Shittingeverywhereification

Dog poo dodging, endless appointments and embracing complaining

There are certain things I have embraced as I collapse ever further into middle-age. One of these is that I really do only have a limited amount of things to talk about. I used to be concerned that I’d need an endless well of interesting things to chat about, something that was much easier when I was doing gigs in different parts of the country, or world, four to five times a week. Now, with a more sedate and sedentary week, I really have fuck all to say and rather than panic about it, I’m quite enjoying that I have that one current thing I can talk about well, and then the chat can stop and I’m freed from having to engage in conversation. Thinking about it, it might not be that I have less to talk about, its probably more that I have fewer people to talk completely inane and endless bollocks with at great length.

Conversation with good friends is still brilliant, but it happens much less often now most people I know have relentlessly busy lives filled with work, family, unnecessarily harsh and self inflicted sporting challenges or decisions to just live several hours away, which I’ve tried not to take personally. So it might be that actually I haven’t got the effort or want to try and see if anyone who features more regularly in my life really wants to go into over the top detailed chat about ‘what is Danny Trejo really using his taco restaurant for because it can’t just be tacos? It must be vampires/money laundering/something that involves machetes.’ Everyone I have to talk to at the school gates instead just gets my two sentences about how ‘we’ve had to move her swimming class because school now finishes later’ and then I put my headphones on and walk away like someone hit my reset button.

Another thing in this list, is that I have really started to embrace complaining. This week alone I have made six complaining emails. Yes, six. Impressed? You should be. I messaged the council - something I’d never done before and dear god did it feel good - about the fact that everyone in our area seems to let their dogs shit everywhere like their arse was a paintball gun and the streets were the opposing team. Every walk to school now we have to tell our daughter to ‘dodge the poo’ every few minutes - a phrase that I feel probably should only be related to some sort of ‘hilarious’ board game with a foam poo* rather than the possibility she’ll slide through potential toxocaraisis. Which must be a terrible injury to ever have to explain. Not only will you have lost your eyesight, but you have to explain it was due to dog eggs. I remember in the 80s that every walk down the street felt like an old computer game where you had to zigzag left and right to dodge the turds, though at least back then they were a pale white. I will never look up why that is, and will insist on believing its because they were the ghosts of dog shits long gone. I don’t like that things being retro 80s/90s have also included streets filled with turds again. I wish we could have swapped that with brannigans crisps returning.

I’ve also written to my MP to complain about AI stealing all the things and she kindly sent an actually considerate reply, which surprised me and made me unsure of what to do for at least 3 minutes. We have currently got a Labour MP - who I didn’t vote for I should add. That’s for a number of reasons including not having any faith in Labour and actually knowing our Green candidate who is a lovely man. But we used to have a Conservative MP who had a habit of replying to emails by using a lot of words to show that he thought you were an idiot, before reeling off facts that weren’t real or showed he couldn’t care less. So to actually get a nice thoughtful reply was brilliant and threw me off my complaining stride. Bloody politicians ruin everything don’t they?

One of the other complaints this week** was to the NHS business services authority. I don’t like complaining to the NHS because, well, its been great hasn’t it? I’m so aware of how underfunded and understaffed it is, and how often its kept me alive. At some point this year I’ll have been T1 diabetic for 40 years. That’s quite a while and it means that its such an embedded part of my life that I really can’t imagine living without it. I remember being asked ages ago that if I had three wishes, would I wish to stop being diabetic and I thought ‘no, because I can handle my diabetes well and its such a waste of a wish. I mean, what would I give up for that one? Unlimited crisp supply, being able to do a breakdancing windmill on request or having bizarrely springy legs?’ Despite the billions of injections, blood tests and spending every day trying to work out the insulin so a piece of fruit doesn’t make you have a terrible trip for the next six hours, I’ve never thought of it as a hindrance. I hadn’t even considered seeing it was considering a disability until recently when I was surprised to discover that in 2010 it was officially considered an ‘unseen’ one.

I looked it up because being T1 has become more difficult in recent years. I don’t mean health wise. Oddly, while the rest of me is embracing the general melting that comes with being in my 40s, my diabetic control is bang on. Like, I want to boast about it but its not on my small list of things to talk about so I don’t really bother. I’m currently 90% in my blood sugar range for this week, which you won’t remotely care about but its worthy of a high five with someone, somewhere. No, what’s become difficult, is just how much time it takes to cater to the relentless hospital admin. My hospital where I see a diabetic specialist and my GP are in ‘different NHS trusts’, which means that they can’t see the test results or appointments I have with either one of them. As I result, everything now has to happen twice. Two nurse check ups, often within a few weeks of each other, two blood pressure checks, pharmacy checks, and blood tests now seem to have gone into the multitudes. Previously I had one alongside an ever dignified wee check, and in that one they’d look at my HBA1 blood sugar levels, cholesterol, thyroid etc etc. You name it, a few vials of top Douieb blood would be used as a package deal. Somehow, now, all things have to be tested separately and so barely a week goes by without yet another blood test. Which of course requires sitting in a waiting room full of ill people for an hour, while I wait to regale a (usually lovely) nurse with my one bit of chat about my daughter’s swimming class as she takes just enough blood to work out if my liver has fallen off or not.

Then there are the diabetic eye appointments which I was told I needed once a year but by being bounced between two hospital trusts I’ve had one every three to five months for the last three years. The comedic joy of any opthmalogy department I’ve ever attended is even though they test your eyesight, it always takes ages for them to see you. I’ve had nearly an appointment a week for something over the last few months, which is remarkable considering that there are people out there unable to get appointments for actually serious things and here I am, sucking them all up with unbelievably minor things. Is it that they know I turn up and I’ve become so reliable they pick me over someone who might not bother? Maybe I’m super popular on the hospital scene and everyone has been saying what great chat I have, when little do they know what I’m withholding in terms of game changing convo? But it all takes up time I could be working, writing, or even just sending complaint emails about dog poo. All of which I’d much prefer to be doing then turning up to medical centres more than some consultants do.***

This week I received a letter saying that my medical exemption certificate is expiring. This has happened before and automatically renewed, which makes sense as without insulin, I’m either dead or have to spend my life on a treadmill only eating cucumber. Let’s face it, death is preferable and I say that as someone who likes cucumber despite it being merely a sad green pencil case full of water. Now though, I have to fill in a long form, get the GP to approve it and send it back and then pay for prescriptions in the meantime. It took a lot of effort not to write ‘oh yeah you’re right, I woke up and my lifelong condition had cured itself overnight you bunch of fucking idiots.’ Instead, I complained about how this change wasn’t fair to those who might struggle with form filling and would lose out on necessary medication as a result. A man called James replied very quickly to tell me how to fill in the form, as though I was an idiot and didn’t deserve insulin anyway. Its very hard to email someone a long, drawn out sigh, but I tried my best and that was that. And this week I now have to go the GP yet again to have the form sent off, which rounds it off to a full two visits this week.

Everything is now more admin than it needs to be and no one likes admin. Even people who say they do. They’re wrong. It’s awful and time consuming. Imagine how much happier we’d all be if that time was used for something else? Like having time to invent a ‘hilarious’ family board game with a foam poo in it?’**** Its funny because I hadn’t really enjoyed complaining much. On a recent podcast I was a guest on, all about mental health, they said after our official recorded chat, that I was one of the cheeriest guests they’d had on which I was pleased and surprised about. But maybe its because I’m not actually miserable, but the ever continuous unnecessary ‘enshittification’ or when it comes to dog owners near me ‘shittingeverywherefication’ means that there is nothing else to do but feel like its stealing life away that could be used for something much more worthwhile. Still, I suppose it gives me something new to talk about at the school gates.

* This game exists. I’ve seen it lurking on the shelves of toy stores in the aisles they don’t think anyone goes down anymore as there’s no Lego or playstation games there.

** I know you want to know what the others were but I’m not telling you. Always leave them wanting more right? Or annoying them with loose threads until they leave. Either is a win.

*** A fact I bring up constantly as ‘one of things I talk about’ is that T1 diabetics have to make between 180-320 extra decisions a day about controlling their blood sugar levels. I may have already written about it on one of these blogs. No, I can’t be bothered to check even though this is only my third. This fact always blows my mind. If I had that much free brain time, I could do so much! Then add in the time not having 700 blood tests, I’ve so definitely got a few novels in me that I’d spend ages staring at a blank screen not writing.

**** Ok to prove it, I’ve made it the picture of this blog. It probably is fun, but no, I will never find out.