Dumb and number

This morning I give thanks that I'm finally up and showered and dressed. I wrote that and realised it was actually one fifteen but you get my drift! I called the Jobcentre first thing of course and spoke quite quickly to someone nice, polite and sympathetic person so maybe I dialled the wrong number! They said they'd get someone to call me back within the next three hours and a different nice, polite and sympathetic person did call me back within the stated time and told me...they couldn't tell me whether I needed to do a work assesment or not and had forwarded the query to Atos who would get back to them in 48hrs so to ring again after that. Both the nice polite sympathetic people I spoke to said that as far as they were aware no one who has already submitted a DS1500 should have to do anything but wait quietly at home until they pop their clogs but they would need to check my case with Atos.

It's worth looking up Atos if you're into horror stories...They are so bad they are even banned in the US! They tend to overturn doctor's and consultant's reports in favour of a physical test to see if you can do things like pick up a pound coin and a questionnaire a bit like those ones we had in girly magazines when I was a teenager to determine your personality or if 'it's love' or whatever only this is to determine if you're capable of 'some' work. The whole point of course is to put you on a lower rate of benefit so it doesn't matter to them if you are actually going to be able to get and keep a job to support yourself, although it's a tad counterproductive for the government if you lose your home before you go into a hospice and end up on housing benefit. Anyway fingers crossed for me that as far as they are concerned I'm still dying eh?

I was in a lot of pain in the night so was able to stay awake and fret some more but this afternoon I've managed to get an appointment to see someone about the bits that aren't hurting but going numb. I'm sure it was Debbie (hello Debbie!)said once that if you're hurting you're alive and having already suffered small strokes I know that, although more comfortable, numb is actually scarier than pain. As my left side has been the weakest link for so long it's both worrying and inconvenient to have my right side competing for attention in this department. I'm seeing a doctor I haven't seen before...a fresh eye for a fresh problem. Well that's my theory anyway...

While waiting for the phone to ring this morning I turned on the TV and there was a programme about a British woman who began writing to an inmate on death row and then talking to him on the phone and then getting 'engaged' before going over to meet him. Total fruit cake obviously and particularly demonstrated this by telling her daughters that he worked on a farm and the reason her snaps of him all showed orange clothes, manacles and chains were because he was in fancy dress. Now why would you think it was OK to tell your daughters you were going to marry a man you'd never met who liked to impersonate a prisoner? I mean wouldn't that be weirder than wanting to marry a prisoner? Second gratitude of the day for hearing about that dumb idea! It's going in my next letter to Kostas ha ha!