Men's things - XX

Insist and be insistent

Some encounters with the medical establishment can be unbelievably sublime and others exhibit inertia and obduracy, you might find pulling teeth a greater pleasure to enjoy. Here I was trying to get a sick note that I was told was easily obtainable and assured would be ready on Monday only to meet with a bureaucratic reluctance to fulfil what clearly everyone concerned knows is needed.

As with these things, I insisted against their prevarication, eventually someone cottoned on the idea that I was here for new excuses or postponements, something had to be done and so they sought out a late shift doctor and somehow found a stache of ‘Statement of Fitness for Work’ forms to be annotated and initialled by the doctor.

Their first attempt was clumsy, signing me totally off activities and the hospital stamp was upside-down. My reaction brought a reconsideration, and they did it properly with the caveats I wanted. It was an easy enough job with the will and opportunity to do it, hardly an encumbrance, this is a hospital, for crying out loud.

Just that spike is all you need

As I was chatting to a doctor, I also felt I could ask about the last two blood tests conducted a fortnight before my first radiotherapy session, my glimpse of the blood form indicated both the Prostate-antigen specific (PSA) and testosterone levels. I could not find the results anywhere as they were not communicated to my GP.

My PSA had fallen to within normal levels and testosterone was reading levels on the low side of the normal range. There must have been some other indicators in earlier blood tests to suggest I did not need hormone therapy before radiotherapy as testosterone has never been in the cachet of tests I have done before.

If I had not unilaterally pursued the need to recalibrate readings from my blood tests in February towards remediation by intervention, we would never have been on this track to discover prostate cancer and it might have been seething and growing undercover, but for that spike in my PSA in March that forced an investigation.

Do the graft on your bloodwork

It is no doubt incumbent that anyone with a modicum of literacy must take immediate interest and seek to understand what the results of blood tests are whether they fall in the normal ranges for your demographic and where they do not, ask questions and be unrelenting until this is explained in the simplest of terms. Err towards interventionism than otherwise, cancer is not something you wait and see grow like a wild weed in your body.

Demand answers and seek a second or even third opinion, speak with experts and learn all you can to be sure you are getting the best treatment towards the most beneficial outcomes. If you must go private and have the means to do so, do not count the cost and end up paying a costlier price.

The goal is the best outcomes

It took 7 months to get from my first request for a blood test to where the prostate cancer is being effectively treated with radiotherapy. I will cover in more detail sometime in the future, why I opted for radical radiotherapy over a radical prostatectomy. It was about the post-treatment quality of life more than anything else.

If anything, and for about 15 years, I have learnt and understood that your biggest advocate for the best outcomes when engaging the medical community is you, your voice, your initiative, your instigation, and your relentlessness. You are the centre of your diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic options. Remember, it is always your body first before it is their Guinea pig, that premise is non-negotiable.

Men's Things Blogs

Blog - Men's things

Blog - Men's things - II

Blog - Men's things - III

Blog - Men's things - IV

Blog - Men's things - V

Blog - Men's things - VI

Blog - Men's things - VII

Blog - Men's things - VIII

Blog - Men's things - IX

Blog - Men's things - X

Blog - Men's things - XI

Blog - Men's things - XII

Blog - Men's things - XIII

Blog - Men's things - XIV

Blog - Men's things - XV

Blog - Men's things - XVI

Blog - Men's things - XVII

Blog - Men's things - XVIII

Blog - Men's things - XIX

Coronavirus streets in London - XXXVIII

We are not there yet

The pleasure of the walk is always fun. The discovery of London by foot and the surprise of finding strange and new places you have only heard of or driven past. It is the condemnation of the Tube to a loneliness it could never have thought could befall it. We are in the age of the pandemic, the Coronavirus has left us seeking the natural away from the superficial and we are the healthier for it.

English placenames are Shibboleths of possible embarrassment for I do remember playing the Monopoly board game thinking Angel Islington had the sound of the first syllable of island when in fact it began with the sound of is, for I began in Islington. Yet, I saw Angel, the London Underground station that is, danced by Sadler’s Wells and could have been a phantom of operatic earache in Shaftsbury Theatre.

The West End is alive

In the court of Palace Theatre were crowds gathered to watch Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, queued up in a press without spacing, their expectations of entertainment probably delivering them from the plague of COVID-19 or so they think. I pulled on my mask without a second thought.

Into Old Compton Street, I strutted, a haunt from the 90s, now fully pedestrianised and barely passable because of al fresco dining, raucous and gay like a summer camp of queens or drag that would make you blush. There is no pandemic here, and you are not invited to the masked ball, as we have come to live life, to die would be unfortunate, and those who passed on will be remembered after we have enjoyed ourselves, is the message on the streets of London.

Nay, be not one of the Les Misérables that is doing time with the butler in Arthur, and I really did like Sir John Gielgud, he died at 96 and a theatre is named for him. Les Mis as we know it, once did 19 years at the Palace, it is the West End, the world of theatre and spectacle. That was after Oxford Street and Carnaby Street much changed from what I remember, memory is not just a lane but a bustling city of dreams.

History and pageantry

Eros did try to smile on me and Haymarket I ignored at Piccadilly Circus and turned onto Regent Street St James’s and do not be bewildered, the possessive James peculiarly carries a full apostrophe S and The Court of St James’s is the royal court of the sovereign monarch where the Queen receives ambassadors to the Court of St James’s never to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Now in peak Establishment territory, I was at Waterloo Place with statues of famous Field Marshalls, kings and politicians making an avenue of the revered, Florence Nightingale even lights her lamp here in the day and the night, if you have the vision for such. Down the steps by the Duke of York Monument whose fame is recalled in the risible The Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme.

To the river and over

I cross The Mall to Horse Guards Road with Horse Guards Parade where the monarch’s official birthday is celebrated in June at the Trooping the Colour, to my left and St James’s Park to my right, I could have ventured a walk to Buckingham Palace to see it for the first time, but that would be another time, for I was pressed and the toilets closed.

The Palace of Westminster, the British Parliament with all the surrounding famous buildings including Westminster Hall, came into view, but I could barely see Big Ben, it was bedecked in scaffolding and I crossed the River Thames on Westminster Bridge onto the South Bank with the London Eye on its last rotation for the day, my sister called from America as I was lapping a soft ice cream on a black waffle cone after which the Tube took me back to Angel from Waterloo Station.

In the aftermath of Grenfell Tower

From that fateful night in June,
And the days that followed that conflagration,
Nary a tower block that I see,
Fills with the angst of the souls therein,
For in the other was the struggle and fight,
Against the rigid and established order,
That bullied and threatened,
Those who spoke and wrote of foreboding disaster,
The indifference of officialdom was palpable,
As the double-barrelled named,
Could hardly be bothered,
At the shrieking of the poorer,
In a borough of the stupendously rich,
To wit, they sought to beautify,
The Babel of today,
They spent pounds and saved pennies,
With cladding that offered skin-deep beauty,
Low in the building on that night,
A fire started that should not have spread,
But like tinder, the cladding lit,
And a ladder it became for the fire to climb,
To the top, the flames did race,
In the building, the victims did panic,
Many in flat and stairwells trapped,
As they succumbed to fumes and smoke,
By the time we knew what had happened,
Over four score souls had perished,
The councillors with their tin ears,
Ignored the tragedy as they had ignored the residents,
She of whom was spoken of as strong and stable,
Lacked the paps for care and compassion,
Scurrying she raced from the heart of the matter,
As selfless neighbours showed great humanity,
In it, we saw the great divide,
That had become an unbridgeable cavern,
Between the have-nots and have yachts,
Our unequal society indicted and convicted,
Which makes me constantly wonder,
When I see a tower teeming with life,
Do they all sleep in there safe and sound?
Knowing that from disaster they can flee,
If an ugly day does come like in June,
Where many in the edifice of mock-beauty,
Were cruelly and atrociously cremated alive,
Because someone somewhere did not care,
About life and livelihood that brings no profit,
To their selfish political aims,
In my city, I see many a tower,
Stripped of the panels of superfluity,
Revealing the raw underbelly,
That might well save a life or two,
As we find in many tests conducted,
All around the land and abroad,
That the safety we took for granted,
Was a standing crematorium,
We must not rest on this matter,
Until the culpable and accessory,
That conspired in this murderous enterprise,
See the sternest face of the law,
Even after that is done,
It would never really be,
Justice for the victims of Grenfell Tower.

The UK: In a country where the poor are roasted for the privileged

The ringing question

"What does it take to get the voice of the poor in this country heard?" A member of the audience at the BBC Question Time broadcast on Thursday the 16^th of June 2017.

On the 14^th of July, Grenfell Tower, an apartment block of 24 storeys was reported to be on fire around 1:00 AM, what was shocking was the rapidity with which the fire spread with resulting fatalities that could rise to over 100. [Grenfell Tower fire - Wikipedia]

What made this fire and tragedy more shocking was the fact that the tower block residents, the Grenfell Action Group had been complaining and agitating about fire safety and hazards from as far back as 2013. [Grenfell Action Group]

Money for style over safety

In recent years, a £8.7 million refit was done to the apartment block, completed in 2016, the activity included a suspected accelerant cladding that is banned in Germany and the United States of America, which might give a lie to the idea that our building safety regulations are worth the paper they are written on.

The refit which could have included fitting in a sprinkler system at the cost of £138,000 was not done, invariably putting aesthetics above the safety of human life.

It goes without saying that a whole institutional framework in the British establishment involving council apparatchiks, councillors, mayors and ministers are responsible for not learning lessons of the past, ignoring pertinent concerns, sitting on reports and recommendations that should have been expedited and implementing stringent cuts in the relentless pursuit of cutting the deficit at the expense of the human lives of the poor considered insignificant, irritant and irrelevant to their absurdly greater purpose and goals.

Mining for a forced-upon humanity

When the Prime Minister visited the scene of the tragedy yesterday, it failed to occur to her that leadership includes taking the brickbats whilst being there to offer succour, sympathy, comfort, empathy and assurances to the victims. She failed to use her humanity and the opprobrium that resulted after other leading politicians and senior royalty visited and interacted with the people has forced her to find the smidgen of compassion eked out with duress.

It goes without saying that Theresa May has lost the moral right to be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Despite her remedially late actions, if at the first opportunity the Prime Minister of this great country could not for whatever reason meet with victims of an entirely avoidable tragedy exacerbated by some member of her cabinet, she by all terms cannot then aver that she has the authority to negotiate Brexit on our behalf.

The matter is about humanity, it is political, it is social, it is economic, it is about government, it is about caring, it is about a more equal society and for the unfortunate souls lost in the Grenfell Tower fire, it is the realisation that no one thought they mattered until the clamour for justice has forced the cossetted and comfortable political class to feign a sense of empathy with the poor who normally wield very little power and rarely have their voices heard.

The poor left to rot

In the last 7 years, the changes in society security entitlements, the outsourcing of eligibility criteria to death panels with a profit motive, the cuts to public services, the starving of the National Health Service to ready the institution for a fire sale to the moneyed classes, the dearth of buildings and accommodation for the working classes and the favouring of the rich over the poor in terms of access and policy initiatives has been a race to the bottom that has widened the chasm between the rich and the poor to an unbridgeable existence.

We have a democracy in name only that in its reality is the government of the people, by the few for the fewer still.

That is why the question at the beginning of this blog needs asking, “What does it take to get the voice of the poor in this country heard?”

Hold them criminally responsible

The blood of the innocently shed out of indifference, disinterest, the lack of consideration and concern revelling in institutional inhumanity shall be visited on the heads of all those responsible. Nothing but a criminal prosecution of the whole chain of responsibility that allowed the Grenfell Tower tragedy would be adequate justice.

Meanwhile, the need to expedite action to rehouse the victims and find means of ameliorating compensation for them must be the most urgent consideration. It is shocking that in the 5^th largest economy in the world we suffered such a display of the dereliction of duty to our poor as if we were in some lawless and chaotic Bantustan.

No, I do not think the government have nearly begun to feel the aggrieved sense of injustice and anger from the people, that they presided over this atrocity must be a blot on their records, recorded for posterity without the mercy of sophistry. These leaders who engage with soundbite are completely out of touch with our reality. Send them packing forthwith.

The UK: Can we trust the establishment to establish the truth about child sex abuse?

Money and sex

Someone once said for most criminal activity in the world, you should either follow the money or follow the sex. I would say that it applies to everything that defines human weakness and the basest expressions of our humanity.

Following the money is quite easy once you have the knowhow and the tools.

Where the confluence of sex and money meets, the activity could range from prostitution to human trafficking.

Following the sex

Following the sex can however be an inscrutable conundrum, because it is usually secretive and for all our scruples, sanctimony and sententiousness it can be obtained by means too shameful and embarrassing for words.

The given is that we are all sexual beings and most of us have need of sexual expression which can easily be selfish, uncaring, dis-compassionate and primal.

The worst acquisition of sex is when it is exploitative, the rich prey on the poor, the powerful on the less so and heinously, the adult taking sexual pleasures off the child without restraint.

Too shocking for words

We have reached a nadir of the latter in the UK as what started over a decade ago as accusations of clerical child sex abuse has now roped in the establishment which appears to include household name celebrities, national treasures, politicians, businessmen, entertainers that you wonder who is left out of the number.

Hands and members violating the young, the powerless, the vulnerable, the star-struck and most especially those in the care of the state; used and abused at will and with pleasure by those whose status in society appeared to grant them immunity for impunity to commit vile and unmentionable acts.

The culpable establishment

The establishment – the aristocracy, the politicians, the police, the prosecutors, the judiciary, the famous and honoured, and their powerful friends – all closed ranks covering the sexual abuse; paedophile criminality being chief amongst the shameful and heinous deeds they stopped from seeing the light of day as the establishment sacrificed the abused to maintain its veneer of respectability and protect itself from deserved scrutiny and excoriation.

This has been going on for decades and many of the actors are long dead and buried, yet some grace exists for some granted the longevity of life to see out their days in shame for crimes too odious to mention in even louche conversation.

An inquiry is more than necessary as to who suffered and how this went on for so long. The establishment must now unravel itself and expunge itself of this odious history, but one wonder if the interest of the establishment is too vested for us to elicit the slightest truth of what really happened.

Some justice

It is all well and good that we have nabbed many of the dead establishment figures as Sir Jimmy Saville and Sir Cyril Smith, then Max Clifford and Rolf Harris have gone to jail, many others who were accused have been acquitted, with certain other names making the rounds online, this whole sordid saga might well be the tip of the iceberg.

The lesson to all must be, regardless of what status in society you might have as a child or young person, there is no given licence for you to be sexually abused just because you have no one to speak up for you, and now, those who did would have to face justice and if they don’t the mere taint of association with paedophilia and sexual abuse is enough the ruin of any reputation as any.

Worse still is we have not even lifted the lid on these sorts of abuses beyond the West, I hate to think of what people got away with in Africa, Asia and South America where some acts might even have been subsumed in cultural acceptance as not to at all of concern.