GrumpyDaddy

I've not enjoyed the latter half of 2011 thanks to a lingering illness. What's wrong with me? My guess is something as simple as kidney stones, but it has been a tough few months that has seen me at times feeling a-okay and other times in pain and having to take to my bed.

The months have been frustrating and scary too thanks to the inibility of various general practicioners to prescribe a coherent treatment regime. I've seen four different GPs over the last few months and this has not been entirely satisfactory - from one locum who felt she'd tell me it could be cancer (but then did nothing at all to help in this regard) to another who told me my symptoms couldn't be kidney stones (the whole internet and a consultant urologist say he's wrong).

The truth is I'm fed up with the whole thing. Fed up with being unwell for months on end and fed up of dealing wih an organisation - the NHS - I don't have great faith in. And as we'll come to later - I'm coming to some embarrasing conclusions about my general health and my own culpability.

Sounds too dry? Don't feel like reading on? Go on, there's a good bit about a doctor sticking his finger up my bum. Well good for you reader, less good for me and my bum and for that matter dignity.