Dumbest!

As promised yesterday the following is a report on what is a major source of snickering and behind-the-hand laughter up at the doc shop, i. e. My health.  And from all appearances the Doc. seems to believe I am going to live.  At least for another year.  Now there is no way I can vouch for his state of mental health nor as to what he had been smoking/drinking so his optimism could have been artificially induced, who knows.  Or possibly it could just have been something so mundane as his desire to get off to lunch and the easiest way to get my wrinkled old arse out of his chair was to poke at his keyboard a couple of times and send me on my way. 

Poking of said keyboard resulting in a message being sent directly, (We have that funny thingy known as the Internet over here also.  Ain't we modern?) to the pharmacy telling them that I am safe for another year so they can hand over the magic potion when I require it.

 Amazing isn't it?  No more do we have to make an appointment with the man with the magic staff and the dried scalp hitched to his belt, otherwise known as a Doctor, (Medico in Spanish.) every time we need a refilling of the old magic potion flagon thus not wasting his time which means he can get off to lunch on time etc.  (I might of added: Finish shagging his secretary except over here he doesn't have one.  Terribly deprived our Medico's don't you think?)  This is a new system here and at the moment is only working in Andalusia  but it has not only been adopted by the rest of Spain but also by all the rest of the European  Union where it will soon  be implemented.  (Sure baby.  All I can say to that is that if they are as slow putting this into place as they are with most everything else I will have trotted/Limped off this mortal coil many, many a moon previously. )

But this was not supposed to be about me nor about how the Spanish health service functions but another session in trying to explain to the still doubting few that a vote for McSlime and Tillie will be the equivalent of  playing  Russian  Roulette  with  6  rounds in the chamber.   But then  I  ran into this: So please go here and read this and you will understand what I mean.  Just the reading of it sent shivers down my spine I can tell you. 

I mean WTF?  You fall and break a bone, (A fairly likely occurrence in folks of my age as you may have heard .) and you have to haggle with the fucking hospital before they will take you in and fix it.  And if they get it wrong, and it seems the Insurance companies are doing their utmost to make certain they do, you wake up from the Op. and an ambulance is waiting for you to carry you directly to your bankruptcy hearing.  For an extra fee of course.

And they even admit that some 30% of all medical costs over your way go to administration.  30 fucking per cent!  Well, I can tell you one thing and that is that if admin. costs ever even came close to that figure under our horribly evil Socialist system a whole bunch of folks would be looking for work with their ass hanging out the back of their pants.  Including a number of politicians.

Just to give you an example, some 5 years ago SWMBO slipped on the stairs up to our apartment and totally destroyed the tip of the femur where it joins the knee.  That she was coming home from her birthday party and quite possibly had taken that one jar too many that affects the balance nerve I will leave for others to judge.  She still maintains that it happened because it had been raining and the stairs were wet and slippery.  Which sounds logical until you take into account the fact that this happened three flights up and the roof was not leaking so where the water supposedly came from we do not discuss.  In some circles this is known as diplomacy.  Around our house it is known as the:  "Shut your fucking mouth you fool or you'll never get any dinner again." school of dire threat.  And on me it works every time.  As I learned when I was a small boy:  winning an argument may give momentarily satisfaction but hot dinners are for ever.  If you play your cards right that is.  And what the fuck do hot dinners have to do with a broken leg I hear you cry.  Answer: Not a fucking thing in reality but I do tend to ramble at 4 in the morning.  Don't know why but I do. 

So, to get on with it, here we had the Love of my life, the light that shines perpetually even in a sea of abysmal darkness, in serious pain and in the no walking ever again mode.  So what did your's truly do?  Why he picked up the old Alexander G. Bell and called for an ambulance that's what.  Well secure in the knowledge that he would not be forced to seek a loan  to pay for it.  Or a handout at the back of the church.  And when the Doc. (Same chap I spoke with briefly this morning.) saw the X-rays he shook his head and said: "Off to the hospital with her 'cause this is serious shit indeed."

So away she went, (I was not allowed to accompany here in the ambulance this time.) and by the time I had managed to bum a ride and arrived at the hospital she was already out of the operation room and laying very dozely in a bed.  With a load of screws and a large metal plate inserted to keep all the loose chunks of bone under control.  Where she stayed for 10 days.  And when she came home, again in an ambulance, she was put into bed with the admonishment that she was not to even think of trying to put weight on the leg for the coming 3 months.  So  once again my nursing skills were called on.  Learned when I was 15 tender years of age and obliged to care for my grandfather who was in a coma, (One he never did recover from.  Dying after 2.5 years as a veggie.) which entailed cooking, cleaning, washing baby's bum, the whole nine yards.  But I did it gladly as she just happens to be my favorite person.  And during this time a RN came round to our place every day for the first month and gave her an injection to stop the forming of blood clots.  And after that an ambulance came round with 2 sturdy young Spaniards along just to carry her down the stairs, (There was not a dry knicker in a radius of a mile at least.) and she was taken up to the doc shop for a session with the Physical Therapist.  And then the same, knicker dampening return home, where lumpy old me awaited with lunch prepared.

Now what all this is all about is to illustrate the fact that here, under the evils of socialism not once did either of us have to argue with anyone about anything.  She needed treatment and she got it.  Bingo!  That's it.  No concern for some bloodsucking insurance company's bottom line!    Nor did we have to think about possible bankruptcy and being forced to live in the streets when we were unable to pay our rent.  Here you are looked at as a patient and not as a profit.

ME IN MY PRE-NURSING DAYS.

And that is not some sort of abnormal growth I am fondeling.  So you with the dirty minds understand, that is a little rubber pig which I loved above all else, other than food that is, and had for many a year.  Finally reluctantly giving him up in a scrap rubber drive during WWII.  What could be more patriotic I ask of you?

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