This one's personal -- political too in bits, but mostly personal. Probably horribly self-indulgent, in fact. It's not about world politics, empires, the evils of patriotism or why freedom of movement matters, which seem to be the things I find myself grawing at endlessly like a dog with a very ancient bone. If that's what you're after, I'm afraid this ain't the diary for you today.
I got a strange Christmas present this year. I'm not quite sure what it is yet. It arrived a couple of days before Christmas, when I noticed that something was wrong with how I was seeing the world. 'Well,' I thought, 'between work and blogging, I've been living in front of a computer the last month or so, so it's no wonder if my eyes are a bit tired. It'll get better.'
But it didn't. And I noticed after a bit that actually one eye was just fine, and the other wasn't. And so on Boxing Day I was at A&E being hugely impressed by the NHS and thanking my lucky stars that I wasn't in the U.S. any more, where even though I would have probably had health care it wouldn't have been as good and I probably still wouldn't have been able to afford the co-pay.
They figured out what was wrong -- turns out it's optical neuritis. Mostly it gets better by itself and indeed in the last couple of days I have noticed some improvement. It doesn't hurt as much and I seem to be seeing a little bit better out of it than I was. Let's hope it keeps on keeping on.
End of story, but not quite. Because the disconcerting bit is that optical neuritis can be a precursor to MS. Not all of the time, but sometimes. So I spent a chunk of New Year's Eve in the hospital getting Xrayed, blood-tested, and generally having my misbehaving eye peered at. And sometime soon I get to have an MRI and god knows what else, while they try to figure out what caused it and what the implications for the future might be.
So, three cheers for the NHS, because they've been consistently great so far. They've answered questions, double-checked things for me, not tied me up in a sea of bureaucracy, and just generally done their best to make a fairly unnerving experience less so at what is one of their busiest times of the year.
Total bill £0 -- and if I have to catch a taxi to the hospital, I may even be able to get reimbursement for it . . .
Universal health care is a fine thing.