Tits Ahoy: Titless in London

I was in full battle dress the last time I wrote-I fight for my principles. But I had to delay the battle (which I'll tell you about later) to go into the hospital last Friday (the 25th) to have the implants removed-after a six month wait.

Talk about pain; one implant was ruptured. So my body clearly doesn't like those things, and now I'm flat as a pancake again. But I would rather be flat and go through a week and a bit of agonizing pain (post-op) than all the pain I had before. It turns out-according to the surgeon-that a high percentage of women have the implants removed because the body rejects them. Thanks for telling me now-a bit late, don't you think? And, there is a shelf life for implants. Even when they're successful, they need replacing every 7-10 years. Some lucky women are okay with them for longer than that, but there are so many side effects that now I encourage people to think very carefully about whether or not it is worth the aggravation.

I was discharged on Wednesday afternoon, and have I ever been suffering since then! The after effects of pain killers, intravenous antibiotics, and hospital food that I'm sure started out as toxic waste-all these things took their toll. So, since I got back I have been pretty inert-and what balance I have paid the price. If I don't walk daily, I start to revert to staggering. Interesting.

Yesterday I forced myself to eat, and I managed to keep a bit down, but that was a little difficult. I also walked for about 45 minutes; I'm someone who never does things by halves, so of course I overdid it, and got back and was knackered. But something about movement, action and refusing to quit has made things begin to improve. That, plus it's been a week since surgery, mean that I'm in less pain. But I'm also black from waist to shoulder, so that's really unpleasant. For the first five or six days I couldn't raise my arms. That was a little disconcerting, I can tell you. There's so much really bad bruising that I said to the surgeon that I must have offended someone and they waited until I was unconscious to kick me in the chest. I made him laugh, but I did wonder...

But now that I'm slowly on the mend from that ordeal, I have to tell you about this battle-it is so incredible that I tell friends and family and they look at me, astonished, as if to say: can that be real? It can. It is.

I might have mentioned that my GP had been giving me needles and syringes every month and a half or so, needed for my nebulizer. Now, I've had this nebulizer for more than seven years, and they began trialling it then as an alternative to the big clunking one that you have to clear the room of people, pets, goldfish, before you can actually use it, because a lot of the antibiotic goes straight into the room. So you have to also open the window and shut the door. With this new one, you don't need to do that. It is the size of a pack of cards, very compact, and a special formulation of the antibiotic is used,which must be drawn up (hence the needles and syringes), then injected into the vial of antibiotic, mixed well, and placed into the nebulizer. The entire process takes less than five minutes-plus the two or three minutes it takes to rinse the bits of the machine. And then Bob's your uncle. Done and dusted (no, I still don't know who Bob is and why he's your uncle. But nobody else does, either). The Ineb is the Rolls Royce of nebulizers-more than 90 percent of antibiotic is inhaled-less than half is inhaled using the traditional nebulizer. So why on earth would I go back to using the old one?

In July, Margaret (my GP) decided that the needles and syringes are "coming out of the partners' pockets"-and she was going to stop giving them to me, which she had been doing for many years out of the "kindness of her heart". That was her reasoning: it's coming out of the partners' pockets. When the NHS gave all the funding directly to the GPs and told them to manage the funds themselves (funds that are public funds), it was inevitable that some unscrupulous doctors would get greedy; lining their own pockets and stuffing their own bank balances were more important than their patients' health and wellbeing. Again, a matter of principle for me.

There are four partners and eleven paid doctors-and the practice is paid a certain amount per patient (I don't know how much it is now, but six years ago it was £150 per patient. You do the math). The practice is coining it in-but they can't afford £10 or £12 every month and a half? Who are they kidding?

To add insult to injury, Margaret didn't have the guts to come out and tell me herself. She had a very nasty receptionist come out and slam two part boxes on the counter and tell me that these are the last needles and syringes that I'm going to get. I asked why; she snapped that Margaret said that these objects-necessary equipment to nebulize, which is necessary for my survival-are coming out of the partners' pockets. When I asked what I was supposed to do, she snapped again: go and buy them yourself. Then she walked away. I asked before she left to speak to Margaret, and she told me that Margaret was "busy".

So that was the beginning of a fight. I checked with the pharmacy, and was told that both boxes would cost me £25 per month-and the person who prescribes the antibiotic is obliged to provide the equipment to use that antibiotic. So into action I went-in a big way.

I got onto the Great God Google, and I found a patients' helpline. I rang them and got the name of a patients' advocacy group called Healthwatch. I contacted the Haringey CCG-clinical commissioning group-who allegedly oversee the medical practices in the borough. I rang a lawyer and asked if it was legal for her to do this. I was told that if these objects are not in the formulary, they can't be prescribed, but what she did - and the way she did it- was unethical, unprofessional, and immoral. The lawyer said that the whole thing was disgusting.

I didn't stop there. I called NHS England, and was told that, since I complained to the practice (even though it was by phone and not in writing), they couldn't help me, because new legislation dictated that if a patient complains to a doctor that patient can't make a complaint to the NHS. What a load of bollocks.

I then went to the Ombudsman (you can tell I was very busy. That's what happens when you piss me off). And they were sympathetic, thought her behavior and attitude were a total disgrace-but said that if I could get her to put in writing (an email would do nicely) that the reason she decided to stop the provision of the equipment I need to use the antibiotics that she prescribed was that it was "coming out of the partners' pockets", they could take action on my behalf. So I'm trying to get her to do that; she promised that she would, and I will keep on at her until she keeps her promise.

This is a matter of disgraceful, disgusting, unprofessional and downright petty behavior on the part of a GP who should know better. She even went to my team at the hospital, would you believe? And they told me last week that they would provide the needles and syringes, even though it isn't their obligation to do so. They said that I'm their patient, and my safety, health and well-being are their priority. They would rather give me the equipment I need than to see me go without. And their comment about Margaret is that she is a disgrace. There goes her reputation-as if she cares. She'd rather sit in her office and count her money.

Am I stopping there? Hell, no. I'm getting that letter if I have to go there and sit and wait for it. Then I'm going to the Ombudsman, and we'll see a few sparks fly, because I'm also going to my local MP. Margaret will love a letter with a Parliament letterhead. Then I'm going to the media. And then, when I've made a huge deal and stirred the shit as much as I can, I'm changing doctors.

It isn't about a relatively small sum of money. It's about the lack of ethics and integrity, it's about the cowardly and unpleasant way it was done. It's a matter of principle, and as I said, I fight for a principle-even if I fight for other people, it's the principle.

And that's what happens when you really, really piss me off.