So, I am so incensed about various issues this week that I don't know where to start. Shall we preamble? I want to get back to discussing things in more detail, but let me get some things off my chest to begin with......
I have been pursuing my family tree again. I am stuck with my three x great grandfather who, despite saying in each of the censuses that he was born in a particular place in 1806,remains without the attribution of a baptism. In the end, the problem may boil down to one of non-conformist records being secreted away somewhere where no one can see them. This problem confounds many an ardent family tree researcher, an impenetrable barrier to generations past. But why isn't it law to deposit these records in an archive somewhere? As things stand, records can be kept out of public view or knowledge; kept by chapels who regard documents as their own property to be kept away from us and, ultimately, lost to family history forever. (I know one such person who keeps chapel records from a deconsecrated chapel in his attic where they moulder until the day he dies when who knows what will happen to them? )It really is a scandal isn't it... and typical of the church in all its facets. Somehow the folks, who over the centuries have been born and lived and died in attendance of a religious institution, who have genuflected to it and feared it,who are the cannon-fodder, as it were, who perpetuate the institution, its life-blood and succour to its ministry, become in their death the property of the chapel, to be chained to oblivion if the chapel so chooses. Yet they are OUR relatives. Our antecedents have given them life and they have given us ours, but we have no rights when it comes to honouring them through family research. They are locked away.
We talked in another blog about the Church of England burying the dead according to a hierarchy: those with headstones have their grave-plot recorded , those without are not documented. That represents just how much we church goers over the centuries mean to them... The church is there for THEM, not for us, we are simply there to serve the continuity that the church requires and when they are done with us, they don't give a damn who is buried in their churchyards. It's that simple.Genes versus memes. Flesh and blood coming out second best to religious doctrine.
So what else am I concerned about this week? Well, how about the government's Prevent Strategy? I'll come back to this, but suffice it to say that I am incredulous at the sheer idiocy of the whole shambles. Let's apply a bit of logic: Prevent is supposed to deter disaffected youth from drifting into terrorism and reclaim those who have strayed, back onto the straight and narrow of good old British values! What a laugh! If we are so upright, why on earth are young Muslims such easy prey to radicalisation? And didn't the Iraq war have something to do with it? But we are assuming that our government is capable of thinking aren't we? Or did we know that they don't know a thing about basic psychology? Look, you have a young person who has been radicalised and you want to purge his or her mind of it. With me so far? So to de-radicalise them you have to talk to them, right? You have to find out what they think and why they think it in order to challenge them? But here's the rub: THEY can't talk to you because what they are thinking is imprisonable! ...There was a young man on the radio a few days ago who had been released from prison on licence. He was put on a Prevent program. If he had revealed what he was really thinking he would have been sent back to prison!So he kept his thoughts to himself.Now, did Prevent, therefore, his inner-most thoughts not evinced, believe that this young man had been deradicalised?! Are we to take it, then, that secret thoughts make us innocent and spoken thoughts make us guilty? Is this really the criterion whereby to judge? (It reminds me of government plans to render some mental patients guilty of crimes before they are committed and , of course, is the reason why imprisonment without trial becomes morally defensible....) So look, in this sorry little story you can see one of the many problems inherent in deeming a thought to be equivalent to an action. Let's get back to this soon.....
Next blog:Misattribution of intention.
Tuesday 17 March 2015
Friday 6 March 2015
Why Improve Oursleves?4
I was lucky enough to catch Rosa Monckton`s documentary "Tormented Lives" last night on BBC 2. I was really struck by Rosa`s compassion and her disposition to relate to people in an accepting and non-judgemental way and I really hope that this documentary`s powerful expression changes things for people.
Of course, I have talked about why we need to bully others, both as individuals and as a society, in my blogs many times, covering the abuse of women, the elderly and children. We saw in the program how bullies, very much in their raw, animal state, victimise those who are obviously weak. I have explored previously why certain people, or groups, are picked on, by whom and for what motive. I am not going to go over that ground here because this blog takes a slightly different angle in regard to my previous blogs entitled "Why Improve Ourselves?"
Though I understand bullying and victimisation from both first-hand experience and careful observation of life around me, I am always shocked to see the affects of it. Of course, bullying in schools is no better for the attention it receives and with time-old opportunities to bully the sick and the elderly, nothing changes very much. Why would it? Unfortunately, there is a societal need for it as well as the systems to enable it and systems to protect the perpetrators. We are all complicit in this.. My blogs "Teachers who Bully" show how a closed system like a classroom, for example, is a training ground for what we see in our wider society in the adult world.
Anyway, back to this blog: it struck me during Rosa`s program that our society's ubiquitous tolerance for bullying begins with small behavioural lapses that seem so ordinary and innocuous. And we let them go. Behaviour in schools is appalling.Children in mainstream education aren`t taught how to behave in a polite respectful manner and where they slide, are not pulled up for it. There is no one to care about such basics as saying please and thank you, or holding a door open for someone.Still less for a child calling another child a hurtful name. Indeed, as I discussed way back, the bullied child is more likely to be treated as a misfit, a psychological problem, than the bullies, proving that as a society we in fact SUPPORT bullying.
So what`s this got to do with the behaviour of the bullies in Rosa`s program? Simple, the behaviour of Rosa`s victimisers has slid way beyond the omission of a please and thank you.They have spent years in an environment that, frankly, allows them to vent their animal drives however they want to. Basically, it`s animal expression.
So you have to catch all aspects of behaviour early, in primary school. In my view the threshold cannot be drawn at bullying, it has to be a threshold that desires basics, as part of a process to de-animalise our behaviour from the very small issues upwards.To do this you can`t just take out certain behaviours you don`t want, 5 or 10 or 15 years too late, you have to cultivate a nature that cleaves to higher values of respect and courtesy, and a desire for approbation. What does "desire for approbation" mean? Well, it means you have to CREATE children who wish to please and wish to be helpful. But look, input has to match output, which it certainly does not in mainstream education.You just can`t get the sort of kids you want in society by telling them what to do: you have to example it! That means that classrooms should not reflect the animal nature of the outside world, survival of the fittest, children should never fall victim to group runtifictation at school, none should be left behind educationally, none should be sent to the educational psychologist when they are bullied.... I could go on. The point in the obverse is that, of course, one, just ONE example of how society operates, the classroom, demonstrates to all the children in the school that THIS is how society works. Are we then so surprised that they go out and overtly copy what is being exampled from the day that they start mixing with other kids and adults outside the family?
I think that we should always try to improve ourselves, to escape our animal nature as much as we can and Rosa`s bullies show us that. If small things were important I think that all of us could enjoy better lives, but we really have to wake up to things that are almost invisible to our rightfulness-radar.What we don`t apprehend is just off the screen, I`m afraid, causally. Rosa`s bullies have been taught, by example. The animal behaviour they exhibit carries with it the fire of resentment born out of received disrespect and projected failure that keeps them fuelled up.
If we expand this logic we can see that all behaviors are important and significant and we see that any improvement is worth it in any area or with any issue. But, but, but, we must try to see that OUR societal framework engenders the bullying we disapprove of in others. Not just that some kids are disadvantaged -by the animal function of a classroom or by the social, financial or educational status of their parents, but that our whole system is riddled with our animal needs to compete and gain position over others. If we look at what really happens in schools, the survival of the fittest at work right in front of our eyes, we can see that Rosa`s bullies learned their behaviour from everything we show them: certainly from the way schools make a percentage of children fail, the use of psychiatric labels given to various misfits,etc.
Take a look around you...
Of course, raising ourselves above our animal state, our animal soul, is one of the main themes of one of the primary texts of chassidic Judaism, the Tanya, by
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. In my discussions I am going to come back to religion in this context.
Of course, I have talked about why we need to bully others, both as individuals and as a society, in my blogs many times, covering the abuse of women, the elderly and children. We saw in the program how bullies, very much in their raw, animal state, victimise those who are obviously weak. I have explored previously why certain people, or groups, are picked on, by whom and for what motive. I am not going to go over that ground here because this blog takes a slightly different angle in regard to my previous blogs entitled "Why Improve Ourselves?"
Though I understand bullying and victimisation from both first-hand experience and careful observation of life around me, I am always shocked to see the affects of it. Of course, bullying in schools is no better for the attention it receives and with time-old opportunities to bully the sick and the elderly, nothing changes very much. Why would it? Unfortunately, there is a societal need for it as well as the systems to enable it and systems to protect the perpetrators. We are all complicit in this.. My blogs "Teachers who Bully" show how a closed system like a classroom, for example, is a training ground for what we see in our wider society in the adult world.
Anyway, back to this blog: it struck me during Rosa`s program that our society's ubiquitous tolerance for bullying begins with small behavioural lapses that seem so ordinary and innocuous. And we let them go. Behaviour in schools is appalling.Children in mainstream education aren`t taught how to behave in a polite respectful manner and where they slide, are not pulled up for it. There is no one to care about such basics as saying please and thank you, or holding a door open for someone.Still less for a child calling another child a hurtful name. Indeed, as I discussed way back, the bullied child is more likely to be treated as a misfit, a psychological problem, than the bullies, proving that as a society we in fact SUPPORT bullying.
So what`s this got to do with the behaviour of the bullies in Rosa`s program? Simple, the behaviour of Rosa`s victimisers has slid way beyond the omission of a please and thank you.They have spent years in an environment that, frankly, allows them to vent their animal drives however they want to. Basically, it`s animal expression.
So you have to catch all aspects of behaviour early, in primary school. In my view the threshold cannot be drawn at bullying, it has to be a threshold that desires basics, as part of a process to de-animalise our behaviour from the very small issues upwards.To do this you can`t just take out certain behaviours you don`t want, 5 or 10 or 15 years too late, you have to cultivate a nature that cleaves to higher values of respect and courtesy, and a desire for approbation. What does "desire for approbation" mean? Well, it means you have to CREATE children who wish to please and wish to be helpful. But look, input has to match output, which it certainly does not in mainstream education.You just can`t get the sort of kids you want in society by telling them what to do: you have to example it! That means that classrooms should not reflect the animal nature of the outside world, survival of the fittest, children should never fall victim to group runtifictation at school, none should be left behind educationally, none should be sent to the educational psychologist when they are bullied.... I could go on. The point in the obverse is that, of course, one, just ONE example of how society operates, the classroom, demonstrates to all the children in the school that THIS is how society works. Are we then so surprised that they go out and overtly copy what is being exampled from the day that they start mixing with other kids and adults outside the family?
I think that we should always try to improve ourselves, to escape our animal nature as much as we can and Rosa`s bullies show us that. If small things were important I think that all of us could enjoy better lives, but we really have to wake up to things that are almost invisible to our rightfulness-radar.What we don`t apprehend is just off the screen, I`m afraid, causally. Rosa`s bullies have been taught, by example. The animal behaviour they exhibit carries with it the fire of resentment born out of received disrespect and projected failure that keeps them fuelled up.
If we expand this logic we can see that all behaviors are important and significant and we see that any improvement is worth it in any area or with any issue. But, but, but, we must try to see that OUR societal framework engenders the bullying we disapprove of in others. Not just that some kids are disadvantaged -by the animal function of a classroom or by the social, financial or educational status of their parents, but that our whole system is riddled with our animal needs to compete and gain position over others. If we look at what really happens in schools, the survival of the fittest at work right in front of our eyes, we can see that Rosa`s bullies learned their behaviour from everything we show them: certainly from the way schools make a percentage of children fail, the use of psychiatric labels given to various misfits,etc.
Take a look around you...
Of course, raising ourselves above our animal state, our animal soul, is one of the main themes of one of the primary texts of chassidic Judaism, the Tanya, by
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. In my discussions I am going to come back to religion in this context.
Tuesday 17 February 2015
Hi, I haven't been writing on my blog for some time, partly because my mum died a really horrendous death at the hands of various professionals, and because I have tried all this time to get my voice heard above the deafening silence that pervades the corridors of complaint. I have fruitlessly pursued all avenues available to me and have had no success whatsoever. Quite the contrary: my attempts to gain some sort of retrospective justice for my mum has hit brick walls all around, with everyone from the police to the CQC and on to the Ombudsman. What a big surprise that is.
I have also been threatened to keep quiet, been obstructed by the issue of missing medical notes and had to hold onto my sense of rightfulness in the face of manifold lies from professionals. Absolutely no one in the Health Service, the Care Home where I put my mum for a second medical opinion when her own GP just shut down on her, or the police have had the decency or the courage to stand up and help me. Yes, I have had local politicians trying to help and various friends supporting me, but, you've guessed it, they have absolutely no power to exert over a system that slams down the shutters to protect neglect and abuse. Another huge surprise, yes?
Well, towards the end of my mum's life, I put her into respite care to get her access to another doctor.... or to try to do that, it might be more accurate to say. At that point all hell broke loose. I did not imagine that mum could be neglected and abused in just a few days in a Care Home with me going in there twice a day. But the level of abuse, neglect and medical negligence was astonishing. They accelerated her death and had her screaming to get away from them. They left her soaking in her bed,they fed her solid food which she couldn't swallow, they took four days to get a doctor to see her at all, inspite of her being delirious, but worst of all..... no, no, it's not the worst of it, I'll come to that later, the second worst thing of all was that they left her for a week with no medical treatment for what was an obvious UTI...... My mum. My lovely, innocent, adorable, naive, beautiful mum. My mum who had never, NEVER, done anything wrong in her whole life, ended up a completely powerless victim to professionals in her own home and then sustained massive abuse when I tried to get her help in respite care. And no one cares that she died a death in hell because of them. No one is interested.You see,no one wants to hurt professionals. It's a "given". The doors are shut.. and the only recourse open to me now is to go on TV. Imagine that. The only justice you can get in this shameful country is to go on television and tell the truth.
Lets talk soon, but please remember that there are many people here involved in this case, who did this to me and my mum, who don't want the truth to be told. Did you ever think that a cover-up requires collusion from professionals? You're right.... It is not JUST the perpetrators who are guilty in cases like this; it is the whole system that does everything it can, including threatening people like us, so that the truth gets hidden. Whenever you hear that something is supposedly being done to stop the cover-up-culture, don't believe it; it goes against human nature and basic group psychology to expect that abuse and neglect will be revealed and dealt with. Believe me. I know.
I have also been threatened to keep quiet, been obstructed by the issue of missing medical notes and had to hold onto my sense of rightfulness in the face of manifold lies from professionals. Absolutely no one in the Health Service, the Care Home where I put my mum for a second medical opinion when her own GP just shut down on her, or the police have had the decency or the courage to stand up and help me. Yes, I have had local politicians trying to help and various friends supporting me, but, you've guessed it, they have absolutely no power to exert over a system that slams down the shutters to protect neglect and abuse. Another huge surprise, yes?
Well, towards the end of my mum's life, I put her into respite care to get her access to another doctor.... or to try to do that, it might be more accurate to say. At that point all hell broke loose. I did not imagine that mum could be neglected and abused in just a few days in a Care Home with me going in there twice a day. But the level of abuse, neglect and medical negligence was astonishing. They accelerated her death and had her screaming to get away from them. They left her soaking in her bed,they fed her solid food which she couldn't swallow, they took four days to get a doctor to see her at all, inspite of her being delirious, but worst of all..... no, no, it's not the worst of it, I'll come to that later, the second worst thing of all was that they left her for a week with no medical treatment for what was an obvious UTI...... My mum. My lovely, innocent, adorable, naive, beautiful mum. My mum who had never, NEVER, done anything wrong in her whole life, ended up a completely powerless victim to professionals in her own home and then sustained massive abuse when I tried to get her help in respite care. And no one cares that she died a death in hell because of them. No one is interested.You see,no one wants to hurt professionals. It's a "given". The doors are shut.. and the only recourse open to me now is to go on TV. Imagine that. The only justice you can get in this shameful country is to go on television and tell the truth.
Lets talk soon, but please remember that there are many people here involved in this case, who did this to me and my mum, who don't want the truth to be told. Did you ever think that a cover-up requires collusion from professionals? You're right.... It is not JUST the perpetrators who are guilty in cases like this; it is the whole system that does everything it can, including threatening people like us, so that the truth gets hidden. Whenever you hear that something is supposedly being done to stop the cover-up-culture, don't believe it; it goes against human nature and basic group psychology to expect that abuse and neglect will be revealed and dealt with. Believe me. I know.
Tuesday 10 January 2012
When you Complain.......
We are always encouraged to complain to the NHS when things go wrong and yet so often a complaint results in reprisals. Why is this? And why is there denial about this very common psychological phenomenon? After all, we are always a little wary of complaining incase there is a comeback.So often we have ourselves, and have had direct experience of others, been victims of the very fact that we have decided to make a complaint. The organisation S.I.N. notice that following medical damage, prejudicial things are often written in the patients Notes that are aimed at discrediting the patient who makes a complaint.
Lets take a look at this:
Last summer I had to make several complaints against nurses coming to my home to perform a medical procedure on my mother each day. When I found that they were causing problems because they were making mistakes in the performance of this procedure, they became more difficult, more antagonistic towards me and bullying. I had to take to watching them perform the procedure each day to make sure that they didn't make mistakes and damage my mother further. They didn't like this. Boy oh boy, they didn't like this one bit. At this time they "decide" to pay me back. Lies, especially secret lies, are their weapon.( All to be revealed later.)
Now, very basic psychology tells us that if we upset people they wont like us for it...... and the fact that these nurses are "professionals" does not mean that they somehow don't react according to their animal instincts. What professionals will be inclined to do is to protect each other by demonising the outsider,in this case, me. The group, like a pack of animals, grows closer in mutual support, they make up fantasies about someone who is a threat to them, and whip up their demonisation to the extent that they convince themselves that it is true.. This demonisation is not always conscious, of course, as we have examined before,rather the very fact that it is a group of people in an animal drive means that they cannot see what they are doing, they are unaware of their own psychological impetus.
I once tried to tell folks in Home Education to be careful not to upset people from the local authority who insist upon coming into their homes to inspect the children. Unfortunately, I did not take my own advice! The fact is,once you upset someone, anyone, who comes into your home, who has group power to hurt you if they so wish, you can expect that you are in potentially big trouble: wounded animals hurt back.
The other thing to mention is that as a sole carer I was vulnerable anyway. Had I had family to support me, then there would have have been more of a balance, one group against another. As things were, there was just me and my vulnerable mother up against the "wounded animal syndrome" the nurses were possessed of. No match. A dying woman and a carer dead on her feet. Easy victims. Any individual or group will weigh up instinctively whether they have an opponent to fear or not. The group of nurses knew that they were safe.. and able to abuse a lone, exhausted carer and an old woman with cancer.
The denouement was indeed catastrophic. Both myself and my dear mother ended up being complete victims of the group of nurses. They came after our blood.
I will be back to tell you about this at a later date, but in the meantime, please be careful if you have professionals in your home who could hurt you. Use a dictaphone, have witnesses when you deal with these people and, if like me you have to complain, make sure you are well protected with evidence against them. There is nothing that they wont do to hurt you if you are vulnerable. Lying is the least they will do. Believe me, they will turn the tables on you if they get a chance. Just as in the case of Home Education, nurses in your home can look to find things they can use to lie about you, to incriminate you, distort their assessments of care or medical problems, anything, or by any means, they can and will feed their wounded animal syndrome... And guess what? Because they come in pairs and are part of a group, they have a witness and YOU DON'T. Take care. Please remember that they can hurt you and you cannot access the law to protect yourself or your loved one against a professional group like this.
Oh, and victims of Care Homes beware, it is NOT against the law to neglect an elderly person in a Care Home. That's why it is called "neglect", it is a euphemism for "abuse" and as such is deemed to be passive and therefore innocent. More on this later too..... Did you ever wonder why it is that Care Home staff go on abusing the elderly? Well, here's your answer: it is not a crime to neglect someone, under the law it is a non-deliberate, passive, an unconscious act. You wont sleep easy to read this, folks, but Care Home staff continue to abuse old people.... and will go on doing so....... because they have nothing to fear in the way of punishment.Please join me trying to get the law changed; it is the only way of stopping the abuse of our old folks.
Lets take a look at this:
Last summer I had to make several complaints against nurses coming to my home to perform a medical procedure on my mother each day. When I found that they were causing problems because they were making mistakes in the performance of this procedure, they became more difficult, more antagonistic towards me and bullying. I had to take to watching them perform the procedure each day to make sure that they didn't make mistakes and damage my mother further. They didn't like this. Boy oh boy, they didn't like this one bit. At this time they "decide" to pay me back. Lies, especially secret lies, are their weapon.( All to be revealed later.)
Now, very basic psychology tells us that if we upset people they wont like us for it...... and the fact that these nurses are "professionals" does not mean that they somehow don't react according to their animal instincts. What professionals will be inclined to do is to protect each other by demonising the outsider,in this case, me. The group, like a pack of animals, grows closer in mutual support, they make up fantasies about someone who is a threat to them, and whip up their demonisation to the extent that they convince themselves that it is true.. This demonisation is not always conscious, of course, as we have examined before,rather the very fact that it is a group of people in an animal drive means that they cannot see what they are doing, they are unaware of their own psychological impetus.
I once tried to tell folks in Home Education to be careful not to upset people from the local authority who insist upon coming into their homes to inspect the children. Unfortunately, I did not take my own advice! The fact is,once you upset someone, anyone, who comes into your home, who has group power to hurt you if they so wish, you can expect that you are in potentially big trouble: wounded animals hurt back.
The other thing to mention is that as a sole carer I was vulnerable anyway. Had I had family to support me, then there would have have been more of a balance, one group against another. As things were, there was just me and my vulnerable mother up against the "wounded animal syndrome" the nurses were possessed of. No match. A dying woman and a carer dead on her feet. Easy victims. Any individual or group will weigh up instinctively whether they have an opponent to fear or not. The group of nurses knew that they were safe.. and able to abuse a lone, exhausted carer and an old woman with cancer.
The denouement was indeed catastrophic. Both myself and my dear mother ended up being complete victims of the group of nurses. They came after our blood.
I will be back to tell you about this at a later date, but in the meantime, please be careful if you have professionals in your home who could hurt you. Use a dictaphone, have witnesses when you deal with these people and, if like me you have to complain, make sure you are well protected with evidence against them. There is nothing that they wont do to hurt you if you are vulnerable. Lying is the least they will do. Believe me, they will turn the tables on you if they get a chance. Just as in the case of Home Education, nurses in your home can look to find things they can use to lie about you, to incriminate you, distort their assessments of care or medical problems, anything, or by any means, they can and will feed their wounded animal syndrome... And guess what? Because they come in pairs and are part of a group, they have a witness and YOU DON'T. Take care. Please remember that they can hurt you and you cannot access the law to protect yourself or your loved one against a professional group like this.
Oh, and victims of Care Homes beware, it is NOT against the law to neglect an elderly person in a Care Home. That's why it is called "neglect", it is a euphemism for "abuse" and as such is deemed to be passive and therefore innocent. More on this later too..... Did you ever wonder why it is that Care Home staff go on abusing the elderly? Well, here's your answer: it is not a crime to neglect someone, under the law it is a non-deliberate, passive, an unconscious act. You wont sleep easy to read this, folks, but Care Home staff continue to abuse old people.... and will go on doing so....... because they have nothing to fear in the way of punishment.Please join me trying to get the law changed; it is the only way of stopping the abuse of our old folks.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Will my mum come back to me?
I have been in hell this week.The oxymoron of pure hell.
My mum has continued to be demented with the inability to find words to speak, uttering gibberish, being discoordinated, weak, and agitated since last week.
As you know, she came off the pain patches last Thursday night after being rendered mentally and physically incapable.
The doctors and nurses have been desperately searching for reasons for the change in her condition... Well, reasons that don't blame the opiate drugs, of course. The main idea has been that she is dehydrated ! They have tried hard to fix, and have endorsed, this idea. The fact that she has a furry tongue tells them that she is dehydrated because a person can get candida when dehydrated! Of course, this notion excludes the fact that she drinks a lot of fluids and has had a furry tongue for some years. Hmmmmmmmm....... But they have to exclude the truth because then they'd have to look at the drug being to blame.
The other brilliant idea to explain what the drugs did to my mum has been that the cancer has affected her brain. Okay, right, let's have a laugh at this one as well by way of observing, following their logic, that the cancer has to have invaded her brain and taken away her faculties at exactly the same time as she took the first opiate!!!!Why? because she was absolutely mentally acute before she took the drug. Are you falling off your chair and splitting your sides? Well, I would be too if it weren't so serious.But it's okay, because to laugh is the way to survive and I want you to read this, laugh, learn and protect yourselves.
Of course, the first resort of a doctor in this kind of situation is to try to get out of his guilt, absolve the drug, and most doctors will do this at the expense of their patients. Human nature at work.
Okay, so what's the update? Look, I have to confess, I lost faith in the fact that my observations, being true and accurate, would result in my mum regaining her faculties, but slowly, last weekend her speech became less slurred, less forced and desperate,like a person straining out their last hopeless voice. I never believed the nurses, I was not that delusional even if I was despairing. In fact, the more they tried to prove their ridiculous ideas, the more I knew that they were just looking for something to disavail themselves of guilt, but it was hard to hang onto reality because I was afraid that my mum was dying and she would never regain her faculties. This state of mind is what rote practitioners give you with their negativity, their misguided diagnoses and their one track minds.
So where are we at? Today is Wednesday. I have had a hell of a few days... but slowly my mum began to make more sense today, answer me. Her walking is not quite so insane as it was. The agitation is less. .....
When I wrote before I didn't mention agitation did I? But last weekend I telephoned the hospice to ask if her symptoms could be agitation due to withdrawal from the drugs. "No", they said, because when you take opiates for pain they get taken up by the pain and don't become addictive. Oh, really?come on! So once again it can't be the drug and I am meant to believe them and NOT what I am observing with my own eyes? Madness. Look, let's get a grip: my mum has been clueless for a week, retarded, and she has suffered acute withdrawal after only a short time on these horrendous drugs. Fact. Full stop.
Tonight, at long last, she is regaining some of her senses. She spooned her oatibix herself with strength and good motor control and she has answered me coherently.It's a bit variable yet, but we'll see.
What is the wider lesson to learn from this? Well, never give up, for a start. Always trust your own observations and know that people you see in a bad state in the hospice or hospital may well be incoherent and incapable BECAUSE of the medication they are on. But nobody realises this fact. Only someone who knows how the person is usually knows that it is the drug changing the person, so please fight like hell for the ones you love.
My mum has continued to be demented with the inability to find words to speak, uttering gibberish, being discoordinated, weak, and agitated since last week.
As you know, she came off the pain patches last Thursday night after being rendered mentally and physically incapable.
The doctors and nurses have been desperately searching for reasons for the change in her condition... Well, reasons that don't blame the opiate drugs, of course. The main idea has been that she is dehydrated ! They have tried hard to fix, and have endorsed, this idea. The fact that she has a furry tongue tells them that she is dehydrated because a person can get candida when dehydrated! Of course, this notion excludes the fact that she drinks a lot of fluids and has had a furry tongue for some years. Hmmmmmmmm....... But they have to exclude the truth because then they'd have to look at the drug being to blame.
The other brilliant idea to explain what the drugs did to my mum has been that the cancer has affected her brain. Okay, right, let's have a laugh at this one as well by way of observing, following their logic, that the cancer has to have invaded her brain and taken away her faculties at exactly the same time as she took the first opiate!!!!Why? because she was absolutely mentally acute before she took the drug. Are you falling off your chair and splitting your sides? Well, I would be too if it weren't so serious.But it's okay, because to laugh is the way to survive and I want you to read this, laugh, learn and protect yourselves.
Of course, the first resort of a doctor in this kind of situation is to try to get out of his guilt, absolve the drug, and most doctors will do this at the expense of their patients. Human nature at work.
Okay, so what's the update? Look, I have to confess, I lost faith in the fact that my observations, being true and accurate, would result in my mum regaining her faculties, but slowly, last weekend her speech became less slurred, less forced and desperate,like a person straining out their last hopeless voice. I never believed the nurses, I was not that delusional even if I was despairing. In fact, the more they tried to prove their ridiculous ideas, the more I knew that they were just looking for something to disavail themselves of guilt, but it was hard to hang onto reality because I was afraid that my mum was dying and she would never regain her faculties. This state of mind is what rote practitioners give you with their negativity, their misguided diagnoses and their one track minds.
So where are we at? Today is Wednesday. I have had a hell of a few days... but slowly my mum began to make more sense today, answer me. Her walking is not quite so insane as it was. The agitation is less. .....
When I wrote before I didn't mention agitation did I? But last weekend I telephoned the hospice to ask if her symptoms could be agitation due to withdrawal from the drugs. "No", they said, because when you take opiates for pain they get taken up by the pain and don't become addictive. Oh, really?come on! So once again it can't be the drug and I am meant to believe them and NOT what I am observing with my own eyes? Madness. Look, let's get a grip: my mum has been clueless for a week, retarded, and she has suffered acute withdrawal after only a short time on these horrendous drugs. Fact. Full stop.
Tonight, at long last, she is regaining some of her senses. She spooned her oatibix herself with strength and good motor control and she has answered me coherently.It's a bit variable yet, but we'll see.
What is the wider lesson to learn from this? Well, never give up, for a start. Always trust your own observations and know that people you see in a bad state in the hospice or hospital may well be incoherent and incapable BECAUSE of the medication they are on. But nobody realises this fact. Only someone who knows how the person is usually knows that it is the drug changing the person, so please fight like hell for the ones you love.
Monday 26 September 2011
The Chemical Cosh in Elderly Care...
Since being given a drug called oramorph for lower back pain my mother has lost her faculties. She took one dose, then co-codamol was tried with the same result and finally pain patches, all opiate based medication. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. So we wondered why old people are sleeping all the time in old folks homes? We thought that it was because they were old and that is the way old people are? Did we? Are we that stupid? What a joke. Incidentally, my mum had pain not related to the cancer and was rendered so insensible by the drugs that she fell over and bruised her breast bone and needed PAIN KILLERS for it.
After taking these drugs my mum has lost her faculties, her speech became extremely impaired and she became discoordinated.I thought she had had a stroke, it was that bad. Of course the medics say that it's the cancer getting worse, but then they always say these things to get the drugs off the hook. I know. I saw what happened. She is usually a very mentally acute person and was so the whole day before she began the oramorph.The oramorph changed that. On these coshes my poor mum was desperate because she couldn't wake up, frantic, frightened.It rendered her senseless.
Then I started to make enquiries.... The hospice are quite happy with the patient being turned into a vegetable as long as the pain is stopped! They don't offer any other pain relief like acupuncture or hypnosis ! I wonder why.
Hold on, I am coming back shortly. I will tell you IF my mum recovers her faculties or not. She is now off the medication.
Okay, a mini update for you: my mum has been off the medication since last Thursday. Her speech is a little better and I think her walking is too. The G.P. has said that it can take a week for the medication to leave the body, so a few more days yet before I find out the terrible truth: is my mum coming back to me with her usual acuity?
N.B. Carers please look at this site: www.carersconnectint.com
After taking these drugs my mum has lost her faculties, her speech became extremely impaired and she became discoordinated.I thought she had had a stroke, it was that bad. Of course the medics say that it's the cancer getting worse, but then they always say these things to get the drugs off the hook. I know. I saw what happened. She is usually a very mentally acute person and was so the whole day before she began the oramorph.The oramorph changed that. On these coshes my poor mum was desperate because she couldn't wake up, frantic, frightened.It rendered her senseless.
Then I started to make enquiries.... The hospice are quite happy with the patient being turned into a vegetable as long as the pain is stopped! They don't offer any other pain relief like acupuncture or hypnosis ! I wonder why.
Hold on, I am coming back shortly. I will tell you IF my mum recovers her faculties or not. She is now off the medication.
Okay, a mini update for you: my mum has been off the medication since last Thursday. Her speech is a little better and I think her walking is too. The G.P. has said that it can take a week for the medication to leave the body, so a few more days yet before I find out the terrible truth: is my mum coming back to me with her usual acuity?
N.B. Carers please look at this site: www.carersconnectint.com
Wednesday 21 September 2011
And to Hell with the Carer.
And to hell with the Carer.
I have a problem with chemical perfume. Shower gel, hair spray, washing powder perfume. Well, I'm not the only one! Trouble is, the nurses who come in to see my mother every day are drenched in it. I have tried to reason with them,but these products seem to be something that we all have to tolerate, if we don't, it infringes their human rights! For me though, these chemicals effect me badly, giving me neurological symptoms. On one occasion, however, the intensity of the smell affected my mum's breathing and gave her a headache. I phoned the hospital and left a pretty irate message. I also telephoned the Royal College of Nurses to ask about policy or guidelines around this issue. They thought that the nurses should respect me in my home, but said that there have no authority to stop them wearing this stuff. BUT IT'S CHEMICALS. It's funny, the contradiction that nurses who are meant to look after peoples' health are actually wearing multiple products that contain chemicals, is to me, beyond belief.
Anyhow, so they are obdurate... and I have had many altercations with them. The fact that they are making people ill escapes them. So how on earth did it become acceptable for these products to be on the market? In my view they as much of a problem as cigarette smoke and, okay, so there are people like me who are very sensitive to products with strong smells, but I wonder about the long term health impact on even healthy people. The manufacturers are completely unregulated. No one knows whether these chemicals damage everyone and yet folks actually buy things like air fresheners to "freshen" their homes with a "nice smell" that is actually a potentially harmful chemical.If you are breathing it in, you are swallowing it as well.
Back to me..So if these nurses make me ill every day with their selfish use of these products, what happens to me as a carer? Well, to hell with me, is the attitude. And to hell with my mum. It is truly extraordinary that they would rather have my mum in a hospice ( and yes, they threatened that), a heart breaking scenario for her, than just simply refraining from spraying their hair or whatever they do. Doesn't it seem extraordinary that a matter of health is subordinate to the right of nurses to wear harmful personal products? Wouldn't you think that health would come first?
Please get back if you have problems to relay as a carer in general or if you have chemical sensitivity.
Very Best Wishes to you..........
http://www.ourlittleplace.com/mcs.html
http://www.ourlittleplace.com/chemicals.html
http://www.ourlittleplace.com/fragfree.html
www.carersconnectint.com
I have a problem with chemical perfume. Shower gel, hair spray, washing powder perfume. Well, I'm not the only one! Trouble is, the nurses who come in to see my mother every day are drenched in it. I have tried to reason with them,but these products seem to be something that we all have to tolerate, if we don't, it infringes their human rights! For me though, these chemicals effect me badly, giving me neurological symptoms. On one occasion, however, the intensity of the smell affected my mum's breathing and gave her a headache. I phoned the hospital and left a pretty irate message. I also telephoned the Royal College of Nurses to ask about policy or guidelines around this issue. They thought that the nurses should respect me in my home, but said that there have no authority to stop them wearing this stuff. BUT IT'S CHEMICALS. It's funny, the contradiction that nurses who are meant to look after peoples' health are actually wearing multiple products that contain chemicals, is to me, beyond belief.
Anyhow, so they are obdurate... and I have had many altercations with them. The fact that they are making people ill escapes them. So how on earth did it become acceptable for these products to be on the market? In my view they as much of a problem as cigarette smoke and, okay, so there are people like me who are very sensitive to products with strong smells, but I wonder about the long term health impact on even healthy people. The manufacturers are completely unregulated. No one knows whether these chemicals damage everyone and yet folks actually buy things like air fresheners to "freshen" their homes with a "nice smell" that is actually a potentially harmful chemical.If you are breathing it in, you are swallowing it as well.
Back to me..So if these nurses make me ill every day with their selfish use of these products, what happens to me as a carer? Well, to hell with me, is the attitude. And to hell with my mum. It is truly extraordinary that they would rather have my mum in a hospice ( and yes, they threatened that), a heart breaking scenario for her, than just simply refraining from spraying their hair or whatever they do. Doesn't it seem extraordinary that a matter of health is subordinate to the right of nurses to wear harmful personal products? Wouldn't you think that health would come first?
Please get back if you have problems to relay as a carer in general or if you have chemical sensitivity.
Very Best Wishes to you..........
http://www.ourlittleplace.com/mcs.html
http://www.ourlittleplace.com/chemicals.html
http://www.ourlittleplace.com/fragfree.html
www.carersconnectint.com
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