London under lockdown (and meltdown)

Another day, another terrorist attack. I was merrily blogging on Wednesday and got home (my second home: the flat, and it's much easier to just call it "home"-because I'm a really lazy typist!) to discover that another lunatic killed three people and injured many more. This time it was at Westminster, and the sick piece of crap killed a policeman, someone who was just minding his own business. Wrong place, wrong time.

Now the fatality count has risen to four-and I wonder how much higher it's going to get...I also wonder how long it'll take the police to find a pair and arm their policemen (and women) to give them at least a fighting chance.

It's all so wrong. I have been keeping up with the news about this latest terrorist, someone who was born in this country and radicalized somewhere along the way. I had a flashback to last week's racially motivated situation on the bus, and I wonder if people who are clearly mentally ill are easy prey for radicalization. Or-is that being too simplistic?

The city was on lockdown. Westminster was filled with police, forensic people...you name it. But as quickly as the city was locked down-and the threat level was raised to severe-people were out in front of the media getting their fifteen minutes of fame, saying that they wouldn't be cowed. No-blown up, stabbed, run over, but not cowed. Such bravado after the fact. The mayor's blustering made me want to run for the sick bag.

I went to see my friend on Thursday, and I took the train from Liverpool Street Station-a place that has so many commuters at any one time, it should be a perfect target for terrorists. Were there any police, or army, was there any presence at all? Nope, nothing. Nada. Zip. We could all have been blown to pieces, and there was nobody there to deal with it. Amazing.

How do we deal with what the media call the "so-called Islamic State"- which isn't a state, and has nothing to do with Islam, only with nutters who like killing innocent people? Can we really eradicate those who have been indoctrinated to such a degree that they have lost their humanity, and seem to kill for the joy of killing? I wish I had the answer to that. I think a lot of people wish we had the answer to that.

Meanwhile, we can listen to all the bluster, and the false bravado, and the amazing amount of bullshit being spouted by the government, the media-and just about everyone else in the limelight (or desperately wanting to be in the limelight), or we can simply be vigilant, go about our daily business, and understand that by causing trauma, drama and chaos, the terrorists are winning.

I said that I have had seven years of hell, and I stand by that. I've spent so much time at different hospitals, in different clinics, being poked, prodded, irradiated, scanned, bled, and whatever, that I joked several times that I should just move in, since I spend very little time at home. Have I enjoyed it? Hell, no, it has been incredibly frustrating to be everyone's lab rat. I resented it so much that I was ready (several times) to just jack it all in, refuse all treatments, and tests, and go off and live something resembling a life, even if it meant I only had a year in which to do it all. But-something told me not to do that. Was it survival instinct? Or stupidity? Bloody-mindedness? Or the fact that I would miss season 8 of The Walking Dead?

I've just been discharged (yesterday) from the cardiology clinic. The consultant was a bit gruff, but perhaps that is just his way-or he wanted to just drill in the fact that he doesn't want to monitor me, because there is absolutely nothing wrong with my heart, even though the Royal London twits said otherwise. My heart is great. If I die prematurely, it won't be because of my heart. This, of course, is fantastic to hear, since my heart is one of my top ten organs, and I'm rather fond if it.

I sat last night and looked at my diary, and realized that from the first week in April, I have practically no hospital appointments. I have the usual antibody replacement infusions, and the odd consultants-but I'm nearly there, nearly free, for the first time in seven years. Booyah. Next week I have the tests to show that I don't have motor neurone-or anything else, for that matter-and then that's it. I have to think about how I'm going to celebrate-obviously try not to get myself blown to pieces somewhere. Or run over. Huh. The mind boggles.

I've worked so hard to get where I am now. I'm not finished yet. My next step is to start looking for vestibular support groups and see if we can, together, start a class action suit against the makers of gentamicin. But-I won't be obsessive about it. I finally have a chance to start living, and by God, I'm going to take it.