I’ve Had a Stroke
Yesterday morning, I woke up about five and I felt rather strange around my top lip. I was dry and put a lot of this down to half-a-bottle of red wine the night before. I thought nothing more of it until after I went downstairs and tried to talk to one of my overnight guests in the kitchen. My speech was all slurred.
In the end I phoned NHS Direct and they put me in touch with the on-call doctor, who phoned within about fifteen minutes. He suggested that I get to hospital quickly, as it was a possible stroke.
Perhaps by a quarter past eight, I’d been driven to A&E at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. I was interviewed by a triage nurse and then registered. I then had all the usual tests and the feeling from the doctors was that it was more likely a virus that had got in a facial nerve.
But they wanted me to have an MRI scan just to make sure.
But as it was Monday and that is usually a busy day, so they were talking about an overnight stay in hospital. But I’ve never spend a night in hospital since our first child was born over forty years ago and I really didn’t want to break that seqence now. But luckily I got a cancellation.
If you’ve never had an MRI scan, everybody warns you about the noise and claustrophobia. It’s not too bad, although I’d like to see a big counter that would tell you how long each phase has got left. I had a small window and I could she the reflection in the glass of a counter, but I couldn’t read it. Although, I could tell when it was coming to the end, as a digit disappeared. This was my second scan.
I said luckily I got a cancellation, but perhaps it was unlucky as it confirmed I’d had a stroke. And this had not been the first, as there appeared to be another older one.
I saw the Stroke Team before I left with my middle son at about five.
How do I feel now? Miserable! But at least the fact that I’m fit might have meant that the stroke wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
At least I was able to eat a good meal last night.
Perhaps the worst thing is that I won’t be able to drive for a month!
The Royal London Hospital
Whitechapel station looked to be ready for the East London Line, as all the new signs were there pointing to the platforms for the line. But before I started to follow the line, I looked at the famous hospital opposite.
The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel will always have a special place in my life, as my granddaughter was born there. Actually, not just born there, but operated on for a congenital hernia of the diaphragm at just a couple of days old. She is now eight and no-one would know she is not any normal eight-year-old.
It’s amazing how things have moved on in the forty years since our first son was born. Then in the Middlesex Hospital, the lady in the next bed, lost her baby to exactly the same condition, as that of my granddaughter.
Now the hospital is changing.
The Old Royal London Hospital
This shows the old buildings, with the impressive frontage of the Royal London Hospital.
But times are changing and a new hospital is rising behind the old.
The New Royal London Hospital Rises
One thing of note in the hospital grounds is an impressive statue of Queen Alexandra. She was very much someone who involved herself with the hospital.
Body Scanners
There has been a couple of women refused travel on a plane at Manchester, because they would not be checked by one of the new body scanners.
I’m all for security and are broadly for increased measures, but the way it is in the UK is different to the USA. There if you refuse to go on a body scanner, you can be personally searched. In the UK, you can’t.
This is wrong, as there are various illnesses such as Li-Fraumeni Syndrome, where exposure to radiation is not recommended. In my view anybody suffering from such a disease would be totally within their rights to ask for a personal search, especially if they had a letter from their hospital.
Donal MacIntyre
I like Donal and was interested to hear his piece on MS last night on Radio 5 Live. All good stuff that made you think.
I would feel that the project he discussed, on the use of beta-interferon could have been better handled and researched by the NHS and the other parties involved. It can’t be that sound, if some of those who originally proposed the use have now changed their views.
Research should always be impeccable.
Commons on Homeopathy
This has just been reported in the Guardian.
The NHS should stop all funding of homeopathy, an influential committee of MPs said today.
The science and technology committee of the House of Commons says there is no evidence that homeopathy has anything other than a placebo effect. It says that manufacturers must no longer be able to make medical claims for homeopathic products.
About time too!
Everything must be properly reviewed with double blind trials.
Sir Terry Pratchett
Sir Terry wrote and read part of the Richard Dimbleby lecture last night. It was a moving and very powerful performance as the writer is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease.
His plea for a right to die, when he chooses is summed up with this last sentence of the lecture.
Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.
He is right and everybody should see or read his lecture from last night. The Guardian has an edited version here.
Lotus Elan Therapy
Since my wife died in 2007, I have needed solace and perhaps some therapy. But I have developed my own. It is called elanism. This therapy is unique in that it treats both the body and mind in many different ways. The various methods are described in alphabetical order.
Better Sleep
Getting out in your Elan and driving round the lanes is a relaxing business. You will certainly sleep better that night with a smile on your face.
Cancer Risk Reduction
It is well known that good vitamin D levels may reduce cancer. Read this on Cancer Research UK. What you need is casual exposure to the sun and Lotus Elans make this very easy, as you can raise and lower the hood much faster than those modern cars with automatic electric hoods. So you need to get out of the car, but then this exercise is good for you.
Drive every day for thirty minutes with the hood down and you might reduce your chance of getting cancer.
Colour Therapy
This is another complete load of bollocks. Buy an Elan in yellow, red, blue or whatever takes your fancy. It’ll give you more fun. If you have a serious problem, buy two or even three!
Enhanced Self Esteem
Lotus Elans are in a very small group of cars, that can be taken anywhere and get total respect. We parked our first Elan at Deauville Racehorse Sales next to a Ferrari Testarossa. All the French kids were looking at the Lotus, as they thought the Ferrari was a complete show off and the property of a total tosser. They were right.
Elans are also the only affordable car, with the possible exception of a mint Morris Minor, that you can turn up in at a three-star Michelin restaurant and will get you total respect. Even if it is totally filthy.
Feel Younger
Ask someone who doesn’t know about cars how old your Elan is and they will say that it is perhaps five or six years old. As you might have owned the car for a lot longer this means you feel younger if you do his maths rather than those you know are correct.
G-Force Massage
G-Force massage is a form of passive massage, that has many of the benefits of traditional massage but without the expence of using a practioner or therapist. You just need to find a suitable road like the A68 or some of those in the Fens and drive the car fast round corners and up and down hills. Note that the latter is difficult in the Fens, but they have lots of wonderful and dangerous corners. Note that you should avoid the Fens if you can’t swim.
G-Force massage has been shown to increase blood flow and adrenaline levels, which contribute to general well-being. It may also reduce blood pressure, as mine was higher a few years ago and has now reduced to a respectable 120/70.
Improved Eye Sight
Driving an Elan fast means that you have to look out for the Fuzz! So your eye-sight has to get better!
Improved Sex Life
It is a well-known fact that people and it’s not just women, are turned on by being driven fast in an open-top car. This effect is also enhanced in Lotus Elans, where the superb aerodynamic design means that you don’t get your hair in a mess. This advantage is not of course enjoyed by the follically challenged.
Lotus Elans have one problem though. Sex is almost impossible in an Elan. On the other hand, the rear spoiler is an ideal hand-hold for position 36.
Increased Muscular Coordination
As we get older, you tend to lose muscular coordination. Lotus Elans are the ideal vehicle for keeping your motor skills up to date.
Make People Smile
Drive past someone in the street in an Elan and you get looked at. People smile. It is our duty to make as many other people happy every day as we can. It’s easy in an Elan.
New Friends
Elans tend to congregate in friendly groups. So you make new friends, which helps the lonely. There is a slight problem with this in that you can sometimes suffer from elanborism. But hopefully others into elanism will help you guard against this.
Reduce Environmental Guilt
Many people these days suffer from environmental guilt, brought about by feelings that you are not doing enough to save the planet. Lotus Elans reduce this feeling, as they last forever, give very good fuel economy for their performance and over their lifetime probably create less carbon dioxide than a modern car.
Conclusion
This is just a start and if you have any other benefits of elanism, please post.
Is this Real or a Spoof?
An old friend sent me this link.
I have read it and think it’s about using pieces of the Berlin Wall in a homeopathic remedy. But I can’t be sure, as the English is obtuse and needs to be read several times. I have better things to do with my time.
So is it real or a spoof written by someone a lot cleverer than me?
Covent Garden Risotto
I bought one a Covent Garden Risotto in Waitrose last week. They seem to be gluten-free.
I had it for lunch today.
Covent Garden Risotto
It tasted one hell of a lot better, than it looked. I’ll try one of the other varieties next time.
Fraud in Medical Research
Whilst thinking about homeopathy in the last post, the story of Andrew Wakefield was also in the news. If you type “Andrew Wakefield fraud” into Google, you get this story from Science-Based Medicine. Here is the first paragraph.
Pity poor Andrew Wakefield.
Actually, on second thought, Wakefield deserves no pity at all. After all, he is the man who almost single-handedly launched the scare over the MMR vaccine in Britain when he published his infamous Lancet paper in 1998 in which he claimed to have linked the MMR vaccine to regressive autism and inflammation of the colon, a study that was followed up four years later with a paper that claimed to have found the strain of attenuated measles virus in the MMR in the colons of autistic children by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It would be one thing if these studies were sound science. If that were the case, then Wakefield’s work would have been very important and would have correctly cast doubt on the safety of the MMR. Unfortunately, they were not, and, indeed, most of the authors of the 1998 Lancet paper later withdrew their names from it.
Over the next decade, aided and abetted by useful idiots in the media, by British newspapers and other media that sensationalized the story, and the antivaccine movement, which hailed Wakefield as a hero, Wakefield managed to drive MMR vaccination rates in the U.K. below the level of herd immunity, from 93% to 75% (and as low as 50% in some parts of London). As a result Wakefield has been frequently sarcastically “thanked” for his leadership role in bringing the measles back to the U.K. to the point where, fourteen years after measles had been declared under control in the U.K., it was in 2008 declared endemic again.
David Gorski then goes on to show how badly Wakefield conducted his research. Read the whole article and the comments that follow it.
I am of an age, where it seemed in every class at school, there was a someone who had suffered the effects of polio. So to all of these antivaccine Fascists, I ask if they want to go back to those times. I also have friends and relatives, who were damaged by measles and/or mumps, who would have been saved by the MMR vaccine.
Wakefield’s badly conducted research and the fact that it was not properly checked before publishing in the Lancet has left a terrible legacy.
But there are two troubles with medical research!
Suppose, a doctor notices a link between symptom A and disease B, which is outside the normal scheme of things. If he publishes honestly, saying that this might be correct and can anybody shed light on what he has seen, many sufferers will accept what he says has gospel. Tabloid headlines will proclaim a new cure for cancer, when the doctor was just postulating something that might be useful. We see this all the time.
On the other hand, suppose this link goes totally against the established thinking. His research may well destroy the reputations of the great and good in the field. Would they allow his research to be published? Of course not. Horizon, made a programme about the messenger of the body, which turned out to be completely different to established thinking, some years ago. A lot of the programme was taken up discussing the problems of the researcher getting his ideas published.
To return to Wakefield. He definitely was helped by the bandwagon that developed after his research was published. But supposing he had been refused the publication, as his results were against established thinking. I’m with him there as I really hate censorship. But then his research was flawed and shouldn’t have been published.
Was it fraud?
Probably not in the established sense, but I feel Wakefield might have suffered from a fault very common in doctors. They have a theory and try and prove it. I am an engineer and if have a problem then I try and solve it. So if he was guilty of anything, I suspect it was not being honest with himself, his patients and his research. But we’ve all done that. I know I’ve made mistakes by using information in the wrong way. But my research hasn’t been nearly so important.
If fraud was just an isolated event in medical research, we should not be seriously worried, provided that research is properly reviewed and published.
But I have written a piece of software called Daisy.
One of the things it can do is to check the integrity of a set of numbers. A medical professor, showed me how to check a set of observations were consistent. All you do is look at the last digit and plot them as a simple histogram. If they are genuine numbers they will have one pattern and if they are some that have been made up, then they will have a different one.
The professor showed me some research where it was obvious that the numbers had been made to fit the theory.
Another isolated case?
No! A relative of someone I know was struck off for doing something similar.
So it goes on.
To avoid other cases like Wakefield, we need to make sure that all papers, and not just in the medical field, are thoroughly reviewed before publishing. This alone would make sure that researchers used the best methods and the most exacting standards. We should also have a system in place, that would not allow the suppressing of controversial research that would upset the status quo.
The Anonymous Widower 
