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Fri, 14 Aug 2009

Hospital Week, or why the NHS is actually OK

It is odd seeing various reports that implementing properly state-funded health care in the US will lead to problems with death panels, or poor service.

I can only really comment on my own experience of the NHS.

I've found that the system of registering yourself to a GP is fairly pointless, time-consuming and buearucratic. Actually seeing a GP requires it to be an emergency or you to "plan" your sick days, because you need to have an appointment or be willing to wait, many, many, hours.

However, once you have a referral to a specialist, and you see them, further appointments, tests other diagnostic stuff is amazingly fast.

I've been in and out of hospital all this week on various days and I've got at least another 3 - 4 appointments covering the next month already lined up.

I don't recommend visiting hospitals so frequently but if you have, the NHS is a nice way to do it

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Fri, 07 Aug 2009

Eating healthy.

I came across Graze, a few weeks back and thought that even though I try to eat healthy, it might be simpler for me if I just had the food delivered.

It can be a hassle buying for one and then finding out that you don't like the food — or that you have to buy it in bulk just to have a portain of it each day. Plus food is nicer when it is fresh.

The boxes are, apparently, custom designed to have three different foods in them. My first box contains, pineapple, apple strudel and cashews. It looked like this:

My first full box from Graze

And about 2 minutes later it looked like

A few minutes later, it is decidely empty

Pretty good but the pineapple was almost fermented — it had not kept very well. I dropped the guys at Graze an email saying that. I was not expecting much, as I am on a trial offer and the first box was free, after all. But I was pleasantly surprised when I received a response from Natalia apologising for the pineapple and indicating that my next box would also be free.

Sweet!

My second box, below, also disappeared pretty quickly. Although I was not a fan of the dried raspberries as compared to the grapes and nut mix.

My second full box from Graze

Their website is pretty slick, and the sign-up process is lovely. My one complaint is that when you rate foods, you have to 'bin' them, or 'love' them. I don't mind cashews and dried raspberries — I'd still like them to be sent up, just not as as frequently as, say, apple strudel. I'd rather give it a thumbs up, thumbs down are wavy hand.

I think that at £2.99 / box, the service is a bit too expensive for an individual to have. But a company might be able to arrange a "bulk rate". However one thing I particularly like is that each box contains a different image inside the lide. If they included some kind of inspirational quote as well, it be even better.

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Mon, 08 Dec 2008

Coughing up blood

Normally, those would not be the search terms I would plug into Google, first thing in the morning. But they were appropriate, today.

Because that was what was happening.

When I was younger, I used to have asthma and, as part of that, I would invariably contract bronchitis periodicially.

Over the past years, even though my asthma has receeded, I would still get bronchitis at the interface between seasons. It did not matter if the season change was hot to cool, or cool to hot. Whatever the change, I would get it.

I've been used to this. It is, in it's own way, comforting. I can watch the seasons change, and notice that are changing earlier. It's like I have an in-built global warming detector!

This latest bout came on about 3 weeks ago. So, as usual, I thought nothing of it, bought my normal supply of strepsils and went about my life.

It was not until I was doing some training, and was left exhausted and wondering why that I decided to head to the doctor. He could not hear anything wrong with my lungs.

We did a few peak flow tests; my best of 3 being 250. Typical values for a health person are 600+.

His conclusion: ‘Your asthma has recurred.’.

A week later and I am still short of breath, but also coughing up blood. So after some searching on the interwebs, it appears that this can be normal with excessive coughing. And that the best ways to control excessive coughing are: codine1 (paracetamol / panadol) and chocolate 2

So, I've been indulging myself in both.

I'm off to get a chest X-Ray just in case this is more serious and the blood re-appears tomorrow. But now you know that chocolate is good for you (and your cough).

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ॐ (aum) - what was, what is and what will be, wildfire's musing

Anand Kumria
wildfire@progsoc.org

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