YOU,M.E & FLOODY AWFUL (From Watford Observer)

YOU,M.E & FLOODY AWFUL

8:52am Friday 3rd July 2009

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By Stacy Hart »

HAVE AN EMERGENCY? .....WHO YA GONNA CALL? Ghostbusters? Pizza Hut? Brain surgeon? In fact just open up the yellow pages, close ya eyes and...... Inverted belly button specialists?... Yep, that’ll do.

What am I talking about?......... The flood last Saturday and the response I got from Watford Community trust & Watford Council who were about as much use as McDonalds serving up lunch at a vegetarian convention.

Carers rarely get a chance to socialize, so on Saturday it was nice someone was taking my mum for dinner at the Essex pub, gave her a break from me and my M.E. www.afme.org.uk Twenty minutes after leaving, the heavens opened, thunder and lightening, hail stones and I have to say the ferocity of it was quite scary. I then noticed the drain in the back garden was blocked, we’re on a bit of a slope, so the water was gushing out and just like a tide coming back to rise up against the house. I waited until it had got over ankle deep before ringing the out of office emergency Watford community trust number. My first concerns were raised when she asked quite casually if the weather was bad????

.....okay, so this woman’s obviously locked in a vault somewhere underground huh?

Once I did my best weather forecast impression, hand gestures included, and told her my drains were blocked and the lounge was in danger of flooding, her reply was “ oooh I don’t think they’ll come out if the weathers bad”.

.......huh? Run that past me again. Can you imagine if you phoned 999 for the police while being attacked and the operator said “ooh I don’t think they’ll come out if they’re gonna get hurt”

She then suggested I get a sandbag......now I don’t know about you, but there’s not much call for sandbags in this neck of the woods, so after enquiring where I was meant to acquire a sandbag at 7.00pm on a Saturday evening she told me to call Watford Council. So I got hold of the Emergency number and spoke to a lady I’ve had the pleasure...NOT, of talking to before, she’s about as much use and as much fun as a BT Indian call centre...in fact I believe the BT Indian call centre could well be moonlighting as the Watford council emergency out of office number.

She also asked me if the weather was bad..... “Er...yep”. She then said she was only authorised to give out some numbers and she didn’t have one for sandbags, but she’d give me the Highways Agency number. “Whoa, the Highways agency isn’t gonna come out for this are they?” I questioned, rather puzzled. “No, she replied, but I haven’t got any other number to give you, and I think you’ll find it’s the Watford community trusts responsibility anyway, not ours”.

After putting me on hold to speak to the supervisor she suggested the best thing to do was call back in normal office hours Monday-Friday between 9am -5.30pm. “Okay, it’s Saturday now, so we’ll just sit here and flood til then huh? I asked.

Proving my theory that if you want something done you’re probably better off doing it yourself, I braved the elements with pliers in hand to wrench off the very tight drain cover while muttering the lords prayer under my breath in the hope it would stop me being struck by lightening and getting toasted, or being knocked unconscious by a golf ball size hail stone.

I didn’t know what was amongst the sludge but there was no time to be squeamish, so in went both hands until the drain was finally cleared. Seeing as the drive-way was also flooded and I was soaking wet and mucky anyway, and had gone passed giving a damn, I thought I might as well clear the side drain too.

Standing at the sink up to my elbows in fairy liquid in an attempt to kill anything from the drain that might’ve decided to make my skin home, and guess who pulls up? Watford Community Housing Trust. I have to say he was a very nice man and he said the reason the lady from the first emergency number didn’t really have a clue is because the Watford out of hours service is based in Plymouth.......huh????. He assured me they do come out, even in bad weather and he’d already done a couple before mine. After checking the drains he thanked me very much for doing a wonderful job and saving him the effort, and with that we both started laughing.

Oh did I have payback Sunday( and No, that’s not a question it’s a statement) where I’d crouched to prise the drain covers off, my legs were in the most horrendous pain, but that’s M.E for ya and we always forget the consequences don’t we? I was bedbound for the whole day but determined not to take pain killers, I’m playing with different types of meditation at the moment and I have to say that it seems to be helping. The other struggle on the M.E front has been this heat, it’s also rather confusing because I don’t know if I’m burning up because of the sun, the M.E or just having a mid-life hot flush.

Musically www.myspace.com/mamachill. I have to thank everyone that’s voted in the Watford observer music chart, because of you my track “Lionhart” is at no.2. I’ve decided to leave it as a free download as way of thanx. It’s weird that because of M.E everyone basically had me written off, and for many years I even thought they could be right, but I’ve fought back to try and prove to everyone, including myself that there is still a life with M.E, however limited. You might have to make quite a few adjustments but at the end of the day a dreams only ever over if you stop trying, you only fail if you stop trying.....so I guess I’m gonna keep on trying :) Well that’s me done, have the best weekend you can, stay blessed, see ya next Friday, back before Elvis :) xxx

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