Chapter 66 : Fulham Palace parkrun

One of my daughters works for an organization which has as one its aims, to improve the health of the community.  I talked to her about this and I said, “No need to reinvent the wheel. Just copy what parkrun does. What they do is just about perfect.”

Well what does parkrun do?

They organize 5km runs around the world every Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. The closest parkrun will be somewhere near you. A parkrun encourages people to get out there and go for a 5km run. It improves the health and fitness of those that run.

Parkruns are also a social exercise.  Either because you meet someone you already know or you gradually get to know the other runners. A parkrun will strengthen the community in which it is held.

Parkruns are as competitive as you want them to be. There is no emphasis on coming first or winning. People are applauded for 50/100/200 runs, not for coming first. You can make the race as competitive as you want.  You can compare your time against other similar people in the past or people elsewhere in the world.  You can see where you rank. You can give yourself all sorts of goals. You can just run and chat. You can take your dog or baby in a pram with you.

Another thing parkruns do is use the latest most up to date technology appropriately.  Shortly after every run my time and photo has been up there in the clouds. It is incredibly good use of the latest technology without worshiping the technology or letting the technology take over. The aim is still to enjoy your run; to have a bit of exercise; to meet a few friends. Not to get maximum number of hits.

Parkrun tourism is another side. At our local parkrun we always see visitors from elsewhere.  And I have just gone from Hobart and visited two park runs in England. A fantastic way for us tourists to spend our time. Doing what the locals do. Experiencing a new course. Meeting some great people.

      

Parkruns are free. No entry cost. Which means there is no cost or hassle involved in collecting a small entry fee from each participant. However there are some costs and chores involved. One solution seems to be, get sponsors to pay for things, in exchange for giving them the right to advertise to you via email. The other solution seems to be to get volunteers to help manage and run the event. This also seems to work. Most people I have spoken to assume that their time to help manage and run the event will come.

Parkruns do not discriminate. Every run I have seen has contained people of all different ages, sex, race, religion and orientation. I have not seen many activities where a 60 year old male can compete alongside a 10 year old female. I normally take the role of the 60 year old male.

                                                                                                         

I finish my spiel to Melissa. She has patiently listened to my sermon. I am a true believer. What will happen from here?  Will the YMCA of Hobart learn from parkruns when they introduce new programs?  Do they need to?

Chapter 65 : British Photos (D)

Glass House Edinburgh Botanical Gardens

Garden with hedge and flowering bed

Same garden as above

Britannia

Britannia

Paddington

Hyde Park

Hyde Park

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace

Chapter 64 : British Photos (C)

sculpture

Edinburgh Festival

Tourists around Bobby's grave at Greyfriar's Church

Edinburgh Castle

Abbey at Holyrood Palace

Edinburgh at Festival time

Edinburgh Botanical Gardens

Edinburgh Botanical Gardens

Glass House in Edinburgh Botanical Gardens

Glass House in Edinburgh Botanical Gardens

Chapter 63 : British Photos (B)

St Michael's Mount

hanging baskets

Penzance

Penzance with no safety fence

town called Mousehole

Wall of taps sculpture

sculpture

bamboo sculpture

The Minataur

moving sculptures

scarecrow

another scarecrow

old minors cottage

hotel pool London

Chapter 62 : British Photos (A)

London

London

London

London

Barge on Thames

Windsor Castle

hanging flowers Eton

Hyde Park

Paddington

more traffic in Paddington

St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount

Chapter 61 : Magic Moments of British Trip

Memorable Moments of British Trip

Sitting back as the train glided into Penzance. Outside were views of the coast and rain on the paddocks thick with grass. Inside I listened to KD Lang. She sang Hallelujah and I was transported...

Visiting the Tremenheer Sculpture Gardens near Penzance.  Stunning gardens. Down every path, behind every flourishing plant was another interesting sculpture.

Hyde Park in the middle of London. Females exercised their horses while wearing traditional gymkhana caps.

Park run with Ronan. The format the same as Hobart.  The number of people was increased. The course was alongside the Thames and two laps of a park. Ronan was fantastic. The perfect host.

Sunday roast lunch in Leicestor. The menu was either roast lamb, roast turkey, roast beef or roast ham. Plus Yorkshire puddings, gravy in a boat, stuffing, roast and steamed vegetables and a variety of jellies in little jars. The amount of food would have fed one of the homeless beggars for a week.  Perhaps not the beggar we saw talking on her phone or the one dunking her chips into tomato sauce.

The main street in Edinburgh. On one side a few boring shops. The other side revealed a public garden and an absolutely priceless view of Edinburgh Castle.  Has to be one of the best views anywhere in this world.

The Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh.  Perfect grass with beds of flowers from around the world.  Impossible to describe gardens of such quality. They have taken gardens to a new level.  If you have the opportunity go there.

Entering a curio shop in Edinburgh which was selling tartan scarves, caps and kilts. Also shortbread and whiskey glasses. Not very exciting and then the lady said, “I have to pop next door. Can you mind the shop?" I was in charge. A very special moment especially when some tourists came in.

The train from Edinburgh to London.  The guy next to us was telling us about an exciting act he had just seen at the Festival. She came from Tasmania and she talked about her upbringing in NW Tasmania. Hannah Gadsby got a lot of laughs. Probably more than she would have got in Wynard.

Another park run at Fulham Palace.  By the Thames (nearer the sea) and by a palace. Multiple laps.  Nearly 400 finishers. Some photos taken by the chief organiser. Mixing with the locals.

Crossing the road in central London without the usual waiting, near misses, rage and increase in blood pressure which I would count as a highlight. I think I managed it once but I can't be sure.

Chapter 60 : the Royal Hobart Hospital.

Dear patient of the Royal Hobart Hospital.

I  love you.  I want you to get better and get out of the Royal.  The best way is take control of your illness. Accept responsibility for your illness. You are the cause and also the reason you will get better. The majority of illnesses are associated with lifestyle. In your case it may not be true but the moment you accept ownership of your illness you enter a wonderful place.

I have based my opinion on my experience in the hospital. Which kinda went like this.

A consultation with one doctor.  Whenever I mentioned a symptom he said he had seen it more often than me and one case ten times worse.

Consultation with a support group who wanted my email address. So they could send me weekly newsletters, dates of support group meetings and other ways they could give me information and support me over the next few years. I said I wanted to get better and my aim was to work towards not needing their support and they said, “Have a nice day. Goodbye.”

Consultation with a doctor. I pulled out a list of questions I wanted answered. The doctor was stunned. I was there to listen to him, not ask questions.

I asked for a copy of my notes and was told I had to fill out a form and apply through at a different part of the hospital and they would explain to me how to get there.  Elsewhere in the hospital I encountered staff who photocopied pathology results and gave me a copy and said,” don’t tell anyone”.

After a few weeks lying on my back I decided I wanted to get out and not return and that it was up to me. The system was not interested in promoting health or preventing patients returning.  The system was biased towards ED.  The Royal was expert at picking people up from the bottom of the cliff and resuscitating them and hopeless at preventing people falling over the cliff. They found me at the bottom of the cliff and I was expertly resuscitated and completely ignored when I wanted to prevent falling in the future.

There is nothing especially good or bad about the Royal Hobart Hospital. It is typical of a western hospital in the way it is staffed, managed and run. The only exception is morale which is probably worse than average. Which is probably because we are a small stable, prosperous island state with very distant neighbours and little news apart from the Royal.

In my seven weeks in the Royal I never heard a member of staff say, “I love working at The Royal. We do good work.” They used to they raised their eyebrows and shake their heads whenever they mentioned The Royal.

Does poor morale matter to you?   It does because a front page news’s story or politician on the evening news leads to a decrease in staff morale. Staff in bad moods affects you. You will suffer. A politician will celebrate getting their face on TV and the next day you will receive worse treatment. As a patient I used to watch the evening news. Just to make sure we never made it.

There is one thing you can do about staff morale. Thank the staff for their work. Whenever they do something for you, thank them. Tell them they are doing a good job. It’s probably true and means that in the future they will be happy to return and help you again.  It is a very easy task I am giving you. Because most of the staff are neat, tidy, punctual, compassionate and know their work.

In the ward one thing you will watch is the nurse complaining about the next ward, the doctor complaining about the registrar, the pathology staff complaining about administration. You could call them power struggles.  Everybody will get involved including the various wards, administration, the general practitioner, the lab, the nurses, the doctors and the registrars.

If you have worked in a big organization you may be used to these power struggles. If you are like me then it will be new to you. You have no choice. Get used to it. Go the same way as me. Assume that a power struggle means people have pride in their work?  Assume that there is nothing wrong with power struggles.  Everybody can argue about how to move forward if they are all moving in the same direction. 

Another thing you may see is the staff becoming confused about who the patient is. The staff would speak to my significant partner and then she would try and interpret. I would then ask her questions and she would say ,”We never discussed that” or “It never came up” or “Next time I will mention it”  or best of all, ”I was there. I know what happened better than you.” I saw this happen to other patients so it was a common habit and may happen to you. Please be careful.

What are you going to think about when lying in bed 24/7? Well I don’t know what you will think about. I can tell you what I thought about. I never thought, “How lucky I am, that I have been admitted. I am grateful and thankful for the services provided.”

I spent a lot of time feeling disappointed that I needed a bed, staff and services. I was never grateful that it was provided.   I thought about myself and my particular illness. I did not want to come back and I realised that the staff were not going to emotionally invest in my future. I had to take control. I had to find everything out about my illness. I had to get all this information from the staff.

Some staff were incredibly perceptive and would help me.  Others saw me as a threat to their control.  I eventually, by various mean, found out ways to manage myself. It is up to you to work out which staff will help you.

What I wanted was to get better and not return. What the staff wanted was to be neat and tidy, punctual and perform their procedures correct.   This is what they were expert at. They were sober, neat, tidy and polite.  They were kind, considerate and expert at following standard procedures. There was a standard procedure or standard form for every situation which was followed.  After discharge there was even a standard form for feedback.

Good luck to you and all the best with your recovery. Politicians will talk about bed numbers, staff numbers, number of services provided. Staff will concern themselves with standard procedures but it is you accepting responsibility for your illness which actually matters and will get you better.

Taking control of your management will not guarantee you eternal life but it might make what remains more enjoyable. Aim for a balanced life with physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual health and a healthy diet free of excessive drug use. Good luck.

BIO: Alan Carlton is a retired Hobart dentist. He was admitted to The Royal in 2015 and 2017 (including ED and two weeks in ICU). He has now retired from work. He now spend his time running, playing tennis, gardening and visiting every cafe in Hobart.

Chapter 59 : Mid-winter fest

Once upon a time Mona was infallible. Mona displayed modern, global, fashionable art.  And it finished up here in Tassie which confirmed that Tassie was up to date, modern and part of a global trend.  We were eternally grateful for Mona. Mona made us part of a modern, fashionable world. And they also bought the tourists.         

Their art has never arisen spontaneously from the local community or related much to the local community.  It was always bestowed upon us from a great height and we always said thank you but now it has crossed the line. They have now giving us weird, cruel, performance art. Which we have not gratefully accepting.

Mona has changed Hobart. But we never embraced their vision. We never become creative artists.  We never embraced the obsessions of Mona with sex and death. And the pottery or water colors or music originating in Hobart are not better or worse than prior to Mona. 

Mona has now given us the Midwinter fest. Balls of flames evaporating upwards from pyramidal structures. The flames infiltrate the dark, shadowy, gloomy and obscure sky.  We walk through a field of light which delights us.  Inside the Winterfest the ambiance is light and dark. Red lights and light bulb trees overhang some beautifully, inviting tents. The gloomy, dark, bleak, areas contrast with the cheerful, sunny, optimistic, enthusiastic, light areas.   

We meet my grandson. He has bought me some good news.

Bruce: “I am wearing my invisible hat.”

I say the obvious, “I can’t see it.”

He replies, “That’s what invisible means. You can’t see it.”

I ask him, “Is it keeping you warm?”

Bruce, “Yes it is.”

The winter solstice is a time to celebrate the beginning of the sun coming. The sun bringing light and brightness. The sun causing the evil, dark to cower and hide. The brightness of the sun disinfecting and cleaning our dark, sleepy lives.

I brows the stalls and become confused. Should I go with organic, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, seasonal veggies, artisanal cheese, wallaby, succulent octopus, delicious kimchi, or plump oysters.

We have always enjoyed food and drinks on the docks from vans served on paper plates. We celebrated the docks and street food. Now most of Hobart is enjoying it with us.

Now I have to decide on a cooking style.  Should I try the Vietnamese, Argentina, Middle Eastern, Persian, Japanese, Spanish or India food? Should it be roasted slowly over hot coals or roasted over Mallee root charcoals.

We can choose to wash the food down with traditional, small batch and hand crafted beer, apple cider, wine or ginger beer made from local ingredients served in paper cups.

The food is creative and inspire us to different ways of cooking or different ingredients or different combinations.  The food inspires us to be creative in the kitchen.  One daughter says she is going to make pancakes with berries and salted caramel.  Another daughter is inspired by the wood fired pizza with the thin sour dough base.  

A grandchild is creatively sucking a chip and says, “That’s my best food.”

I say, “What are chips made from?”

Kay smiles and replies, “Yellow.”

I continue, “Okay what is tomato sauce made from?”

She says, “Red.”  She is just beginning her food education. This is a good place to learn about food.

And I am distracted by a noise.  The noise was originally music created by a performer who I can spy between the dark jackets. The mumbled hum infiltrates our group but doesn’t overpower our talk.

Which is all about food. I can hear words like, “I like that. They have used. That’s a strange combination. I would never have come up with that combination. It works well. I think I’ll add when I make it. I’ll try that. I love the way they have fried it. It’s delicious.”

Perhaps this just says something about my family.  We are more interested in cooking and eating than the creative arts.  Except one daughter, who talks like a politician, and says, “Dark Mofo brings a lot of money into the state.”

I am more interested in the elephant in the room which is a dead cow.   Vegetarians and vegans and animal lovers have complained about the disrespect for animals masquerading as a work of art. It is inevitable people will change their attitude to eating meat after seeing this performance about meat. The butchers of Hobart re having their activities dissected, examined and looked at.

What is this role of meat in our society? What have all the protests said about our society? What is the connection between the art and the food eaten?  Somebody says the performance is over.  Ah well moving on.

And listening to my grandchildren while sipping and nibbling I relax. Talk turns to a nude swim.   I am grateful and happy that other people are doing it.  It’s one way of saying, “I do whatever I want. Whenever and wherever I want. The weather doesn’t control me. The darkness doesn’t tell me what to do.”

We make our way along the docks to Dark Park.  Where I see something strange. An enormously large, compliant, passive, well behaved crowd of jackets, beanies and cameras trying to decipherer a few installations of light, shadows and sounds amidst buildings and passageways we previously didn’t know existed. 

What are they telling me about traditional winter solstice rituals?   What are they saying about ancient myths and legends of light and dark, birth and death? I ate and drank and don’t care.  I enjoyed the food, the fellowship, the entertainment and the crowds of happy people. That’s enough.

Alan Carlton is a former Hobart dentist. He retired in October 2015. He now spends his time running, playing tennis, gardening and writing blogs.

Chapter 58 : I am not dead because....

Lying in a hospital bed I read articles in the local newspaper about the Tasmanian Health System. Articles written by health experts or politicians or the unions.  This disturbed me. None of these articles was written by anybody who had done what I had done.  Been a patient in The Royal.  

Well you could say that these people had my best interests at heart. They were just channeling my thoughts. Well maybe but I will tell you what a patient actually thinks not what other people say is best for me.

Politicians often, without asking me, used me and my predicament to try and gain political advantage.  They focused on things they could understand or things they thought were going to get them media coverage. Such as bed numbers, staff numbers or obvious mistakes by the health system. Politicians gave the impression they didn’t understand health, care about my fellow patients, or want the portfolio. I also got the impression that politicians were good people, who had been given an impossible job, and that both sides were the same.

Some articles were from the unions. The union had a standard response to everything. We need more nurses. Sometimes they may have been right but they were always predictable and when I was a patient I never thought the union was on my side.

As a patient I used to think. How can I get out of here and not come back?

I used to spend most of my time thinking about my particular illness. I did not want to come back and I realised that I had to find everything out about my illness. I had to take control. The staff were not going to emotionally invest in my future.  The staff knew everything and I had to access this information. It was not a formality that this information would automatically flow from them to me.  It varied. Some staff were incredibly perceptive and helpful.  Others saw me as a threat to their control.

The system as it exists at present is not interested in promoting health or preventing patients returning.  The system is biased towards ED.  The Royal is expert at picking people up from the bottom of the cliff and resuscitating them and hopeless at preventing people falling over the cliff. They found me at the bottom of the cliff and I was expertly resuscitated and completely ignored when I wanted to prevent falling in the future. I realise now that promotion of health has no political or news value.

I never lay in bed thinking, “How lucky am I that I have been admitted.” I never felt grateful and thankful for the services that I needed. I was never grateful to the staff that helped me. I was never grateful to the Royal for providing a bed. I used to spend my time feeling unhappy and being self-obsessed.  I was disappointed that I needed a bed, staff and services not grateful that it was provided.   Bed numbers and staff numbers were never an issue. Never something I thought about.  

As a patient I was mesmerized by the behavior of staff.

There was nothing else to do apart from watch the staff. The staff seemed to have a form for everything.  Everybody filled out the same form. I began to see how a generic form could trigger the staff to think of everything and cover every situation. I found this behavior strange but my work history does not involve a big organization. Maybe standard procedures and standard forms are needed in all big organizations.   

The moment any incident occurred the reaction would be, “We must write a report and make sure this never happens again.” There was always something that prevented a good outcome and a report that would fix the problem.  Maybe not accepting responsibility is also inevitable in big organizations

And I used to observe power struggles between one member of staff and the next ward, administration, the general practitioner, the lab, the next nurse, the other doctor or the registrar. At times the power struggles deviated from humorous.

The other situation I used to observe was the issue of focusing on the patient and ignored the family.  I witnessed it many times.  A patient being successfully managed. And coping well. And then the family would visit. They would not be coping.  Often emotional wrecks. The family would need some sort of support. They had to be part of the solution. They had to be involved.  They were either part of the solution or needed help.  At the very least they needed a friendly chat.

As a patient I noticed that staff morale was poor.

Whenever the staff mentioned The Royal they raised their eyebrows and shock their heads.

This attitude is understandable if you read or listen to the local media.  Every story making the news will highlight some failing, discrepancies or mistake.

At times the front page news’s story or politician on the evening news leading to a decrease in staff morale was palpable. A politician will celebrate getting their face on TV and the next day the staff will treat you worse. When you are a patient you dread The Royal making the evening news. It leads to grumpy staff who don’t treat you as well.

In my seven weeks I never heard a member of staff say, “I love working at The Royal. We do good work.”

Which is sad because a lot of the staff do a lot of good work and should be proud of their work.

What else did I think about when lying flat on my back?

I saw many procedures performed. Sometimes they didn’t go as in the textbook. The equipment was not in the drawer; the patient’s anatomy was unique.  That pleased me. That tells me that The Royal is full of unique humans (carers and patients).  I love this confirmation that The Royal is one part of our magnificent, imperfect and ever-changing world.

Thanks to The Royal I know how lucky I am. I did this by sharing a ward with people who were not as lucky.  I saw people who, unfortunately, had not been given good cards. At the time my impotent reaction was to wish these people all the best. To hope they got better and got out of that place.

Despite or because of its idiosyncrasies I am not dead.  The Royal did the right thing at the right time. My trip to The Royal leaves me feeling blessed and lucky.   I encountered staff who were sober, neat, tidy and polite.  They were kind, considerate and knew their subject.

BIO: Alan Carlton is a retired Hobart dentist. In 2015 he spent seven weeks in The Royal (including ED and ICU). Since then he has retired. He now spend his time running, playing tennis, gardening and visiting every cafe in Hobart.