Questionnaires and quandaries . . .

I've spent the last week or so, but particularly yesterday and today, lying racked in pain, despite the slow-release Morphine, and the double doses of Solpodol. 


Why?


Because, apart from the fact that we've had nothing but rain, drizzle, and that awful, dank-but-warm weather we in Britain, laughingly, call summer, I'm having a relapse in my health, due to having to fill in yet another questionnaire!


I've always made it a point to be as positive as I can about my various health problems, despite being bed-bound 22 hours out of 24 (I worked it out that it takes me roughly two hours in each 24 to walk, aided by my hubby and a pair of elbow crutches, the few steps to the bathroom and back again - and that's without having a shower etc. Oh, to be able to shower properly again!), but I have to confess that today was just one of those days that I couldn't find a positive thought to cling on to.


There have been a lot of stresses for me this last 6-8 weeks. The biggest one, was the ESA50 form my hubby received from ATOS which, because of his own health problems, he was unable to cope with. This meant that it fell to me to fill in the dreaded questionnaire, with all its totally irrelevant questions, none of which was truly applicable for our situation!


Our situation can't be that unique, can it? I would imagine that there are many couples out there where hubby is the official carer for his wife, but has also got his own health problems? Surely there is?


But nowhere on this form was there any question relevant to this - so hubby had to be creative in his answers, to make it clear to TPTB, that, despite his own pain and limitations, he is also the registered sole care of myself.


To do this, I also had to explain some of my own health background which, after being awarded HRC & HRM DLA, indefinitely, a few years ago, is now in an even worse state, with more problems joining the long list with each year that passes. I did not enjoy having to list everything I could remember - especially with my short-term memory being one of the things now affected!


Anyhoo, as I also have problems with my hands, due to Arthritis and Fibromyalgia, I have a laptop with a voice-recognition software programme, that I use most of the time now, as my hands just don't want to work properly. With it, I was able to dictate my hubby's replies to each question (though not the various side-remarks he made at the sheer stupidity of some of the questions. Lol)


All-in-all, it took us four weeks to answer the 17 questions, along with their sub-questions, plus all the 'what's and wherefores', that occurred even before the questioning began. These were four weeks of sheer dogged work for us both, along with the pain and stress this caused, as we had to face up to our limitations time and time again with the way the questions were phrased, and we knew that, if we didn't answer each one as fully as possible, then it would be sure to be ignored, with a negative result ensuing. 


As I could only dictate for short periods of time - normally about 10-15 minutes before my voice gave out and, as it takes hours upon hours to train my software to another voice, I hadn't got around to trying to show hubby how to use the software - that's also assuming that he could do so, or even would be able to stay still for long enough to do so.


So, four weeks, and 23 x A4, closely typed pages, on Word, meant that we had answered every question to the most finite of explanations of my hubby's health problems, and how that interacts with my own!


We had got the medical evidence needed from our Doctor, and so we attached it, and the 23 pages, to the questionnaire - and then I realised that the envelope provided just wasn't big enough to fit it all in. So hubby found one of the A4 envelopes I'd bought by mistake from eBay some months back, and we did a final check that all the I's were dotted, and the T's crossed, and put everything inside the envelope. We taped the post-paid, addressed envelope to the front then, when a friend called around to see us, we gave him the envelope, plus an extra pound for the added postage, and breathed a sigh of relief, for the first time since that brown envelope had been pushed through the letter-box!


We know that this will be just the beginning of our problems, so the sighs of relief were only half-hearted. 


With everything in the news telling us the way that the long-term ill and disabled are being treated, especially by the company in charge of deciding whether their lives are worth living or not, we don't have much hope of a fair judgement of our situation, so we can only look forward to many, many months of fighting for any negative decision to be looked at again and, if there is any justice left in the world, for any negative decision to be overturned in our favour. 


In the meantime, we now have to look forward to our money, possibly, being cut to the bare bones, until we can prove that my hubby couldn't under any reality get a job and look after me 24/7 - and that's not even counting in his own health issues!


But we're not holding our breath, as this is, apparently, a long-drawn-out process, designed by somebody who seems to enjoy humiliating those unable to defend themselves.


Whatever happened to the British sense of fair play, where a person was innocent until proven guilty?