And do you feel that, the medical professionals you deal with, do you feel that they view you and your conditions as a whole or do they tend to focus on individual things or how does that?

They, I think they diagnose you and that’s the end of the story. I’ve had my medication for the last eight years, never been reviewed at all. I’ve got five different types of inhalers. Medication, I take as well and I and I’m sure I’ve no need to take a lot but just allow it.

Is that something you’d ever ask your GP about or?

No, never, never. I you hear so much about they’re so busy but you know to ask them to review is, you’re not ill are you. And the chemist up there is very good. The chap is, he checks it all and he’ll say to me, he says something to me like, go to your doctor to see.

And I’ll say, Why? And he’ll tell me and I’ll go and sort it out. Now my grandson’s doctor gave him medication for a man and told [pharmacist name] about it, the pharmacist up there, and he says, This is for a man, how old? I says, My grandson, he’s only nine. Well, he can’t have this, he says. So when I go to the doctor, he realises that he’s made a mistake but not, you know, the pharmacist shouldn’t have to sort this out.

You ended up feeling quite poorly because of something that the health service had prescribed, is that?

Well, no, I ended up feeling quite poorly ‘cos I had pneumonia.

Right.

But the drug that was prescribed for me, really it was contraindicative for people with diabetes. And I read that in the information leaflet. I tend not to read information leaflets until after, because I think if I read them before I’m going to say oh, I’ve got, you know, and I tick all those boxes. That’s not quite true, but generally speaking I believe that the experts are prescribing me the appropriate drug. But in this case, I’d thought well, this is something different, and I do feel quite ill, and I’m going to read this before I start taking it.

And it was there quite clearly. And it was I don’t remember the name of it now, but it was one of thenot Erythromycin but that group of drugs.

Okay.

But, so yeah. So that was dreadful and itit made me very hesitant about consulting a GP in the future.

The kind of way that you have to manage the regimens for all these drugs, is that something that you’ve had to work out for yourself along the way, or?

My mum does it for me. I had she counts them, I’ve to have 18 tablets at night, and then I have [pause] oof, about 20, 22, something like that, during the day. But my mum lays them out for me; because of my brain injury I kind of I used to put an alarm on my phone, but it’s kind of like I’d see that it was there but I wouldn’tit wouldn’t kind of take it into my brain, so I’ll just I just won’t take the tablets because my brain’s kind of somewhere else. So she even handles my drugs for me. Also because of my mental health problems as well, because I do have quite low periods, and I think it was about a year and a half ago that I tried to overdose with my Oramorph, so she kind of keeps my meds for that, just to make sure that if I’m having a bad moment that there’s kind of nothing around that can make me feel make me do something that I’d kind of regret or something like that. Because when I’m ha-, when I’m kind of happy I’m happy [pause] but I just drop low very easily, I can be laughing at one minute and then I’ll be on the floor the next, crying, kind of devastated and for no reason. So, yeah, she looks after my tablets during I’ll have to learn soon though.

GP, well, I have, have good contact by email if need to change my blood pressure medication, I can just send one of the practice an email and he will respond very quickly. I think partly because they know at the practice, ‘cos I have got access to help within the family really. So although I don’t like ever to ask my daughter, ‘cos she’s very busy, but she’s always saying, ‘for goodness sake, mum, ask me if you’re worried about something.

I don’t have anybody in my family background that is diabetic or was diabetic and maybe I still psychologically believe that maybe it’s because of my sweet tooth rather than necessarily being diabetic. But with a blood sugar of seventeen, you know, clinically that’s what you are a diabetic, so and I I’m very happy that I was able to control it myself, rather than going on the dependency of having injections daily to be able to control it because once the body gets used to is then, you know, that’s it. You’re stuck with it and I want to be able to control it myself rather than be totally dependent on medication.

Okay. So you mentioned there that insulin was suggested for you but you said that you’d prefer to try and do it differently.

The very lowest strength of metformin or something I said would do it because maybe it’ll give me mental satisfaction that I’m taking medication rather than actually.

Okay.

It will remind me that I need to control the intake of my starch and sugar and what not.

Okay, and how was that received when you said that that was what you’d prefer to do?

Oh they said fine because even if it doesn’t come down then, you know, we we can consider that at our next appointment but since then, no fine. Seems to have gone down to a fairly what they would classify as an acceptable level. What is normal is very vague I’m afraid but it has, from seventeen it has come down to about six and a half and over the last five six years or rather five years, yeah, it’s stayed around that level so they’re quite pleased. The GP is pleased and the hospital is pleased that I was able to control it and bring it to that level and retain it at that level.

And in terms of impact I suppose on your life of your two conditions, which would you say is more important, for want of a better word?

Well, I suppose my heart condition would obviously be considered. Of course, diabetes is of concern but I feel that diabetes is to a degree, controllable. You can’t eradicate it you can’t, but you can do a lot of things to control it. Regarding my heart condition, I often feel it is outside my hands. I can stick to specific diets and I keep on taking my medications on time but beyond that, I don’t have much control over it because the difficulty lies, when you do have a a heart attack, you can speculate the percentage of damage that has occurred to your heart but you can never be exact. So there is a dilemma of how far you can push yourself with that condition and it’s always in the back of your mind, especially if you if you travel a lot like me, but that that is of concern at time, rather than the diabetes. But then again, having one doesn’t help the other, so I’m told by medical professionals that.

Could I ask you what your opinion is of the treatment you receive?

I think it’s fine now. I think, obviously, before I was very ill, I, it bothered me that I had to keep trying to explain myself to more to the doctor, I think, to make her take notice of the fact that I was so ill.

And I didn’t like, at the time, because there was quite a variety of epilepsy doctors I was seeing.

Right.

Whereas now, the consultant, you know, I’ve been seeing him for quite a few years.

So I feel better with him and I, it worries me sometimes that he’ll go and then who will the next one be? But.

Right. Okay, so that continuity

[mm]

is important?

Yes, I, yeah, I yeah, I find that is that is important now, you know. At one time, when the nurse left, he did think he would be getting a replacement nurse and, of course, that’s just drifted on and he hasn’t got another one. So but as I feel at the moment, seeing him is fine and I did like it when the nurse was there because that was quite a quite a while but, you know, it’s it’s fine as it is now. So I think better, I feel better with him because, when they changed me to him, because I was taking so much medication, I took it all in in a big carrier bag, when I, when they first gave me my first appointment.

Right.

And said to him I was concerned about taking so much medication so, of course, from then, it’s when he started trying to change things and make my amount of tablets less and different and that’s when, you know, things started to get a bit better. So it’s taken a while.

Is there anything that a healthcare professional has done that you’ve found particularly useful or helpful, or has really made a difference to you?

Physically useful?

In any way, in any way that someone has done something and you think, Oh that’s, you know, that really helped. And that might be useful for them to know, for other people?

I suppose I suppose the only thing that comes to mind is is the fact that some years ago they became very willing to give me prophylactic course of antibiotics and indeed of steroids in in hand.

Right.

And trusted me enough to know when to put myself on such courses. They obviously realised that I knew when an infection threatened. That that kind of that kind of support I have found valuable.

I am quite understanding in, you know, in life in general and people can slip up I suppose, and the days when I got DVT was was the days when it was elastic stockings.

Right.

And that’s all gone now you see. Now that fragmin has come in, and it used to be heparin before they used to.

Yeah.

It’s fragmin from that but fragmin is the clot buster now and you go into hospital, no elastic stocking. It’s fragmin.

And when I first started with it, they used to give you a jab in your tummy midnight, same time every day, midnight and the sister used to come round, fragmin in.

Right.

Now, in actual fact, I was in in January and I was jabbing myself fragmin, you know.

Right. Okay.

Well, it saves the nurse coming out to do it at home and I’d been on it right from the first week.

Yes.

So I do it myself.

Right. Right.

And I don’t mind doing it myself actually. It’s not painful and I like to watch it go in, see what I’m doing.

Right.

If I see what I’m doing, it’s so much easier but I can injecting fragmin, I can’t feel a thing. I don’t feel a thing. In it goes, squeeze it down, out it comes and if you don’t move the needle about inside, you know, straight in and it’s straight out, you don’t know you’ve done it, don’t feel a thing.

The last time I was in, because I had a bad tummy, you know, with this this blood thing and it was painful.

Yes, yes.

It really was painful.

Right.

And I could have I could have morphine on the hour every hour if I wanted it.

Right. Right.

But it bungs you up, you know.

Okay.

So I got off it as quick as I could.

Right.

I got down to, you know, disprin. So as you’ve maybe realised, I take painkillers as little as possible.

Yes, yeah.

I have to be really bad to take a painkiller.

Right. Okay.

Sometimes I have them and I do take them and I do actually, get to the co-co’s if I’m bad.

Yes.

But I do, in actual fact, stop the constipation by having Maca Gold.

Right. Yes. Okay.

[Laughs] I do a lot of doctoring I suppose myself.