Continue reading »]]> Ok, coding nerd moment here.  I have been becoming more and more involved in my spare time with the Dojo Toolkit.  For me it keeps my mind in an enjoyable “problem solving” mode, which I enjoy, versus necessarily all the fun of being a senior IT manager affords itself, where I wouldn’t get near the sharp end of code even if I wanted to.

Because of that, I have started to investigate git and github.  I had been impressed with Subversion before, but git and github are a world of difference in my mind.  The whole ability to fork, push and pull makes it great for me to hang out on my own, but gives me the ability to lob in contributions in a way that it is easy to manage and support.  For Open Source development it is the only way to go.  Part of me didn’t want to investigate it, because all the “cool kids” were using it, which usually means I like something else that is slightly more interesting and cool.

Of course I told my partner about how interesting git was and that all the “cool kids” were using it, to which he replied “You mean the nerdy cool kids?  Think about what you are saying.”  Oh well…  Back off to nerd land, sometimes far better than reality…

Continue reading »]]> I have tried to make New Year’s resolutions before, but they usually come to naught.  So this isn’t a news years resolution post, this is just a plan.

Simon and I have been together for 12 years now and have been in a Civil Partnership for 5 years.  We have plans this year to start the rest of our lives.  While we have often tried to make progress on whatever you might call long term plans, they are always slow to come.  This year though we have lots to make concrete movements on.  If we make the right progress then 2013 will be a year of big change for both of us and 2012 will be the year that made it possible.

What happens when you have two IT professionals start planning your life?  You come up with a Microsoft Project Plan, assign and schedule your tasks and have a weekly review meeting.  It is sad but true.  On the other hand, for Simon who is always making lists and for me who avoids lists unless I am totally under stress, it has helped us create a common place for us to focus our personal lives.  Of course day to day life always interferes with these plans, but at least they don’t get lost in the ether.  We have them written down and we know where we are going as a couple.

Also, in about 30 days, I will be celebrating the one year anniversary of my weight loss surgery.  I can hardly remember the man that was 100lbs heavier.  Most people who know me can’t remember him either.  My weight has stabilised and I have been +/- 3lbs of 195 for 3 months or so now.  If you average out my weight, I might have lost 1-2 lbs over that period, so it is still a slight downward trend.  Now that I know that my weight is stabilised, getting plastic surgery becomes a serious consideration.  I really enjoy the freedom I have, in that for the most part, thinking about food has become a minor factor in my life.

Also, Simon and I get to spend some time at the Summer Olympics in London.  It will make for a once in a lifetime experience I am sure.  We get to attend 8 events, with Beach Volleyball on the Royal Mall probably being the most interesting venue I can think of.

My sister will be giving birth to Tristan, my first “proper” nephew (or niece for that matter) right around Simon’s birthday.  We also found out over Christmas that Simon’s sister is also going to be giving birth (her second child) around June near my birthday.  So lots of exciting family events coming up this year.  This only makes Simon and I think more and more about family ourselves, which we plan to put significant wheels in motion this year in order to achieve that.

Continue reading »]]> My boss and I recently went on trip to India.  We called ourselves “Two Idiots Abroad” which was apropos we felt since we worked for Sky and Sky had the TV Show An Idiot Abroad.  For any of those who have seen the series, us, in India, wasn’t far off.  An American and a Scotsman dumped in the middle of India, visiting 5 vendor locations in 4 cities in 5 days.

We arrived on Monday morning at about 1AM and we got up at 4AM on Saturday to make our flights.  As any modern large corporation these days, we outsource some of our IT operations to India.  We try to give senior management presence in India a few times a year (I guess I am considered almost senior management these days).

In 1998 I had been to Hong Kong, which turned my senses and view of the world upside down.  In 2008 I went to South Africa and saw a clear distinction between the haves and have-nots.  So being sort of shoved outside of my comfort zone and having my senses assaulted by a different world I was prepared for, though I didn’t know quite what to expect.  My boss, who had been twice before, was quite curious to see how I would react.  I don’t know what he expected, like my head would explode or something, but I don’t think it did.

Being sort of encased in an expatriate business travel world, it is hard to get a full appreciation of what things are really like, but you can try.  Like the time I spent in Hong Kong, I very much identified with that world which was very well portrayed in Lost in Translation.  Where you get treated very much like some sort of alien race to be placated unless the incur the fury of the foreign invaders.  You also find yourself generally sucked into a social environment out of necessity instead of out of choice.  Luckily my boss and I were able to keep to ourselves, but I am sure if I was alone, I might have been even more sucked into that world.

The best thing though that happened to us was that we had an offer from one of the vendors to play some golf before we left the next morning.  While my boss (as well as I) are not fond of “being entertained”, my boss, being a keen golfer and I, well let’s just say I was quite interested in the cultural experience and being able to say I played golf in India, we decided it was a good idea, knowing it would come at the end of a hard week.

That experience will go down, I think, in both our books as one of those really memorable experiences we will recount for the rest of our lives.  Once of the management team from India had grown up in Bangalore and had some school friends that he liked to golf with.  So it was a very casual atmosphere, with business totally left behind.  Not only was the golf enjoyable, but the company was the best part of it.  We broke out of that cocoon of expatriatism.  We had some food at the club house afterwards, had a few drinks and just chatted about life and how things are similar and different being separated by 6000 miles.  Truly enjoyable!

The thing that I most noticed about India was the excess of people.  I kept calling it the “Division of Labour” which I think is the potentially “scary” thing about for us in the west, if we were worried about world dominance.  Having excess cheap labour allows specialisation which we haven’t had in the west for a long long time.  While I knew it was going to happen, largely based on the excellent book The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, that if we had a driver, he would be our driver for the day.  What I didn’t realise was that he was our driver from the time we set foot in the city until we left again.  He would pick us up and drop us off at all unreasonable hours of the day, always nearby if we needed him.  My western mind kept thinking “what does he do all day”.

Almost all the conference rooms we were shuttled into had a dedicated attendant who would fetch us coffee or tea or anything at our beaconed call.  A couple of times we needed a level of support in setting up a projector or using something in the conference room and I think in every case at least two people showed up to try to resolve the issue.  I was walked to every room in every hotel I checked into and often chatted to make me feel welcome.  You simply get used to people schlepping your bags around without you even being consciously aware of it after a while.  With such a division of labour, India can simply people away any problem.

The biggest challenge is directing them in the right way.  The number of half done construction projects littered across the cities of India was staggering.  Discussion with locals often resulted in eye rolling about how the state couldn’t get agreement with the national government and all sorts of rows and debate about why the whole project was stalled.  I am sure west during the Industrial Revolution was in a similar situation, so much power and might, just not all of it focused in the right direction.  It is easy to see though why the west may very well be a dying beast to the likes of India and China now.

One of the things my boss and I wanted to do was to keep the troops back home entertained, and one of the ways we did that was that I decided to shoot some video and create a summary of our experiences, which I make available to you below for your viewing pleasure:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Continue reading »]]> Well, the other week I attended my 20 Year High School Reunion.  First was the shock and horror realising that I graduated High School over 20 years ago.  Then was the realisation that I felt a compelling need to go back.  It was going to be a strange, because my two closest friends when I had graduated, Jon and Jeremy, wouldn’t be attending as they had the 10 year reunion, but a long term friend, who I had met my freshman year, Jen, hadn’t made the 10 year reunion.  While we had gone separate paths in the last year or so of High School, she had been hugely important to me when I was 14, 15 and 16.  To top it off, as we had kept in touch with each other, I had grown in huge admiration of Jen and how, from my perspective, she had worked hard to have an all around successful life post High School.

Jen has been married for about 17 years, to a wonderful husband, has four kids, including 10-year old triplets (which was the main reason she didn’t make the 10 year reunion), is a nurse and is heavily involved local and national nursing governance and lobbying.  All the wonderful strength that I saw in young Jen in school had fully blossomed.  So I was more than excited to meet up with her.  Also, she appeared quite excited to meet up with me too.  I know externally, my life looks exciting and maybe even exotic, but I guess in a lot of ways your life is your life and you tend to think of it as it is.  At the very least, I knew that we both would have lots to talk about.

So when I arrived, I first ran into Shelly, who I knew I knew, and I had been readily following her on Facebook for a while now, but it wasn’t until I saw her, that I was teleported back 20 years in an instant, and I the person before me was as happy, friendly and engaging as the person from 20 years ago.  She was chatting with Adrain, who still to this day, gets my vote for most unchanged.  It was as if you could have teleported him, clothes, hair style and all, 20 years into the future.  Outside of a few wrinkles around the eyes, which we were now all sporting, 20 years had no effect on the boy now man.

Starting off to mingle, and I quickly ran into Jen, who again, in an instant transported me back 20 years, mentally, emotionally and almost physically.  I am afraid to say, for the rest of the night, we were attached at the hip.  There was something there, a bond long long forgotten, that started with me sitting in front of her in Mr. Cheney’s freshman Algebra Honors class, me turning around, and she quite happy to show me photos of her bunny rabbits.  Of course, I had proudly gone back to my parents and told them of the new friend I had made, and set off a concern that “bunnies” was some new code word with the kids of the days for some other body part that shouldn’t have been exposed so easily in public.

As we chatted, Jen said “well, if we get board, I brought a surprise”.  Little did I know that this surprise would end up being the greatest gift I think anyone has ever given me.  As we mingled and chatted with a few folks here and there, seeing faces from the past unleash memories in an instant.  What you start to realise is that humans don’t change much in 20 years.  Few do, but lots don’t and even if they have, you can look them in the eyes and instantly recognise that long forgotten face.  Especially for me, because in 1997, I moved to Chicago and by 1998 I was spending less than 1/2 my time in the US and then in 2006 I moved away totally.  I might have been from Phoenix, but I wasn’t of Phoenix any longer.  While some of these faces hadn’t changed, I think I had changed immutably.  I was so afraid that I would feel awkward and out of place.

Another person who I was quite excited to see was Susan.  She was probably the person I had known the longest since I was there.  I think we must have started hanging out together in 5th or 6th Grade.  She and a few other people, like Cory, realised that we weren’t quite the norm.  Outcasts and outsiders.  We wanted to prentend and imagine, not play sports or style our hair.  While we had kept in most of the same circles throughout school, she ended up becoming closer to Jon.  Seeing her again, and talking to her, reminded me even more of how people don’t change much.  She was exactly as I would have predicted.  There was no mistaking she was Susan all grown up.  Still an avid anglophile, which I had forgotten until I met her again.  I remembered well her stories of school trip to a London from 20 years ago, which I had been very jealous of she had been able to go and I hadn’t.  Little did she know (and I am afraid I didn’t take the opportunity at the reunion) that those stories had planted a seed that eventually led me there, and now a place I call my home (sometimes).

Now for Jen’s surprise.  At one point, she pulled out this shoebox and said “there is something I need to show you”.  She lifts the lid off and I see something that I hadn’t seen for at least 20 years, carefully folded notes, that had been passed between people in class.  She had saved these notes for, in some cases, 23-24 years.  She also, in her obsessive compulsive youth, organised them by sender/involved party. To my shock (and somewhat horror) I realised about 1/3 of the box contained notes from me.  Oh, the folly of youth.

After I got over my initial shock that she had saved them and mine were in such plentiful supply, we started to dig through them, reading them.  The vast majority were our sophomore year, which really had been a year into us getting to know each other.  We quickly realised that a lot of the first year wasn’t there, including no mention of Spaceman Spiff, which is a term I had totally forgotten until it came out of Jen’s mouth.  There was so much I had forgotten as I read through the notes, so many people and names and situations which came back in vivid colour as I started to read this notes from the past.  At no point would I have thought I would have read these in 20 years time.  The most amazing thing was that I knew that boy from back then, I knew him very well, I know what he felt, I know how difficult those years were, how confusing it was, how hard it was, how important it seemed at the time.  I wanted to yell back through the years and tell him that it wasn’t going to be anything like you expect, but it would be ok.

What I saw also, was Jen, 20 years ago.  A girl, now an adult sitting next to me, who was just as nervous, scared and confused as I was at that time.  A girl I never saw at that time.  Even though her words hadn’t changed in those 20 years, I saw her for who she really was at that moment, and saw deep down inside there are still parts of that girl, who was a better friend than I ever realised, still there today.  I think we both realised how much we had actually cared for each other.  At the time I thought I could make her my girlfriend, because that is what boys do with girls, when in fact, I couldn’t help myself and I saw a tender sweet boy trying very hard to protect his friend from the world that was our teenage years.  And sitting next to Jen, seeing her with her husband, proud wife, proud mother, I knew very much that boy was protecting someone very special.

I felt for Daryl that night.  He did his best to stay with us as we were transported back 20 years.  It must have been awkward, to see this women, who he had married and known for 17 years, have a deep and fundamental relationship with this other man.  I suspect the saving grace was that I was an avowed homosexual, but still, I suspect it was hard.  While they have shared a wonderful life and family, Jen and I did share a couple of years that were more fundamental to who were are today that he couldn’t be apart of.

The boy of 20 years ago, that is still inside of me today, totally enjoyed being let out for a night, to see his friends and is more than thrilled to see that the girl of long ago, who he tried his hardest to protect and defend, has grown into a wonderful women who this man very much respects.  Jen, best wishes for you and your family.  Life is seldom handed to you, and Jen, you have earned every part of it you enjoy.

Jen and Me

Continue reading »]]> While this might be a controversial topic for some, a gay couple considering surrogacy, for Simon and myself it has become a realistic proposition.  This weekend we attended the Alternative Families Show 2011 in London.  It was quite informative and insightful.  It also was great to find out we were not alone and that there is a thriving industry, both in the UK, US and India providing focused family services to the gay and lesbian community.

I will admit, my emotions and thoughts about having a family have swayed over the years, from thinking that it would never be possible to thinking that adoption might be viable to now honestly considering surrogacy as the way to accomplish it.  We are lucky to be comfortable financially.  A child, via surrogacy, will cost you about $120,000 USD (~£76,000) in the US and about $40,000 (~£25,000) USD in India.  While both of those are staggering amounts of money, they are not beyond the realm of possibility for us.  The strange thing is that these large amounts follow Britain’s regressive rules against commercial surrogacy.

Both Simon and I have come to the realisation that a family is a desire that is immutable in both of us.  Having been a couple for almost 12 years and civil partners for almost 5, we have been unable to shake that desire.  The decision became even more difficult as we furthered ourselves from the other options of adoption, fostering and co-parenting.  Knowing that there was a special responsibility upon us imposed by society, we worried about making a decision that would proactively bring children into this world.  For me, the watershed moment though was the realisation that through being able to leverage our resources, we can specifically give advantages to these new children, even before they are born.  We are in a lucky situations of being able to make sure our family has as much advantages to offset and residual societal disadvantages that we may have to endure.

As I have discovered through the years, the people I know, the people who know me, treat me first as “Kit” and don’t ever reduce me down to “gay man” or “American”.  I suspect the people that matter to myself and Simon will be supportive, just as they have been supportive of our relationship, even though they may not understand or it may make them feel uncomfortable.

Engineering a family sounds a little impersonal, but it is a great thing to be able to proactively make choices about your family.  Society will have to face this Gattaca one day, but for right now, being in such a minority, I feel no moral qualms.  I also have gotten far more comfortable with myself and my life over the years to know that the decision we are considering is acceptable too.  I am not ignorant enough to know that everyone will be comfortable or even approve.

For now, it was a lot of information.  While we have a good understanding of where we are at, we are not totally locked into where or when we will do it, other than we know we will be doing it.  Having lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, agents, donors, immigration specialists and the surrogate is a complicated process, it is also lengthy at 18+ months.  Even then there is no guarantee, we could easily be out a good portion of the money and not end up with a family.  There are certainly situations where I am envious that one drunken night is usually all it takes for most people.

Continue reading »]]> I think the recent announcement that the ICB recommends that the banks “firewall” themselves from their investment arms being received by general praise a bit shocking.  Everyone running around patting themselves on the back for a recommendation that would give the banks until 2019 to semi-reorganise themselves is shocking.  For an issue that came to a head in 2007, to say after considered response that we might have a partial solution, maybe, by 2019 and to say that is at all acceptable is shocking.

While Marx may not have been right about communism, he was far more right about what was wrong with capitalism.  We have a group of people that are willing to take big risks on financial instruments and argue that if they don’t pay themselves above market rate bonuses then someone else will trying to tell us that they need a level of regulation, but only if it takes forever to implement and something we aren’t entirely sure will work.  There is this desire by the UK government to not go anywhere boldly, quickly, for fear of finding themselves alone.  But with sovereign governments being talked about being “safely brought into bankruptcy” as the German’s are now saying about Greece, now is the time for swift and decisive action, not half-hearted attempts.

Bailing out Northern Rock was absolutely the right thing to do at the time, and now being hard and decisive on the banking industry is the right thing to do.  How can we be so decisive about scrapping the 50p rate, scrapping public sector pensions and even building high-speed rail links, but screw around with our banking system?  Bankers whinge about the impact of raising capitalisation rates, but again, they would, it is in their best interests to keep the capitalisation rates low.  Like anyone really wants to pay their taxes.  I can come up with all sorts of reasons why it is unfair of me to pay my full tax burden and how hard it is, doesn’t change the fact that I need to pay my taxes, but if you ask me, I will kindly say no.  The ICB is the same thing, while independent, are bankers.  As we say in the States, how many turkeys would vote for Thanksgiving?

If you need an example of what separation between retail and investment banking does, with strong capitalisation requirements, look at Canada.  Essentially unscathed in the global downturn, Canada readily points to its strong regulation that separates the two types of banking.  They have that now, not in 2019, as a suggestion.

Continue reading »]]> Ten years on and I still remember that day very well.  I was working in Dublin, at a client site, looking down onto College Green.  It happened that there were two other American’s in the office with me, my boss and a peer of mine.  It was just another day.  At some point, my peer got a phone call from her Mother in the states and said something crazy about a plane hitting the twin towers in New York.  We all sat there rather shocked.

My initial instinct was to jump onto CNN.com and I couldn’t pull it up.  Trying a few other news sites was similar.  So I fell back to something that I knew would also be reliable, slashdot.org and lo and behold, things were going on (and the nerds of the world had found ways to directly access CNN, not through their load balancers, in order to get some information).

I will admit after that, things become a bit blurry, other than getting ahold of my sister, who was staying in my house in Chicago and hearing some of the news “real time”, which would be best described as utter chaos and panic.  At some point, we decided it best we went home.  Everyone was horrified and the constant banter, knowing we were Americans, of people asking us if our families were all right, etc, was getting a bit overwhelming.  I don’t really remember clearly exactly how I got home, but I remember sitting their, in the lounge watching the news.  My partner’s mum and step-dad were visiting us that week and I remember them asking if everything was ok.  I think I was more deeply in shock than I think I was willing to admit and so I went up stairs and to bed way too early.

One of the things I think we collectively forgot was the anthrax attack that ensued afterwards.  Maybe because we never found anyone to blame, like the plane attacks, or maybe because we all suspect and know it was a lone individual American, both of which don’t sit comfortably.  There was lots of information and dis-information in the hours and days after the attacks.  It was good news to hear that all my co-workers had been accounted for.  We had some clients in the world trade center and some of our people were working there, so it wasn’t a forgone conclusion.  Also, lots of my co-workers, who most of us flew every week, we stranded in all sorts of interesting places and all have their own stories about that time, but in the end, we were all safe.

The uncertainty and confusion that ensued after that was one of the things I remember.  The good news was that people were behaving well, but it wasn’t easy.  No one knew what to do.  My partner and I had a trip back to Chicago booked on the 15th, and then I was going to go on to Phoenix to attend my 10 year High School reunion a week later.  The problem was we didn’t know when the international travel ban would be lifted and we guessed it would be better to wait and hope for the best.  Well the day of the 15th arrived and the ban wasn’t lifted until later in the day US time, so we had to rebook and the next time they could get us out was a week later.

We had planned for going away for a few weeks, so we didn’t have any food in the house.  To complicate things, the Republic of Ireland had declared a national day of mourning on that Friday, out of respect.  Everything would be closed.  I felt compelled to visit the US Embassy and pay my respects, so I took that opportunity.  I have never to this day seen something that moved me as much as the mass mourning that was occurring, the huge pile of memorial flowers and gifts that had been laid at the door, the makeshift tent that housed a guest book for people to sign and the length of queue of people paying their respects.

After that, I went to go to try to find us some food.  We both were hungry, but the streets were literally abandoned.  More abandoned than I had ever seen Dublin, including the World Cup.  Nothing appeared to be open, except I found a Post Office/Mini Mart that had only planned to be open until 12:00 so that people could take out their pension money, but at 1PM they knew they wouldn’t be able to close because there was a queue out onto the street of people needing food and sundries.  I was able to get two sandwiches and head back to the house.

We needed to go find some dinner too, and so the both of us ventured out and we found a petrol station that was open.  There was a huge queue of cars trying to get petrol and the attached mini-mart’s shelves were essentially bare and the poor kid was spending all his time hauling stock out of the back and just dumping it and essentially as soon as it was available, people would snap it up and pay for it.  I think we walked away with a couple bottles of sport drink and a packet or two of odd flavoured crisps.  As we walked around Dublin, about 8PM, a few restaurants had decided to open and people started to wander the streets, like zombies as night fell.  It was the strangest most bizarre experience I have had in a city.

A week later, we finally flew out to Chicago and I had re-arranged my trip to Phoenix by a day, so I was essentially flying in on a Friday to Chicago and then on Saturday flying to Phoenix for the reunion.  Once we had set down in the US, I realised they had collectively gone mad.  Instead of the experience I had in Dublin through the tragedy, which was somber, sad and respectful, I landed into a land of American flags, patriotism and anger.  I just didn’t get it.  I don’t know if I had been in the States when it occurred if I would have gotten caught up in the madness, but this was probably the start of my realisation that while I will always be proud of my birthright, my upbringing and my country that I am now not like the vast majority of Americans and will never be.  It isn’t a good or bad thing, but your life influences your viewpoint and our markedly different collective experiences has put us on divergent paths that I don’t think will ever come together again.

Ten years on, I had to live through the scare of Simon living and working in London on the 7/7 bombings, seeing firsthand the damage at Glasgow airport and lost a cousin who was serving in the war in Iraq.  Real, tangible events that have affected me in the post-9/11 world.  That is on top of the countless times removing my shoes, being patted down, removing my belt, laptop and liquids while going through an airport.  It is a different world.

Continue reading »]]> A while ago, I wrote about my Gastric Sleeve surgery, and figured it was about time to provide an update.  So 7 months on, and where am I at?

Weight Loss from Feb 2011 to Sep 2011

While I have had a few gaps in my recording of my weight, you can see as I am approach my target of 195 lbs (88.5 kg/13st 13lbs), there has been a general flattening of the weight loss, which hopefully will allow me to stay right around the 195 lbs mark for the rest of my life.  For me mentally it is a bit strange, because ever since I “noticed” my weight as a teenager/pre-pubescent, I was trying to loose weight, now I will move into a “maintain weight” mode.  That is almost 30 years of trying to lose weight done, mission accomplished.

Some people will wonder “what about the skin?”  Well, that is a lot less challenging than I thought it would be.  There are certainly some things I am not happy with, but with my clothes on, you can’t really tell.  When I see pictures of myself though, I see a slightly oddly shaped part where my belly is hiding.  It does move you to think about cosmetic surgery, because you figure you have come this far, might as well get as close to “normal” as current medical options allow.

There is still mental disconnect between how your big you perceive your body and actually how big it really is and sometimes you shock yourself.  Lots of times I look at my clothes and think to myself “these can’t be mine, because they are way too small”.  Also, I have found out with shopping, I have to try everything on, because I can’t judge my size anymore.  Also, I used to drown myself in my clothes, anything form fitting or tight was absolutely a no-go area.  Trying on a few shirts that are tight, but looking in the mirror and seeing “wait, I don’t look like some sort of stuffed sausage.”

My diet has stabilised though.  I have quite regular food now, mostly nuts for protein though and fish (especially sushi) and then yogurt and cheese.  While it might not be ideal, I have plenty of energy and as long as I keep to taking a multi-vitamin, a recent blood test indicates that everything is healthy.  For anyone in the middle of the process though, who is worried they might be eating the wrong things, best thing to do is stop worrying.  Focus on protein and let everything else take its natural course.  I stopped eating anything that said low-calorie or low-fat, including yogurt.  I figured I eat so little now that anything that was designed to fill me up, but not give me nourishment, is simply a waste.  My doctor has told me that recent studies have shown people with weight loss surgery sometimes stick to the “low-fat” food and then start having problems with not enough fat in their diets.

I recently went on holiday and knew that I would be doing a lot more activity than my typical sedentary work-life allowed and so I didn’t eat what I felt like eating (which is pretty much what I do now) I ate until I was stuffed, 3 times a day.  Now me eating with a sleeve until I am stuffed is still only like 1/2 a normal 3-course meal, but I really tried hard.  I came back from the holiday, not sure if I had put on weight or loss and lo and behold, I was exactly the same weight I was 2 weeks prior, and then over the next week, returning to my normal eating habits, I shed 6 lbs in 4 days.  I suspect it was the increased metabolism coupled back to my small amount of calories.

The only “challenge” long-term is the BM situation.  While it continues to get better and more regular, it isn’t the most consistent thing in the world and sometimes I struggle.  It isn’t the worst thing in the world, and I suspect if it were a real problem for me, I would try to do more about it.  I am almost back to daily activity, so to speak, which is a good sign.

Continue reading »]]> As I posted before, I had an accident when I was away in Canada on holiday.  As an American living in the UK, I had always been stigmatised since I was young that “socialised medicine” was a bad thing, so it was with a bit of trepidation that upon my return to the UK I was going to have to jump into it with both feet.

A lot of the media in the UK spend time picking at the NHS, debating ad nauseum things like the “post code lottery”, the super bug, management overhead and waste and pretty much anything.  I think the vast majority of it comes from debating any large government institution.  It will always have the good and the bad.  I did note, that during the US debate on healthcare reform, the Republicans had found one Conservative politician who they propped up to rubbish the NHS system and scare the general American populace, but everyone quickly backed away from him and made statements like “while we want to improve it we wouldn’t give it up for anything.”  That generally happens with my conversations with others in the UK, while they will have a whinge, there is no way they would give it up.  I thought maybe this was just out of ignorance, not knowing how great a “free capital market” is, which had been drummed into me in my years in the US.

Well, I have to admit, I think I had it wrong.  My experience, at almost every turn, outstripped my private health care in the US at every turn.  I will admit it does seem a bit bureaucratic and process driven and the number of times I heard “I will fax them” which made me giggle, because the whole of the NHS seems to work off late 80′s technology at times.

The first hurdle was registering with a GP (General Practitioner) which is the gatekeeper to all health services.  While I had been in the UK for 5 years, I had never needed a GP.  So I simply didn’t exist in the eyes of the NHS.  GPs are geographically bound, and much like in the states with HMOs, my local GP was actually a large practice of GPs that generally shared the workload.  While building a relationship with a particular GP is great, I was actually quite happy to get a big practice.  So I called them up when I landed back in the UK to try to get an appointment.  This I found out was going to be my first and last challenge.  They first told me they could see me on Wednesday at the earliest but when they found out I wasn’t registered, I was quickly told I had to come in and register first before getting an appointment.

I figured I would just show up at the practice on Monday and argue my case, because my injuries were rather obvious and I thought, worst case I could just sit in the office until they saw me.  I showed up at 8AM, explained my situation and while they got caught up in their process briefly, I essentially walked away with an appointment at 9AM to see a doctor.  That was the end of my “challenges”.  I filled out some paperwork, brought it back at 9 and at 9:07AM I found myself sitting across from my GP.  No nurse bringing me into a room and then waiting another 20 minutes to see the doctor for 5 minute . s, I spent a good 35-40 minutes talking to the doctor, in her office.  We went through my whole medical history and she suggested some other things that she would like to help me with on top of my immediate need.

I was all prepared to invoke “private medical” insurance, which in the UK means that your GP, instead of referring you to an NHS specialist, will refer you to a private doctor, where waiting times are known to be significantly less.  I am lucky that my employer allows for that option.  So I was thinking that I would have to wait weeks to see someone in the NHS, but the opinion that I have come to is that it is really a needs basis.  If it is urgent you see someone, you see someone, if it won’t get any worse (and likely cost more to fix, let’s be practical) then you see someone right away.  Also, I think I was a bit luckier than most in that at St. John’s Hospital in Livingston is the UK’s specialist team in facial surgery (the maxillo facial team).  So when I told the GP I had private, she said “well, let me see if I can get you in to Max Fac folks and if you aren’t happy we can pursue the private”.

She called me back later on Monday and said “I have you in at 9AM on Wednesday, does that work?” and I was elated and falling deeper into the rabbit hole of the NHS.  I showed up at St. John’s hospital, and I will admit, it is vast and confusing and trying to find the right department was a bit daunting, but what hospital isn’t?  One thing I do notice is in a very British way, they know how to wait.  Someone might get the impression that the NHS isn’t much more than a rabbit warren of waiting areas, all brightly lit, with lots of signs about what to do and not do and government posters about their performance targets.

About 09:20 I got called into a consulting room by a doctor.  Again, a 20 minute wait post appointment would be of little of surprise, but I got an apology from the doctor (again, a doctor, not a nurse).  He was one of the junior doctors in the department and went over my injury and got my medical background (because I wasn’t quite yet “in the system” fully) and then looked at the scans I brought back from Canada.  After that he went to go talk to his consulting doctor, and then the two of them came back in, talked to me a bit more and explained quite a lot about my injury.  Two doctors, in the room, at the same time!!!!  I spent about 45 minutes in total talking to doctors.  They then arranged an appointment on Thursday to have my eyes checked just to make sure 100% that there was no problems with my vision and arranged to meet me the following Wednesday to hopefully wrap everything up, telling me it was unlikely that I would require surgery, but they wanted to do some additional analysis of my scans.

So, Thursday, another trip to another totally different part of the hospital, another set of waiting areas and again a total apology for calling me 10 minutes late for my appointment.  This time I met a nurse, who ran me through the exams and tests, as kind and pleasant as you could ever expect.  Also good news in that my eyesight is fine.

So I total, I have seen 3 doctors, 1 nurse and in a matter of 4 days had a full assessment of my injury.  I filled out two sheets of paper at the very start, but since then, I haven’t had to fill out one sheet of paper at all.  Everything else has been taken care of.  I am also lucky in that in Scotland, prescriptions are also free of charges.

So all in all, my experience with socialised medicine turned out exceeding my expectations and in a lot of ways exceeded what I had come to expect from especially HMOs in the US.  The best thing is the comfort in knowing, no matter what, that you will be taken care of.  That peace of mind is very very comforting, especially when you do something daft, like fall off a bike.

Continue reading »]]> Well, I held off telling anyone (except my boss at work), but I guess now is a good as time as any.  I had a pretty serious bike accident when I was in Mont Tremblant on holiday.  I came around a corner, came off the paved path and I think I tried to come back on, but that is the last thing I remember for a little bit.  Next thing I know I am sitting on the side of the path, with my nose bleeding profusely, feeling quite hurt and not sure who I was nor who Simon was.

At first it didn’t seem like it was such a big deal, we were about 40 minute walk away from where we started and as my head started to clear, it just made sense to head back to the bike shop.  I could walk and talk and Simon suggested that maybe he could get help by the tennis club that was a bit closer, but I figured we would just press on.  As we walked to the bike shop, I suspect I started to scare people and the bike shop folks made me come in and sit down and called the resorts medics.  My left eye had started to swell up at that point and I realised I must have had a pretty good knock in the head.  Good thing I was wearing a helmet was all I could think about.  Next thing I know, medics show up and I am in a neck brace and being asked if I want to go to the hospital, reminding me, being a foreigner, it is a cash and carry business with Canadian hospitals.  Realising that brain trauma isn’t something you should mess with, I agreed to go to the hospital.

The medics clean my wounds while I wait for the ambulance and next thing I know is I am put on to a stretcher, braced up and put into the back of an ambulance.  The ambulance medic was telling me she thought I might have a fracture to the orbit of the eye, because now my left eye had essentially swelled shut.  They were slightly amazed, based on how bad I looked that a) I had made it 40 minutes back to the bike shop and b) hand’t blacked out for a longer period of time (Simon said the gap in my memory was maybe 1-2 minutes).

We got to the hospital (about 25 minutes from Mont Tremblant) and Simon had to go off and pay a retainer of $1,500 CDN against whatever charges I would incur while I sat there and stared at the ceiling.  Finally the doctor saw me and she said that I needed to go for a CT Scan in order to see what damage had been done, which would be another charge.  There was some confusion and it took them about 4 hours to figure out that Simon had to go pay for that first before they would scan me.  Finally after about 5 hours we got the results (Simon while trying to be supportive was obviously getting frustrated with the whole thing) and the results were that I had a broken nose and I also had a fracture of the lower orbit of my eye.  Upon consultation with a specialist, the doctor determined that it was going to be ok for me to go back to the UK and have it looked at there, but I needed to do it as a matter of urgency.  Also I needed to ensure there was no detachment of the retina or other damage to my eye.

So I waddled out of the ER, with my left eye swollen shut like a big purple balloon, scraped up left side of my face, with half my body covered in bandages and in an area where few people speak English well enough to get by, and I am trying to have to use my French to find out things because Simon doesn’t speak a word of it.  We realise the only way back to the resort is a $80 taxi ride and the cash machine in the hospital is refusing to take my card.  So I am able to entice the taxi driver to stop by a cash point before taking us on to Mt. Tremblant.  It is rather obvious to everyone who looks at me though I am not someone to be reckoned with.

A week on and most of the scrapes and scratches have healed, I still have to wear sunglasses, because my left eye looks a right mess, worst black eye I have ever seen and there is still blood in 1/2 my eyeball, which makes me look rather evil and menacing.  People must think I had way too much to drink or that I think I am some sort of rock star.  I guess at the end of the day I am lucky, didn’t have to jump on the next plane back and was able to do most of the things I wanted to do.  Just next time, I won’t ride a bike and I will make Simon refresh his driving ability so that I didn’t have to be the one to both explain everything to everybody, but also try and drive us around.