You may remember a while ago I was raising money on here to pay for shockwave therapy to help improve my mobility issues caused by my stroke because the NHS wouldn’t pay for it. I got enough money to pay for a course of shockwave therapy and it really helped. For months, I was mobile. But the issue has flared back up again and now I’m basically housebound again. I’m not asking for donations for this again though, I can’t even accept money any more due to the DWP bank checks coming up. This is just a rant as I have no-one else to talk to.

I have been let down by the NHS at every turn. When I first became ill, they refused to do any tests, saying I was “too young for it to be anything serious.” When I got sicker they said I was just depressed and gave me antidepressants, which did nothing. For nearly 4 years I was left languishing like this. I even made a suicide attempt during this time due to the hopelessness from the lack of help I was receiving and ended up in intensive care for 5 days before being discharged without further help.

The only reason my cancer eventually got diagnosed is because my employer at the time (I had to cut my working hours down due to my illness but managed to stay in employment as much as possible, just to scrape a living) paid for me to go to the local private hospital for tests. A private hospital diagnosed my cancer. I had a thyroidectomy and was then sent back to the NHS for the rest of the treatment.

The told me I was “lucky” to have thyroid cancer. That it’s “the best cancer” you can have as it’s treatable, and that while I’d have to take medication for life, I’d “never know that there had been anything wrong” with me. That was an absolute lie. The treatment wrecked my health even worse, including causing me to have a stroke (which caused me to lose a large chunk of my vision and left me with balance and coordination problems). After the stroke they informed me that it’s well known that this treatment causes strokes!

There was no continuity of care after the stroke. The different hospital departments didn’t liaise with each other. For instance the stroke clinic didn’t refer me for physiotherapy, I had to arrange that myself. And the physiotherapy was basically worthless. There wasn’t even a treatment programme. Amongst other things the stroke has left my left side so weak that I now get debilitating sports injuries simply from walking around and lifting small objects. Every time I got an injury like this I’d have to refer my self to the physio, wait months for an appointment, then the at the appointment they’d show me a couple of exercises for it, tell me to ice and elevate it, and massage it. The I’d be discharged with no follow up. The next time I got injured I’d have to go through the whole process again.

Due to this lack of proper care my weakness and mobility problems got worse over time to the point I could no longer walk. I became very depressed and frustrated trapped indoors all day. The physio told me shockwave therapy could help but I’d have to pay for it myself. Thanks to people here I managed to raise enough money for a course of shockwave therapy and it did help. The pain reduced and I became mobile again. For the past few months I have been able to walk around outside again and it gave me something to live for. However due to my landlady pressuring me into helping her lift a small xmas tree onto a table, I got injured again. My left side has flared up again, especially the achilles tendon which is now debilitatingly inflamed and painful and my mobility has drastically reduced again.

This is my life now. I have effectively been sentenced to life in prison and it doesn’t have to be like this. There is a cheap, effective treatment but the NHS just won’t pay for it. Some NHS trusts actually give people 3 treatments and some 6, some won’t give any at all. If I could actually just get this treatment on the NHS whenever the problem flares up, I could be mobile for a lifetime and it would only cost the NHS a few hundred per year, but they’d rather not spend the money and just let me rot.

I am sick of the government complaining about too many people being on disability benefits when they just refuse to spend the money to help us get well and fit again. I’ve got a future of nothing but staring at 4 walls unable to do anything so the government can save money, meanwhile they’re a bunch of millionaires living the high life.

I complained about all this to my local MP, asking him to get involved and help me get the right to shockwave therapy on the NHS. He didn’t respond (he hardly ever responds to contact). I sent the same email to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health, and received automated emails from them saying they don’t deal with people who aren’t in their constituency. I hate this country and this world. I hope ww3 comes and I get a nuke dropped on my head.