What is it about me and Medics?

Two letters awaited me at home last night, both from the medical fraternity.

One was a tacky computer-generated page of A4, offering a free PAD screening for just £129.  You may know what PAD is.  I didn't, but the letter announced it's potentially life-threatening- Peripheral Arterial Disease.  So that bit grabbed me enough to engage my brain, numbed after three hours of tiresome M1 traffic, to grapple with the free/£129 paradox.  If you hold on, I'll explain their logic.

But first why I wasn't really impressed.  The screening would be held at a local Methodist Church, and the letter boasted that only 61 appointments are available on the day.  I'm not unduly conceited, but the idea of a life-saving screening amongst 60 other mugs herded into a random Church hall didn't all add up being specially credible. But, last year I'd undergone a very impressive hearing test through a mailshot like this, so, who knows?  The letter chirped, "ultrasound... can visualise the build-up of fatty deposits".  No, I felt I was more a victim of a scare-mongering aimed at the elderly.

I re-read it for the freebie bit.  Ah, you get a PAD screening thrown in free if you undergo three other paid-for procedures.  A snip at £129.  I quote: Heart Rhythm Screening (Atrial Fibrillation); Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening; Osteoporosis Risk Assessment.  Fearfully and wonderfully made, as the psalmist said.  Actually, last time my doctor checked me out, he declared, "That's obscene. You've got the blood pressure of an athletic 17-year-old."  I'll stick with that.

So, the second letter.  From "The Regional Department of Audiovestibular Medicine Yorkshire Cochlear Implant Service (Sheffield)".  To you and me, where you get NHS hearing aids.  There followed an impressive list of staff and phone numbers.  To proceed, you need to know that last year I had an MRI scan.  How did this come about...?  How long have you got?  That free mail-shot hearing test sent me running to my GP for an audiology referral.  Basically, I'm as deaf as a post above 4 khz.  Ask my wife.  The Consultant Audiovestibular Physician poked around for a bit, and concluded, "We need to send you for a brain scan to see if we can find anything".  Seriously.

7.00am on a Wednesday found me waiting at the Department.  "Early start," I joked.  "Is this to make sure it fires up and runs okay on cold mornings?"  Nobody moved from their screens.  I swear they were checking the overnight Australian football results.  When the headphones explained the first pass was "just to see if it's working okay", an eerie feeling crept over me.  After all, this was just a glorified microwave, and you know what they're capable of when they go haywire.  With your head in a tubular steel rat trap, and shoulders jammed into a medically approved front-loading washing machine, you have to get a grip on your imagination, regardless of the effect on the brain patterns.

But then no results had come through (they'd found nothing: ha, ha, ha) until I chased it up.  Now the auspicious letter was in my hand.  "The MRI scan has not shown any problems in your ears.  However, they have shown some inflammation in your nasal sinuses which I am taking the liberty of referring to our nose specialists."  Only I can go to hospital for a hearing aid, and get prescribed nose drops.  Why is this?

One day I'd tell you about the time I went for a standard eye test and came away with bright yellow bogies.  

Starter for ten

It was Tuesday, 20th December.  I was sitting minding my own business when my friend James popped in a challenging, maybe provocative, email about the sparsity of bloggers round here.  I'm a challenge junkie.  So I dropped James a line:

"I should like to be considered as a blogger. I love English, always employ BCC rhetoric (Brave, Controversial or Challenging), and have strong opinions.

As these were the self-advertised qualifications of Christopher Hitchens, I'm happy to take up the vacancy created.

I am a non-smoker.  I'd like to use the moniker 65+NotRustingAway."

That explains things.  However, I think I should warn you that you're probably putting your computer or hand-held gizmo at risk.  I am a total nemesis to all things IT.  I only have to walk into a room and screens freeze, operating systems crash, and signals die.  So that you may appreciate the near-miracle by which this blog actually got posted, I'll illustrate.

This morning I had to renew my Engineering subscriptions.  The accounts team had, in their infinite wisdom, directed I should use the company credit card. On-line.  I commented cheerily to my friend at the next desk that, "This is about to be a disastrous experience", and thus plunged into action.  I got as far as the Extra Security screen.  You'll have seen the one: Third, Fifth and Seventh characters...  I just know I entered them right.  I used my crib sheet, counted on my fingers and wrote it out on my desk pad to make sure.  Result: red-lettered boxes all over the screen.  Argghhh.

Now, I've got wise to this routine.  Three goes and they lock you out.  Then it's ring the lady (sorry, customer serviceperson) at Barclays, who wants to know your shoe size, mother's maiden name and dog's favourite phone number.  So I got Jen, our office manager and absolute whizz on all things credit card.  "Your screen's slow," she says.   "Er, that's because I haven't got an IDENT and (name omitted) won't fix it. and I have to switch off and on Windows Firewall, and..." I bleat.  "Huh, it's locked out", grunts Jen.

"Yes!!"  (Punch the air)  It's not just me!  See, the precise disaster I predicted!  Jen persists with my date of birth, full name, etc, and [multiple choice follows] resets, recovers, restores, reinstates the hallowed Password.  We're there.  I'm paid up for another year.  "Would have been easier on PayPal," exits Jen, muttering.  Ah, no, Jen.  PayPal absolutely never works.  Extra Security screen has been known to: on one train ticket, last year.  We stick with it.

So why, two hours later, just in a lunch break, did I imagine James would manage to get me signed up for blogging?  "Wow, what a huge screen", I boggle at his 3-D, HD, LED cinemascope spectacular.  Like a pro, his fingers dance over the keyboard and tabs string out along the toolbar. (Mental note: James must have taught himself to touch type.) "'S funny", he falters. "It doesn't seem to be picking this up, and I can't find the usual display screen, or the button for labels."  "Nemesis is sitting next to you," I inwardly sigh.  AJ mocks from across the office.  He knows.

The hour's flown, and James is apologising that we didn't have time to set up Twitter, or links with the Jesus Army web page.  Or to give me a chance to try out different layouts, or manage to post something via Mobile, "that'll be most useful for you," as he enthuses.   No matter, James.  We got a self-portrait, and 100 character of text up, cut and paste from an email, and even a freebie picture.  We have conquered!  (But then, James has two active blogs.)

Later, when fellow-trustees in the afternoon charity meeting aren't noticing, I pull up the posting on my phone.  It displays as unintelligible strings of HTML characters.  The app goes into a loop when I try to reformat the page.  But AJ finds it on his iPhone an the way home.  And later again, I add  this explanatory postscript.  But I haven't shown my wife yet.  Life as a blogger has begun.