What is the cost of a banana?
I’ll tell you.
Category Archives: family
Iceland, Israel and four Dorits
Disconnections in time ane space.
Mindful
I go to Iceland. Box breathing; trapped. tomorrow I take to the water.
The last lecture
I flashed-forward a decade and imagined them strutting around a hospital wards, missing the point as they seemed to miss it now.
Why Israel is not an Apartheid State & a risky date acquisition
Boycott, divest and sanction is,
Antisemitic.
Person-centred care and self-love
I, as a doctor might know all about diabetes or asthma, you as the person with the condition know all about you. What you know about you is always far more than I can know about the dry technicalities of disease, even with a lifetime of experience.
Black Swan
Moments with my daughter,
reflecting
on growth and change.
Winter cannibalism, a theory of economics, healthcare, and D:Ream
Healthcare staff working in the late 90’s and early 00’s will be familiar with the airplane analogy. Sometimes a double-decker bus was used. This supposedly equated either (depending on who was talking and their level of cynicism) to the numbers of patients harmed or killed in US and UK hospitals every day. The UK planesContinue reading “Winter cannibalism, a theory of economics, healthcare, and D:Ream”
A final fling of the football, at the back of the net, into the hands of the goalie & a soupcon of Nietzsche.
It is telling someone you love them
As you lash-out with a punch.
Memories of Mrs. Slocombe & Blind spots in health and care.
This, for mum was a terrible disability as language, conversation and socialising was one of her superpowers. Mum could talk with anyone at any time about anything.
Funereal wave. Suspension of belief.
Is this it?
You ask,
Is this the call?
I just called / pieces of a man
What is left behind when you have gone. Audio legacy.
Revelation #1 & the day I was kicked-out of Waitrose
If my mind is stolen,
and I acquire a Union Jack tattoo, you will know the experiment was a failure.
I am a Tory! (& the trouble with memes)
You can say, ‘Molly, you are 95, your mum is dead, you have dementia, you live in a care home, sit down.’
Two or three roads diverged in a yellow wood, now and then.
Had I drowned, the story would have ended.
Thirty years ago and counting. 90’s reminiscence.
He has a glass that is so half-full that the Kool-Aid is spilling over the rim.
Time on my hands – Pour passer le temps.
For passing the time, as winter approaches.
Papa
I visited my patient yesterday. He is from Alloa. In the Lowlands of Scotland. A tall, Former miner Now ageing gracefully. His grandson was there And his red-headed great-grand daughter. She sat colouring as I sounded The old man’s chest. ‘Papa, I’ll pop to the chemist.’ Said the grandson. He refers to himself in theContinue reading “Papa”
Cold morning, 70’s flashback & white dog shit
It is Grundig TV with whiteouts and loops over and over
Where have all the bibles gone? (Can be sung to the melody of ‘Where have all the flowers gone? By Peter, Paul and Mary.)
Where have all the bibles gone? It used to be a thing I saw When staying at Hotels and hostels & similar types of places. In every Bedside drawer There would be a brown or blue Gideon Bible. ‘Look,’ I said to my daughter, ‘In your bedside drawer!’ ‘It’s empty,’ she replied. They seem toContinue reading “Where have all the bibles gone? (Can be sung to the melody of ‘Where have all the flowers gone? By Peter, Paul and Mary.)”
Take me to your specialist!
I know the people who can’t ‘get to see the doctor’ presume they are sitting around playing Wordle; this is not the case.
Today is the day of Elizabeth’s funeral. A rethink.
I keep thinking Land Rovers.
I think Dutchy Organics.
Purveyors of fine foods to HRH.
It’s a jumble.
The Queen, the queen is dead. Long live the.
Millennials have a super-sense that goes beyond the establishment’s reach.
Hooliganism and cheddar cheese sandwiches
If you are reading this and still eat animal-based foods on most days of the week you are contributing to the problem.
The 3 R’s, My American Wife & Jesus.
Stop moaning about the Norwegians or the Norway Fisheries folk and reduce your carbon footprint.
London’s burning. Damn those firemen.
No one in healthcare works harder than GPs.
Nao and Zen, Time Beings and a regret for the inevitable
The butterfly beats its wings, and we are all prisoners of time.
The heat, boiling frogs and rampaging Cossacks
And yet, it is very hot.
Well, not as hot as in Yorkshire.
And the irony?
Sun, sea and outdated cultural references
(Can you hear the crickets? The Bouzouki?)
Deceased albatrosses, dog companions and other thoughts and travels.
Michael was a true rambler, born in Russia he migrated to Glasgow then fought in Egypt and Palestine in the First World War then back to Glasgow and then off to Australia via Ceylon.
Free-association, mind-wandering, existential worries, and Yoda’s gender
Is the recession upon us? What I think about my tortoise, what do they think about me?
Killer whales, the menopause and my colleague A.
There may be women in the Tory party, it is however a sexist juggernaut.
I, like most people have a favourite pair of pants.
He had and has inherited my dad’s bibliophilia;
Language is funny and people are odd; thoughts of Macca, Kendrick and family relations
Climate change and the Anthropocene are their lingua franca. Heck, Ukraine then Roe v Wave last week. They see further than me, and that is great, that makes it worthwhile.
Weight loss junkie (the pitfalls of too much safety)
Family-doctor-dietician and still losing weight; you must be failing the person, not meeting their needs, not creating innovative or adequately tasty food, not supporting mealtimes, not doing your job.
I move through empty space.
Although if you are my brother,
Ancient Greek scholar (he’s a Greek scholar, not ancient).
This would not be surprising,
The Sailor from Dinnington
It was a few weeks ago. I was logged-on to a meeting. Locked, stock to the computer screen, my face flickering at 60Hz, my fingers dancing over the keyboard, and, me, for the most pretending to eye-contact, whilst reading the Guardian. During these times I exist in a split reality. My focus switching between theContinue reading “The Sailor from Dinnington”
A dying breed. Knock, knock, It’s the doctor.
What makes a GP special is their knowledge of a patient, their insight over months, years, even decades into a person’s life. The bond that continues after the acute illness has passed, the person recovered, perhaps passed through school, left for college and returned, married then divorced, raised children.
Psychoneuroimmunology and all that
We are the finite of our bodies and we are the infinite of our minds.
We are a walking anachronism.
Long distance relationships
It was a toughie. It took me an hour to unravel what was what, which medicines were which, what had been stopped, started, changed, what he could and couldn’t do, what he understood, what the family understood, the plans for further tests and follow-up.
The poop you walk past, Navalny and others on standards in society
It is more a chaotic butterfly of cause an effect, a stochastic randomness that nudges the world in a certain direction.
Free Speech, Twitter, Elon & Biko
Some people, let’s call them extraverts tend to let everything spill-out. I am not one of those.
This blog is a form of cognitive expiation.
This is Dying Matters Week.
Freud suggested that we can’t imagine our own death.
I’ve tried and I can although it isn’t a comfortable or pleasant.
The Brazil nuts from Brazil
As a consequence of not scoffing sweet-salty popcorn or Sports Mixtures I have been consuming more nuts.
What have I learned, what have I seen?
We don’t really move or go anywhere.
In space and time, we stand still.
The Waterboys, Gene Kelly & Worm Moon 2022.
I thought of the residents of my care home,
Was it disturbing their mental continence?
Would it influence me?
Black-belt medicine
For me, the difference between the two belts and their equivalents in medicine can be described as transactional and transformational care.
Holidays
I am famously last-minute. If you know Myers-Briggs, you could guess the last letter of my type. Despite this propensity, I almost always get things done on time. The argument to myself and those around me who wonder why I am not doing anything when I should be preparing is that I am thinking (worrying)Continue reading “Holidays”
My mum – for International Women’s Day 8 March 2022
My mum Would pass thread through the eye of a tiny needle and perform what she called invisible stitches. It was what all the ladies wanted. The middle-aged women would call-in at our house Requesting alterations to aid their spread, their girth expansion from the time in-between diets. Mum would sit at her Singer sewingContinue reading “My mum – for International Women’s Day 8 March 2022”
Drowning in data, in war.
We fear crazy men who remain in power for too long, who climb to the top ensuring multiple mutually assured mechanisms of destruction for anyone who might threaten them.
The cost of loneliness (Roubles, dollars or robots?)
One patient recently attempted to resuscitate her (toy) baby when the batteries ran-out.
The week that was and was not!
Still recovering from IDLES my daughter tested positive for Covid.
I was an ageist arse
Makes my think of my grandfather and his dilute Dettol baths or his pronunciation of Argos
Greek letters, a return to Leonardo, The Code, and my face
Rod talks numbers, art and the imperfection of his face.
Innovation, oranges and the impossibility of happiness (Monday imaginings)
…the shape of hills, the movement of water, muscles and the eye, the mechanism of the woodpecker’s tongue, the development of the foetus, creation, innovation, perspective and momentum.
Where did you come from, where did you go?
You are both more distant and more closely related to your next-door neighbour than you think.
Should I or he or she or they stay at home or go into care?
Locked in a room, when you are 90 and if you have dementia and significant physical and cognitive impairment is horrible. It is cruel and harmful. It is what our older folk have to do, whilst we, the rest are out and about, living it up.
Boxing day reflection
Death – tradition – Jewishness – family – education – self-consciousness
Anxious Jew
Rod reflects on the interface between anxiety and a long-line of Jewish ancestors.
Thinking mindful – geriatrician asks his followers to ‘get high’
My mind has been in a Japanese meta-reality rather than on Wong Lane
A confrontation with the awareness of my outdateness.
I don’t even want to talk about the masks. We were at a cinema in Bristol this evening to celebrate my birthday. We saw The Harder They Fall. No, it wasn’t the movie that made me realise how far away I am from where I could or should be, nor the paper cups we wereContinue reading “A confrontation with the awareness of my outdateness.”
Tell Me Why.
At different times I feel I am closer to gaining an understanding, at others, I have never been further away.
Detour into etymology via hell and the NHS.
For all they care we could go to hell, so long as they can keep going.
It’s a bit shit.
#NHS #scapegoating #primarycare @BMA #justtryingtodoourjob
Caveat emptor – learner beware.
That doctors and nurses aren’t working hard enough, that the poor are poor from choice, and, that good things come to those who deserve it or who were born lucky.
A Grand Unified Theory of Nowt
I popped into Tesco yesterday; there was no pasta on the shelves (no petrol in the pump either).
Israel / Sheffield / Palestine & Stone throwing
There are 8.8 million people living in Israel.
That is 0.11% of the world population.
Around 20 per cent of children in the UK’s 68 million are living in poverty.
Consider the involvement of Russia and China in perpetuating the Syrian crisis.
The Twa Dogs (Dugs)
For the first two or three weeks after she came home I had to physically drag her out of her crate to let her pee or poo – she was terrified
Chaos theory. Calamity in action.
The misdirected guided by the uninformed.
Babyteeth
It’s a comedy,
Although I don’t remember laughing.
Occupational hazard – emotional blunting.
‘She’s probably holding something in her mouth,’ I said – since the arrival of pup, she has taken to hoarding all sorts of toys and chews in her mouth.
Cars, Communism and Consumerism
‘Are you some sort of Communist?’ He asked.
Two worlds
If their lack of safety is 10 times greater than your perception of safety, are they safe? Are you?
Four pounds
‘Think of it as an internship.’
‘I don’t want to be a waiter,’ he says.
‘I know, you are gaining life-skills and, well… Experience.’
He doesn’t answer.
Nakata, Aphasia and Sylvia Plath
Imagine being able to converse with a cat.
That’s what Nakata can do.
Roundabout discovery of a great French composer.
Facts can be convoluted or linear.
They can be jaggedy or zigzag.
They can be true or false.
Muffled sounds, drum beat and dementia
Norwegian Wood
Yesterday
Michelle
Penny Lane
All resonating, taking me back and creating an atmosphere.
Phone fraud and Mammeloshen*
I remember experiencing a sensation similar to that which a fly must feel as it slips down the throat of a pitcher plant. Suspicion mixed with curiosity.
Safe in heaven. Thank you Freda.
Me and my dog and silence.
Silence is sometimes needed to re-charge.
And yet, Freda is gone and I never really said hello.
His left testicle.
My teacher, R’s smile in particular, warm and proud of our academic accomplishments.
Yet, the testicle.
Klara, digital capital, Superman and me
When I say be me, that is, have integrated all my past memories, thoughts and ideas, my behaviours, imaginings, hopes, anxieties, abilities and failings.
Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion) 