Ignoring warnings

by | May 6, 2017 | Latest Post | 0 comments

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Thursday 5th May 1664. here is an extract from Samuel Pepys’s diary… So home to dinner, and to the office, where all the afternoon, and thence betimes home, my eyes beginning every day to grow less and less able to bear with long reading or writing, though it be by daylight; which I never observed till now.

How could they miss this one?

We read of extraordinary health conditions where someone has walked around with an operating instrument in them, someone has a 60 pound cyst, and we say to them “why didn’t they do something about it before?” This is a reminder to me of what we call the boiling frog syndrome. The frog sits in water which is gradually turned up 1° at a time. It does not notice it until it succumbs to the heat. If the frog were suddenly put in boiling water, it would jump out immediately.

The mind has a great ability to create normality out of chaos and this includes pushing away symptoms and signs of disease. The problem is that our bodies deteriorate over a period of time and unless the alert person looks out for signs, these warning indications will be ignored. How often have I heard of someone going to the doctor after their wife has been “at them for years” to attend to a particular situation and they have chosen to ignore it on the grounds that it will go away, or it’s not important, or I don’t want to waste the doctor’s time. This is in fact self abuse of the first order but it is not recognised as such. Perhaps we want to think that we are all immortal and cannot suffer from any deterioration. This is optimism driven to extremes.

Even with the limited ophthalmic knowledge available in 17th-century maybe we would have seen 10 more years of Pepys’s diaries had he sought appropriate advice earlier. The National Health Service is under great stress at the moment and that includes the General Practitioners. I tend not to trouble my doctor unless I absolutely have to. Better than that, I leave messages on my computer record via the receptionist asking for a referral on a particular subject and the doctor will call me back when he has a moment.

I think people who do not turn up for appointments should be charged say £25. Cancelled appointments probably cost more than this but the £25 would make a point. I would like to see respect of the medical profession and today’s promise by the Labour and Liberal Democrats to put more money into the NHS is welcome but in the event I fear that the Conservatives will eventually allow the entrance of predatory money grabbing American companies who see the human being just as an opportunity to make money. Currently in 146 hospitals, you have to pay £.50 to receive a call. You had to pay up to £5a day to watch TV. Were the NHS completely asleep when they signed the contract? Probably not. the Department were more likely seduced by the offer of a system installed without cost and who knows a couple of sweeteners on the side.

Today my computer is playing up and so I should be out of commission for the rest of the weekend. My wife will breathe a sigh of relief because she thinks I spend far too much time in front of the computer. In fact it is my umbilical chord without which I would find it very difficult to function creatively.  I shall have to make do with my wonderful tablet but having said that PCs can do a range of tasks that tablets cannot so easily do. I hope the computer can be rescued from its many failings and doesn’t have to go to computer heaven.

Having less than 10% of my hard drive free does not help.  it’s easy to get to the stage where you spend more on repairing the computer than buying a new one. You can pick up laptops for virtually nothing these days. I saw a new one with 1 TB of data but without an operating system it must be said for under £200.

Perhaps we would be better off with parchment and a quill pen.

On that rather nerdy note, I finish my diary for today and it’s only 7:55 AM

Search all 1,549 articles

Subscribe

Sign up to my FREE newsletter!

I don’t spam! Read my privacy policy for more info.

Archives

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE ARTICLES

We would love to hear from you.

If you have not registered, then click on ‘logged in’ and scroll down to ‘register’.
It only takes a minute 🙂

0 Comments

Submit a Comment