It could be worse
After my first visit to the Rheumatology Consultant last week, and before I start on the medication (a DMARD called methotextrate, an anti-emetic for the consequent nausea, and folic acid for the likely anemia) later this coming week, I’m enjoying the temporary respite from pain afforded by steroid injections and co-codomol.
Things might be worse. Rheumatoid arthritis is an unfortunate condition which is likely to reduce my lifespan and which will oblige me to modify my lifestyle. It’s painful and it’s progressive. But then I think of people like Virginia Postrel, whom I first happened upon through her blog at Dynamist. A few years ago she donated a kidney to her friend, and wrote and spoke quite convincingly on living organ donation and payment to organ donors - and then she was diagnosed with breast cancer, had surgery and chemo and is now starting radiation therapy. Things could be much worse.
There’ll be more over at Rheumatoidia soon, as soon as I’ve finished the new theme for the site.
No2ID
When Chris Lightfoot, who was involved in the development of MySociety projects such as WriteToThem and PledgeBank, committed suicide last year, I thought again about the No2ID campaign he’d been so enthusiastically supporting - and I thought they were a bit, well, anti-statist libertarian cranky.
After all, I have to carry around several items that identify me all the time. Cashpoint cards, credit cards; sometimes my driving licence; sometimes my passport.
Of course, the Government-proposed ID cards won’t replace any of the identifying documents I already have to carry. There’s no tie-in with my bank, or with the DVLA, and they’re not going to replace passports. So it’s another form of ID I will have to carry around with me.
Then a couple of weeks ago I received from the Inland Revenue details of a request for a tax credit for someone who wasn’t me, who doesn’t live in my house, whom I’ve never heard of. Over the next few days, I was sent more information about this person and his spouse, including their full bank account details (bank, branch, sort code, account number).
Now I don’t think i could trust the Government to run an ID scheme even if there were quite pressing reasons to introduce one. So I’m joining up with No2ID.
Training Days
Training days for England’s teachers should be quadrupled to 20 a year, costing £75m, a think tank proposes.
Teachers ‘need better training’, The IPPR via the BBC
Every good teacher knows that, however seemingly interesting the pre-announced topics for teacher training days, the training itself is almost invariable bad. And then there are the days dedicated to Brain Gym, or De Bono’s 4-Hats snake oil. How we need more of those.
Stars Fell On Alabama, Jack Teagarden
Tax people
Sitting on my desk just now I have two pieces of mail from the Tax Office; they know who I work for, the have my name slightly wrong, and the National Insurance number they cite is completely off the wall.
That hasn’t stopped them telling me to ’send the letter back’ to them as if there were only one letter from them, being utterly unhelpful when I call them because, of course, I get through to a call centre where the people have no power to interrogate or amend real tax records.
So I’m left knowing quite a lot about the person to whom they think they’re sending letters. National Insurance number, full name, date of birth, family circumstances.
Would you trust these people with a National Identity card?
Rheumatoid Arthritis Rah Rah Rah
So, Friday the GP told me I did have rheumatoid arthritis after all … after a practice nurse told me over the phone my blood test had been negative for the rheumatoid factor (RhF) antibody. In fact I have a high RhF measure. My appointment with a consultant rheumatologist should be dropping through the letterbox within the next two weeks then it’ll be a long decline into severe pain, disability, joint deformity and early death.
If I’m unlucky.
If I’m lucky, my RA will be manageable, though not curable, and I will have, as they say, many years of active life ahead of me; which is an improvement, of course, on my previous expectations. Of course, if I was even luckier i wouldn’t have RA at all. 1% of the population, with a 3:1 female to male ratio and I manage to get it?
I just noticed a paper on PubMed suggesting a link between Toxoplasma Gondii and RA so maybe I can blame the cats.
Rheumatoid Arthritis: let’s blame the cat
I’m setting up a new blog to indulge my self-pity, at Rheumatoidia.
Glassworks
Grodon Brown, Chancellor
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he understands people’s fears over the economy and insisted that keeping it on track was his “sole focus”
Brown says economy is sole focus
Sole focus, eh? Well perhaps he should resume his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer
Unit 4 + 2 - Concrete and clay
The Lorraine Motel
A while back I visited the Lorraine motel, Memphis, where Martin Luther King was assassinated.
The Lorraine Motel, Memphis
The motel was bought in 1982 by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation to house the excellent National Civil Rights Museum. Inside the motel/museum, most of the rooms have been knocked through for exhibition space but up on the first floor, the bedroom King used has been reconstructed and on the balcony outside is a wreath next to the spot where he was shot.