Lowering the Drink Drive Limit
At the moment, I’m not allowed to drink because of the stroke, but I’m not sure that lowering the limit is the best way to improve road safety.
I’m always very careful when I drive and do most of my drinking at home anyway. I did once drive to an emergency on the stud in my Discovery on the tracks after drinking a couple of pints and it frightened me. Nowhere did I break the law, as I went nowhere near a public road. In the end, I more or less abandoned the car at the problem and walked home.
I think most people are sensible and do things to stay legal anyway. Ask any policeman and they will tell you that many of those who drink and drive are serial offenders and have been caught at least once. The lowering of the limit would not affect these people, as they are well over the existing limit.
But are we after the wrong cause of accidents. About a year ago, I was nearly involved in a very serious accident. Luckily, I was in the Jaguar and was able to steer out of the way andbrake safely. A guy about twenty had overtaken dangerously and driven straight into the car in front of me. It was just plain bad and reckless driving. He should have been prosecuted, but the police refused to turn up. We need more proper traffic police on the road, whereas they are being cut drastically.
On another point, if I want to go to the pub now, as I can’t drive and it’ three miles, it’s either walk or get a taxi. But there are no local taxis round here and I would have to pay for them to come from the nearest town. We need the rules on taxis to be relaxed, so that we get more affordable taxis in rural areas. This in itself would probably discourage people from drinking and driving.
We also have the most serious penalties for drinking and driving in Europe, although our limits are higher. Many people have lost their jobs because they have been convicted and have no way to get to work. In a big city, this would not be a problem, but here in rural Suffolk it is.
So perhaps, we should exanmine everything to make sure that we end up with less accidents on the roads and also provide sensible alteratives for those who can’t or shouldn’t drive.
Medical Progress
I got my driving licence back on Thursday and yesterday I went to see my stroke doctor at Addenbrooke’s.
So how do I feel both physically and mentally?
Take yesterday.
I needed to get the Lotus Elan back from having the MOT from Newmarket and as everyone was busy and my secretary was not in, no-one could give me a lift. So it was get out my trusty Brompton and cycle. It should have been easy as although the trip was about sixteen kilometres, most of it is downhill. Or at least it is if I go the shortest, but not the car-friendliest route. But the Brompton slipped into fifth and couldn’t get anything lower than fourth. And then there was the cold strong headwind.
But even so I made it easily in an hour. I suspect I would be a lot quicker on my proper bicycle with the wind the other way.
On Wednesday the stroke doctor had told me that I had a leaky valve. Now sometimes I think I can tell when it starts to leak. Or am I imagining things. I just push myself too hard and then I get a bit breathless, but if I get a rhythm going, I can pedal for over an hour. Especially in Holland, where they have abolished hills by law.
It was nice to get back in the Lotus, which is now all pristine and clean. I must take a few photos before it gets dirty!
Mentally perhaps I worry, but then who wouldn’t after what I’ve been through.
But as to brain function, it all seems to be working. Word functions such as spelling are as good (or bad) as they ever was but I can only type with two fingers. But then I never used more. I do various memory functions when I collect my Zopa statistics, and these are just the same.
So far so good.
Except for one curious thing. I do the Sudoku in The Times every day and have always found that the Super Fiendish were beyond my powers, unless I resulted to a process of elimination. That in my book is almost cheating.
But since the stroke, I can do these without problems in just a few minutes. I would never accuse such an august newspaper as The Times, of dumbing down, but they have just introduced a new section called Mind Games.
I should write to them.
My GP asked me how I was getting on mentally. After all, to lose one of your close family is perhaps normal or bad luck, but to lose two is catastrophic and a downright disaster. And then having a stroke doesn’t make you feel better. Does it? I don’t know, but I sometimes wonder that I now I think it can’t get any worse, so I just l0ook forward to the future. She asked me to fill in a form about how I was feeling. I scored very low. But then that was good.
So what did the stroke doctor say?
He explained that the leaky valve wasn’t probably trivial and that he would refer me to the cardiology team. But then I now feel that I’ve had it for years. I don’t think that my stamina was any better in 1980, than it is now. In fact sometimes I think it is better. But I’ve always had this problem of being able to walk miles and not being able to run more than a couple of hundred metres.
He also said that the heart monitor had said I had an irregular heart-beat.
Because of these problems, he suggested that I go on Warfarin or rat poison. This will thin the blood and make it less likely that I have a repeat occurrence of a stroke.
On the positive side, he felt that the research from Amsterdam on B6, coeliacs and strokes was interesting.
So I feel a lot better this morning, as we have a whole set of reasons, all of which it should be possible to overcome.
As I like to say – The Struggle Continues!
The Anonymous Widower 