Category: Health

Carry On Doctor

Carry On Doctor

Longer-term pansyfans may recall that I started having a bit of bother walking distances while we were in Turkey. The cardiologist at the local private hospital in Bodrum diagnosed Periodic Limb Movement Disorder. Apparently, I was running a marathon every night in my sleep making my little lallies tired during the day. I was prescribed a cocktail of blood thinners guaranteed to bring on early onset impotence and an anti-twitching drug usually used to treat Parkinson’s. My condition didn’t improve and so, now we’re back in Blighty, I had the whole business checked out at the StentNorfolk and Norwich University Hospital. I’m afraid the original diagnosis was a bit off target. A CT angiogram revealed that I have arterial blockages in both my groin and right thigh which won’t get better without surgery. A double stent will unblock my dodgy groin but the problem in my thigh requires an arterial bypass. My consultant looks like Dr Green from ER. It’s a shame I’m not under George Clooney.

Continued in Carry on Nurse.

Attack of the Norovirus

The schools are off and a sparkling (but still chilly) early spring day brought the north folk of Norfolk out of hibernation to swarm around the lanes of Norwich in search of a bargain (and there are bargains galore to be had). I watched the throng from a kerbside café. I was out alone in fat jacket and shades to pick up provisions. Liam has been laid low by a nasty bout of gastro-enteritis caused by the norovirus he picked up visiting his mother at the weekend. The virus stalks for prey along the corridors of her care home like the Black Death. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about, my mother-in-law has been struck down and confined to bed along with Liam’s father, brother, sister and nephew. Liam has withdrawn to self-imposed quarantine (except for emergency dashes to the loo) in the vain hope that I won’t be the next casual casualty. I await my fate like a man on death row. We’re rather hoping to drop a few pounds.

FLR-040 NoroVirus Poster FINAL RGB.qxp

The norovirus is particularly perilous for the sick and the old. Does my mother-in-law’s care home have adequate infection controls in place? Your guess is as good as mine but I doubt it. The cynical may see this as a great way to manage turnover. I do know, after working in both adult and children’s social care for many years, that the State’s (and therefore, society’s) willingness to pay for the care of the most vulnerable diminishes as they age. Mark my words, eventually the shit will hit the fan (or the sheet, as in this case).

The good news is that mother-in-law is on the mend and will live to fight another day. We are mightily relieved.

Quartet

QuartetAnything Maggie Smith does is alright with me. She could break wind on screen and I’d give her a standing ovation. She’s just my kind of actress, like Judi Dench and Joan Plowright. No wonder I have multiple orgasms when I watch ‘Tea with Mussolini’ – Maggie, Judi, Joan AND Cher. It’s a gay boy’s wet dream. Liam didn’t have to ask me twice when he suggested we see ‘Quartet,’ Maggie’s latest flick. Adapted from the original play, Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut  is set in a retirement home for classical musicians and singers. Maggie stars alongside Tom Courtney, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly and Michael Gambon with a supporting chorus of real-life former divas, fiddlers, and ivory ticklers. We took our seats at Cinema City, our local picture house. The auditorium was crammed with half-cut old folk of Norfolk spending their winter fuel allowance on buckets of booze, illustrating that not every pensioner in the land is living on the edge of malnutrition and hypothermia. The film is a sweet tale of long-lost love reignited in old age. It brought back fine memories of an old friend’s mother who moved into sheltered housing and married the boy next door. At the time, they were both in their eighties and found a little companionship and happiness towards the end of their lives. I was honoured to be invited to their wedding. It gave me hope for the future, something I’ve clung onto ever since.

Naturally, Maggie as a crabby old opera singer was magnificent but, for me, Pauline Collins stole the show. Her touching performance of someone suffering from the onset of dementia, slipping in and out of cognisance, was delicately and beautifully played. Dementia is a subject Liam and I know only too well.

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World AIDS Day, RIP

World AIDS Day, RIP

A few weeks, back Liam and I watched a biopic of Kenny Everett on BBC4. ‘Best Possible Taste’ documented cuddly Kenny’s struggle to achieve personal happiness and professional recognition. The film was cleverly narrated throughout by the pantheon of Kenny’s comic creations. Kenny and his characters were brilliantly reconstructed by Oliver Lansley, who perfected Kenny’s high camp mannerisms and anarchic style. I’d forgotten just how funny and original Kenny was, and how far he pushed the boundaries. For most of his adult life Kenny was resolutely in the closet even when it was obvious to everyone (including his long-suffering wife) that he was as bent as a nine bob note. Abstinence wasn’t his game, just denial. For very good reasons, the closet was a crowded house back then. Like all of us, Kenny was entitled to his privacy and, as far as I know, he never said anything negative about gay people (unlike some of his closeted contemporaries). He came out just before the tabloids forced him out and he did so in typical OTT style. I didn’t know Kenny but I saw him occasionally, usually at the Sunday night gay gordons at the Dog and Fox in Wimbledon Village. He was always attended by fawning acolytes, as is the way for the rich and famous.

Kenny was an irrepressible one-off whose off-script ad-libbing frequently got him got him the sack. His ill-judged appearance at a Tory Party Conference where he urged delegates to “…kick Michael Foot’s* stick away,” did him no favours but he redeemed himself by telling a very rude joke about Margaret Thatcher live on Radio 2. He was instantly dismissed for the misdemeanour. Kenny died of an AIDS-related illness in 1995. He was 50. That was the same year I met John. Those who have read my book will know that he died of an AIDS-related illness in 2003. John was 36.

Today is World AIDS Day. It doesn’t get the coverage it once did. In the rich world people aren’t falling off their barstools like they used to. It was not always so. One balmy evening in the summer of 2004 I was having a drink with an old friend in the Colherne, once the grand old dame of London gay bars. I looked around.

“Just a load of old uglies in tonight,” I said.

“That’s because all the handsome ones are dead,” he replied.

Cruel and cutting or just a bald statement of fact? The truth is, most of the gay people I knew in my twenties are dead.

When AIDS first hit the headlines the Reagan Administration across the Pond shamefully sat on its hands (well, it was divine retribution on fags and smack-heads after all) until it became blindingly obvious that, unlike Reagan, the Lord’s wrath wasn’t the least bit discriminating. Ironically, given the Thatcher Government’s abysmal record on minority rights, it was the Tories who chucked money at the problem – into research, awareness and care. From the mid-Eighties right through to the late Noughties, Britain had some of the best services for people with HIV and AIDS to be found anywhere in the world. These days, HIV is something you live with not die from (unless you have the misfortune to be born in much of Africa, but that’s another depressing story). But, AIDS is still with us, stalking the bars and the chat rooms. There is no cure, no vaccine – maybe one day but not yet. It pains me to see young people playing Russian roulette through some misguided notion that AIDS is an old queen’s disease or thinking that if they do get it, a pill a day will keep the Grim Reaper at bay. This is no way to think or to live. Heed the advice of an old pro who ducked the Reaper’s scythe by the skin of his teeth. Pick up the condoms that are still freely available in gay bars. Go dressed to the party. It may save your life.

*Michael Foot was the Leader of the Labour Party at the time and used a stick to help him walk. 

Jumping Jack

Liam and I registered with our local GP practice. The serene surgery is a far cry from the NHS bedlam we left behind in inner city Walthamstow. Natural politeness reigned supreme and you could hear a syringe drop in the waiting room. The entire process took no more than ten minutes. I have wobbly legs to check and periodic limb movement disorder to re-diagnose so I booked my first appointment. I was greeted by a smiley Germanic quack who listened intently to my dancing calf story and examined the test results I had shipped over from Turkey. She checked my blood pressure. “A little high,” she said, “but that’s because I’m a scary doctor.” We laughed. “Best we re-do the tests,” she continued. I’m booked in for a fasting blood test in a few days and I’ve been given a home blood pressure kit to check the numbers every waking hour on the hour for the next week. I suppose I’d better cut down on the sauce a bit. Frau Doc has also referred me to a consultant cardiologist for an arterial MOT. Apparently, I book the appointment online. I have a sneaking suspicion that Teutonic efficiency will cut through the NHS flab like a hot knife through butter.

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We’re Having a Gay Old Time

We threw caution to the wind and have a gay old night in old Norwich Town. We are blessed with three bone fide out-and-proud gay bars and one club. Who’d have thought? The Castle Public House was our inn of choice, a popular haunt perched unglamorously on the corner of a ring-road roundabout just outside the city centre. We knew we’d arrived when we spotted their open top Big Gay Bus parked up outside. It’s used to frighten the farmers as it cruises the length and breadth of the county spreading the word. Not quite Priscilla, Queen of the Desert but you get the picture. The bar was a pleasant surprise. We were expecting tired, tatty and torn. We got camp, colourful and clean. The clientele was a manic mix of trendy young things, most of them squeezed into skinny jeans and Primark plimsolls. Metrosexual girls and boys mingled amiably, gossiping and giggling over the latest must-sup alcopop being flogged by the multi-nationals.

We popped across the pretty garden and crept into the glass-fronted club out the back. It was like stepping into a village hall on acid. We didn’t last long. The two old codgers quickly decided they were way too old for the thump, thump, thump and returned to the snug to finish their halves of mild. After a while observing the Norwich queens in their natural habitat, Liam suggested we leave the children to their play and stumble back home for a welcome cup of cocoa. As we strolled past the cathedral, Liam noticed that my ancient legs (the ones that had been given me so much gyp of late) were firing on all pistons. He was right. No pain whatsoever. Remarkable. Sightly sozzled and suspecting divine intervention, Liam looked up at the dreaming spire and spoke to his maker. “Praise the Lord!” he slurred. “It’s a miracle.” Indeed. He’ll be feeding the five thousand next.

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NHS Treatment for Repats

Now that I’m officially old and hobbling towards my dotage, I was somewhat relieved to discover that I’ll be entitled to free NHS treatment as soon as we touch down in Blighty. I will just have to pay the standard charges since I won’t be claiming benefits. This has been confirmed by an NHS website. It says:

If you move to the UK, you will not be charged for NHS hospital treatment from the date that you arrive, as long as:

  • you intend to live permanently in the UK, and
  • you’re legally entitled to live here on a permanent basis

This information was further corroborated by the British Consul in Izmir at a recent meet-the-emigreys beano in Altinkum. He said:

The UK NHS authorities had said that a British resident living out of the country for more than six months loses their right to the NHS but that right is instantly re-installed if they return.

So, no pretending I was never away and hoping for the best. Nor will I have to wait six months before re-registering with a GP. Maybe the rules changed when I wasn’t looking. Marvellous.

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Jack the Hobbling Goblin

Jack the Hobbling Goblin

I’ve had an MOT at a local private hospital five minutes walk from the house. I thought it would be wise before re-entering the well-meaning but labyrinthine world of the National Health Service when we return to Blighty in a few weeks. It was prompted by a sudden and unexpected rise in my blood pressure. I used to be troubled by hypertension before our exodus but after entering Turkish airspace my blood pressure reverted to normal levels and stubbornly stayed there despite my lifestyle addictions.

Recently though, the bloody thing has been on the rise again and I’ve developed some difficulty walking anything more than a short hop. Hills in heels are a nightmare I can tell you. Like most men, I ignored it – until Liam nagged me into submission. After a determined and relentless campaign of drip-drip harrying, I conceded and made an appointment. I can report that the experience was easy, fast and efficient. A wonderful northern lass employed to guide witless foreigners ferried me around the system and smoothed the waters with tact and smiles.

The outcome? The good news is that my ticker (and wait for it) liver and lungs are all in fine form. I nearly fell off the back of my chair when the nice cardiologist told me that. The bad news? My cholesterol levels are through the roof, my blood pressure is way too high and I have developed Periodic Limb Movement Disorder. I’ve been called disordered many times before but not because of my limbs. Essentially, my brand new condition causes my calf muscles to spasm involuntary when I sleep and it’s the nocturnal workout that causes the pain when I mince about town. After the diagnosis, Liam stayed awake for nights on end to check what was going on. Apparently, my calves throb so regularly, you could run a clock with ’em. And there was me thinking I was just kicking him out of bed to make my morning cuppa or rehearsing for a spot on Riverdance.

I’ve always wondered why I have the legs of a Premier League footballer and the belly of an armchair fan. Now I know. The cardiologist put me on drugs to control the rhythmic twitching. Liam put me on a rolled oats regime for my cholesterol. He calls it porridge. I call it cruel gruel.

What does this all mean? Simple. I am now officially old.

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Our Man in Ankara

The British Embassy has just issued an update about the new Turkish health insurance regulations in relation to British emigreys. Essentially, we don’t have to join the scheme if we don’t want to. A storm in a çay cup?

Health Warning

I’m happy to report that it seems our man in Ankara has stepped up to the plate about the mandatory health insurance scheme for expats. Candid conversations in the corridors of power have resulted in a postponement of the scheme for the time being. According to the Voices Newspaper, we can all expect an official letter in the post (my face is straight as I type) about the scheme after which we will have a month to register. Panic over.

There are still a few other issues to work though like what residents who aren’t really residents because they actually reside in Blighty are to do, whether people with private health insurance can opt out and whether those who are retired (according to their permits) are exempt. The last is the most interesting point as I suspect most emigreys here are registered as retired regardless of their age (I know we are). It’ll all come out in the wash in the end.