled my hand, and got rid of the retching from the coolant that had landed up in my mouth. The firebrigade were next with their (really very nice) tea-tree dressings (which soothed my hand and face a lot), and then streaking down the road – blue lights and sirens wailing, the ambulance.

I can’t thank the crews enough. I’m sure I was hardly the most appetising sight covered in flecks of brown coolant-and-rust-streaked water, saliva and such. Retching and constantly swilling my mouth with water and spitting it out.

But the thing I can say is that I was lucky. Very superficial burns to my face and left hand and superficial, if sore, burns to my right. The nurses got me oromorph; I hate morphine and can now say that oromorph does absolutely fuck-all for me. Then sent me off with Naproxen and CoDydramol. I’ve a whopping great dressing on my right hand. and my face feels like it’s sunburnt.

I will not be sad to see the back of that Viva.

 

Really, I’ve nothing interesting to say. At least I don’t think I have. I could go on at length about feeling undervalued and mightily underpaid because my shift roster includes a 9 day stretch that goes ELELELLEL; and which, well, when I struggle to pay bills and we can’t actually afford to see friends or eat out, or go out, those nice things which make life a lot nicer; well. I can’t say as my opinion of my job is high at the moment. That shift roster is also likely to impact on my ability not to laugh idiots out of the department, or at least suffer from snarky-sarcasmitis. 

By idiots I mean the sort of people who turn up at A&E with an ‘irritation in their nose’ which has gone on for 5 days. Now, I’m only now doing the training which allows me to assess our newly booked in visitors, but I have to admit as I stood looking at this individual and my highly skilled trainer questioned him on his symptoms I feared breaking out into hysterical laughter.

Why was he there? Why did he stop A&E doctors treating minor injuries and people who need our services? Because he couldn’t be bothered to wait the extra 30 minutes to see the local GP out of hours service, and he also couldn’t be bothered to register as a temporary resident at a GP.

When the assessment nurse I was working with wrote his notes for the doctor to see – and I admit to hoping it was one of our less patient doctors who booted him out – I did suggest she could stop after the first word (“irritation”). After much laughter we put him (well, his card) into the doctor’s box; but I wish we’d not been so busy I could have peaked in and listened to the conversation.

Although GPs are something that I increasingly find I have less respect for; having had an individual come in a while ago with a ?Dislocated shoulder from a GP and found her to be septic – the doctor it seems hadn’t even bothered to check her pulse when he’d seen her… there’s busy and there’s busy. Thankfully our assessment nurse did her obs and found her (for the technically minded) tachycardic, tachypneic, pyrexial, hypotensive and hypoxic (or her heart was going to fast, she was breathing very quickly, had a high temperature, very low blood pressure and had low levels of oxygen in her blood)…

And, as a side point, having been there a while – I’m able to prompt the newer doctors on correct management of acutely unwell patients. Which is nice.

But, for all my whining they’ve offered to (possibly) send me on the ATLS course as an observer (I’m too green to go on the course for real, yet, but knowledge even without qualifications is a good thing). I’d seen the poster up, but presumed there’d be others who wanted to go who were perhaps more skilled, or experienced than me. But it seems I’m the one who’s been offered the place (because no one else is interested! Not because of skills or experience, sadly). But I’m looking forward, if somewhat nervously, to that. More strings to my bow, as they say.

Anyhow, so that’s put me in a better mood; and ironically it may fix my attrocious shift pattern too (or, I suppose, potentially make it worse).

In other, other news, the DAF should be off to be repaired shortly. A nice chap from the DAF owners club’s offered to come and let me/us take a little ride in his DAF so we know what we’re getting in to. I’ve bought a DAF manual off e-bay (various people kindly offered to give me a manual, but one needed me to ride in and collect it (which isn’t far, but my bike’s not exactly the wellest thing in all christendom and was *very* kind of him) and the other seems to have been struck by the disappearing curse of e-bay) – since there was one on there for a fiver – and it means that I can start servicing the brakes and such like so as to get the little car up and running (the intention being that I get it taken down to Langley for it’s repairs and then take it straight from there to an MOT).

What is proving to be a little of a challenge is that the previous owner can’t locate the V5 for the car. Despite promises from the chap who had the car in the garden that it’d be with me soon, the previous owner (who I have to admit, is disabled and thus I don’t really hold a grudge about this, it’s more an annoyance) can’t locate it at the moment. Is, apparently, looking for it though. It’s not a disaster, instead it’s an annoyance. I can apply for a new one – but I just know as soon as I do that then it’ll appear.

I’ve also been plotting a new route to work – given how sickly my MZ is becoming, with it’s new top speed of 50 whole mph, I’ve started to contemplate the usefulness of a non-motorway route. Unfortunately, between my home and the hospital there is one moderate sized town; through which I would be forced to ride. Unfortunately googlemaps reckons it’d take me 40 minutes (which I take to mean, at least an hour). So I think I may have to pull Charlie back here and get her fixed and running. Ach. Life, it’s too complicated.

 

So, with the arrival of summer-like-weather (yes, I know it’s spring, but it’s also bloody hot), comes the tradition of whining about hayfever. I’ve not got *that* much to whine about (yet); apart from the frequently runny nose and sniffling, oh and the sneezing. And the eyes that while not desparately itchy are, well, itchy.

I wanted to get on the Sublingual Immunotherapy (or quite honestly the Subcutaneous Immunotherapy) trials but no, my GP failed to actually do anything. The alledged referal to a local immune system specialist? Well, either they’ve got the world’s longest waiting list or he didn’t actually bother.

So another year of itching and eyedrops approaches. At least this year I’m saving on contact lenses I can’t wear because of my failure to get around to having an eye test!

In other, less whiny, news. I spent yesterday sorting out Brick ready for sale. He’s up on ebay now, so hopefully, the sunny weather will bring out the classic car desiring peeps, who will bid vastly over his expected value to bring me some money.

It took most of the day though; washing, drying (‘cos it was so hot that otherwise the water dried in big streaks), cleaning the interior, spraying the interior with hideous “Outside Fresh” turtlewax interior shine stuff – which distressingly failed to fulfil it’s containers claims (“returns [vinyl/plastic interior parts] to pristine condition”). But did make them look shinier.

So, today I’m going to do a bit of cleaning (I’ve swept the bedroom and put my clothes away), and read my ’streaming guide’ for it turns out I’m getting a new skill at work. Not Triage, but Streaming. I’m listening to Peel Night (having been reading John Peel’s Margrave of the Marshes I’ve been having a resurgence of desire to listen to Mr Peel himself. I’d like to get my hands on copies of the Home Truths show too; but that seems a little unlikely), shall have my tea, clean the kitchen and then set to on my assigned reading.

So, Kathryn spotted a link to this petition which is objecting to the DSM-V comittee’s members consisting of a individuals who pathologise gender identity disorder. I know quite a few TS people and while I’ve met some thorough nutcases, I also know some truly wonderful people who happen to also be TS. GID is something that the individuals appointed to the committee believe can be ‘cured’ with reparitive therapy; something they’ve tried on queer folk for quite some time with no real success.

Mostly, it seems to produce very screwed up people.

These members of the comittee have links to Narth (who advoctate reparitive therapy for homosexual and other queer individuals), the human biodiversity institute (a eugenics group who advocate for more research into the “racial IQ gap”), and to be honest scare the pants off me.

If they start to pathologise GID more…and gain credibility for their theories through inclusion in the DSM-V (rather than, say, finding any actual research to support their theories which didn’t rely on wildly skewing the subjects towards those who fit their theories) it leads towards worrying steps backward in the DSM, and a danger to everyone queer. .