Help?

I've been forced to do some thinking about my life and the world around me over the last few weeks ... nothing really new to me, but just having certain things reinforced about big institutions, public services and support networks, and where I sit in all that. I'm not sure yet how it will all impact in the long term, but at the moment I'm feeling a lot less certain about throwing myself back into the big wide world on my own ... but maybe I'm just feeling a bit low at the moment.

After the very mixed level of health care I found in Jordan, I was looking forward to getting home to the UK and getting fixed up, having only really had positive experiences of the NHS before that - but then again, how far wrong can you go with vaccinations and the odd smear test? I'm a bit less enthusiastic now, and have heard some real horror stories, but it's a mixed bag which I'll go into later ..

But even more than that, I'm glad that I came back because of all the family and friends I have in the UK who can come and be with me through the tough times - in Jordan I would have felt much more isolated despite the offers of help from my wonderful but busy friends and colleagues, and somehow it's easier to phone up your Mum or your oldest friends and ask them to bring you a flannel or to wash your pyjamas. Also, the setup at my flat in Jordan (many stairs without banisters, deep baths etc) would have made day-to-day living difficult and getting out and about almost impossible.

It's when you're ill or incapacitated in some way that being single and independent takes on a new angle - not having someone at home, always having to ask for help from others who also have their own lives to live ... Both my insurance company and work didn't seem to understand why I wanted to come back to the UK so much, rather than having my treatment in Jordan, and said that since they considered the health care adequate there they also thought I should have stayed there. When I explained to them both that I couldn't even wash on my own, and certainly couldn't go out and shop, and asked if they were going to provide me with any kind of carer in Jordan, they said that it wasn't their responsibility ...

It seems they didn't think I was being completely unreasonable though, but their next tack was to came back to say that I should get someone to come out from the UK to help me. They seemed genuinely surprised when I said that I couldn't think of anyone who could drop everything to come look after me for weeks on end. Even worse, work followed this by saying 'can't your Mum come out?', as if all she does is sit at home crocheting and waiting to be called on to serve her children for months at a time! It has taken me breaking down into tears on the phone to get any sympathy for my situation, and now work is at least pretending to understand how I see things and is offering some help.

In one sense, this just showed me how much my workplace is dominated by old-fashioned attitudes - they didn't suggest my Dad coming out, after all, or imagine that I might come from a ('poor'?) family where people have to work for a living ... a big fat cross against the diversity box! More than that though, this whole situation has hammered home to me how vulnerable I am making myself by choosing to be so far away from loved ones ... and by that I mean the people who will help me get my knickers on, let me cry on their shoulder and put up with me squatting on their sofa for days on end. I feel blessed to have so many true friends like this, but am also feeling torn that my lifestyle and work takes me so far from them - and now have some real experience of the fact that I'm never going to get anywhere near the same level of support from work. I also can't rely on finding similarly fabulous people in every country that I land in, although so far I've been lucky enough, and even when I'm with people who'd like to help, they're not always in a position to and I feel bad asking for too much from people who have their own issues and busy schedules.

But I love my job ... least I have plenty of time to think about it all, another five weeks before I can put any weight on the foot, and then physio, oodles of time to ponder the future ...