Genuine NHS Dentist?

 

Genuine NHS Dentist

 

I’m just wondering if there is such a thing, in Harrogate, as a Dentist offering a real service for NHS clients.

 

Having been with my current practice since the 1990’s the situation is that I had a routine inspection on 11 July this year when the dentist found I needed three fillings, in some cases repairs to previously filled teeth. The earliest appointment they could offer was 11 October. Exactly three months on from the examination. Two months after this appointment was made I received a phone call, from the dental practice, informing me that, as the dentist would be away ar the time my appointment was due, it would have to be rearranged for 10 December (five months after the inspection).

 

In the meantime I have experienced shards of enamel breaking from both front and back of one of the teeth that required attention. The practice who are supposedly proffering a dental service for me, at present , are North Park Dental Practice.

A transformative event

 

Just wish I could find a pre-emptive strategy for these sudden onset bouts of painful exhaustion, it’s not as if I can lay the blame on over exertion. I’d had a quite lazy restful day today, apart from an unduly early morning waking, from my fitful slumbers, as the hound expressed an urgent need to utilize the garden! I was able to get back into bed within ten minutes but, it seemed like an eternity before I was able to resume my slumbers. When I did finally emerge from the duvet realm there seemed little option other than a very restful day.

 

Around 18.30 hours, a painful tiredness enveloped me; it’s almost impossible to determine which came first, the weary tiredness or the pains in upper limbs and feet. A not unfamiliar gnawing discomfort from the armpits served to induce feelings of nausea and a few shouted expletives caught the snoozing hound quite unawares, although he did quite quickly proffer me his paw and snuggled up closer to me. The discomfort dissipated, of its own volition(?) as I listened to Sibelius ‘The Wood Nymph’, at the opening of tonight’s Prom broadcast on BBC4 before I was fully awakened by the vocal dexterity of soprano Anu Komsi in a newly commissioned piece, from Laura Poe, ‘Laulut maaseudulta’.  The soprano’s performance reminded me of the excitement I felt when I first discovered Cathy Berberian’s vocal gymnastics in the 1960s. A transformative moment.

Wreckage & relief

This is a post I hastily scribbled down, primarily for my own benefit, several days ago. Having just stumbled across it again I thought it was maybe worth sharing 

            Wreckage & Relief 

 Where to begin, where should I have started in trying to understand my current drought of both emotional and physical stamina. The easy bit is accepting that we are psychosomatic beings, it’s pretty obvious that when one is physically, and not infrequently painfully, well below par it inevitably has an impact upon one’s emotional/mental sense of wellbeing.

 I’ve returned to a pattern of restless discomfited nights far outweighing any restful ones. I am fortunate that my combination of amitriptyline and tramadol about an hour before bedtime, (the efficaciousness of which has been reverse demonstrated on those occasions when I have omitted this cocktail, either accidentally or purposefully), still serves to keep full-blown restless legs at bay.

 Discomfort in armpits, elbows, wrists, feet and knees seem to come and go in quite random fashion both nocturnally and diurnally. On another level, reading has become difficult (once again in random fashion) as I seem to lose concentration after just a few lines and futilely return to the beginning. Emotionally, tears are erupting with very minor prompts such as hearing of the death of one time friends and comrades, even though I’ve not been in contact with them for some time. Listening to music, frequently makes me think of, not too far distant, times when I’d have been enjoying the same music or song with my beloved Helen, who of necessity has had to reside in a nursing home since January of last year, following a few years of severe physical and mental health problems. Those recalls are invariably of a bittersweet nature, and I find myself having to reach for the box of tissues.

 Much of what I’m experiencing is reminiscent of when I succumbed to moderate ME, back in the noughties, which led to my premature retirement from any formal wage-labour! 

 The attempt to write down my current physical/emotional state of being has somehow driven the darkest clouds a little bit further away. 

 Malcolm Evison 08/03/24

Advent Reflections - Golgotha Days

This year I spent considerable time on Advent readings and meditations, for some reason I've always found time for Lent studies but have somewhat overlooked approprate studies for the Advent season. What with having spent most of the past year alone, my beloved OH having been in Nursing Home care since January 2023, and an even more disheartening situation in the 'Holy Land'these studies didnot come easy but somehow, my seasonal reflections became a poem which I am now sharing with you:

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