Blog for Carers II: There is a Vibe in my Soup
Are you sitting comfortably? Got the slippers on? The fire crackling in the hearth?
Here is a little medical drama for your entertainment – it does have a reasonably happy ending, never fear. I have simplified the story a little – I have got to get going with the next round of soup (soup-opera?).
There are three doctors, scattered across the country, who recommend three different treatments for the same patient. There is professional pride at stake here but, most importantly, there is a very sick, very brave patient who has a loving but meddlesome wife (that’s me, of course.) None of the three treatments being offered are life saving, but two offer the hope of a longer survival time and one of these is minimally invasive and very safe. The third, the only one on offer locally, can have complications, is not reversible and is a ‘contraindication’ (useful medical jargon that ) to at least one of the other treatments. This third option is as ‘cheap as chips’.
You are already ahead of me – you know what is going to happen, don’t you?
Yes, very sick, brave patient is recommended the ‘cheap as chips’ version.
But the drama doesn’t stop there: at the eleventh hour, expert at the other end of the country says ‘cheap as chips’ version would not be suitable for our hero at all... and he will see our hero at his state-of-the-art place of work which is several hundred miles away.
There is a catch, of course, and to give you a hint, the meddlesome wife is wondering, as she stirs the soup, whether this will mean re-mortgaging …and will the dogs be happy living in a ‘yurt’ should she have to sell the house …
As medical dramas go, it is not quite up there with ER but there is a reasonably satisfactory ending to this episode in that we have at least the chance of a treatment which should increase both quality of life and survival time – a little.
Let us hope that the story-line runs as long as the ER series – and that there will be the boxed set on the shelves for many Christmases to come.
And to end on an even more positive note, one of the in-laws has organized for Reiki thoughts to be sent remotely from a master who is teaching in a former Soviet country.
Well, that’s a relief.
Was that a vibe that dropped in the soup?
