Cancer patient pursued by Police

 

Ashya King has been found in Spain

 

The headlines announced that a three- country police search for a little five-year-old boy with cancer had ended.  He had been discovered in Spain, and currently he is in hospital in Malaga.

 

The story is full of holes, but I can’t help feeling for the boy’s parents, who were accused of kidnaoping when they took their little boy from Southampton hospital, supposedly against the wishes of

How to waste your time visiting the GP

CCGs find a use

 

 

 

Someone has finally found a use for CCGs (Clinical Commissioning Groups);  the extra layer of quangos

 

 

 

set up by the last Minister of Health. They are generating so much paper-work, etc., that  Pulse, the doctor’s magazine, says up to  25% of GP appointments could be avoided.

 

 

 

At last someone is realising what a waste of time so many of these appointments are, but how else are we to get our referrals to Consultant for treatment we know we need, without going via GPs for the obligatory ‘referral letter’ and other time-consuming procedures?  Unlike appointments in European hospitals, whee they assume their patients have some brain and know what’s needed.

Cancer, Polio, Diabetes and other conditions

Polio and other conditions

can affect Cancer Treatment

Update on yesterday’s Post:  suddenly my visitor stats to the website went rocketing up – I never knew so many people had problems from other conditions, that impacted on cancer treatment.  I was even singled out by Chris Salter, who publishes a daily bulletin on Polio around the world, and made me feel very honoured to think he was reading my article.  But researching available information, it seems to those MDT teams don’t take in to account what else we have had,

President Franklin Roosevelt, polio survivor

 

It had taken me two months to get over problems because the anaesthetist for my cancer op. had disregarded the fact that I had had polio.  Next time I asked the British Polio Fellowship to send their pre-operation pack to my surgeon, and also my anaesthetist, and bless them – both read it from cover to cover, and I sailed through this op.

Grudgingly the Oncologists acknowledged that polio might impact on some of my treatment, and at last I made such a fuss that I was sent to see a Polio specialist, and from then onwards things improved. But it took visits to hospitals in Europe before I found doctors to treat the two conditions holistically.

Complaints and the NHS

Is it worth complaining?

 

Every time I hear that the NHS has appointed yet another over-paid Consultant to look into problems, I want to ask why waste the money?y?

Gluten-free foods here to stay

More choice for Gluten-free meals

Supermarkets have at last woken up to shoppers’ needs, and aisles devoted to ‘free from’ food have expanded.

And for those who feel too tired to cook, you don’t have to compromise – you can now buy Gluten-free ready made pies in major stores.  I was delighted to find delicious Beef and Mushroom and Chicken and Leek pies available locally, which just had to be popped in the oven or microwave – and eaten.

Helplines and helpful web addresses

 

The web has useful information –

where survivors can find it

Doctors often dismiss information on the web, and when you look up the NHS’s National Cancer Survivors’ Initiative site, you can see why.  Set up by Dept. Health  “Consultants”, it is pathetic.  But, there is excellent help out there, both with tons of useful  information, and pointers to excellent Helplines.

Some of my favourites are: