Jonny Wilkinson, columnist for the Northern Advocate.
Jonny Wilkinson, columnist for the Northern Advocate.
Ding ding, round three of Jonny's puckeroo neck.
My next appointment was with Julie, the pre-operative nurse.
I approached the appointment with gingerish apprehension thinking I was going to meet with Jonny the Surgeon who has been prescribing the fusion of the vertebrae in my neck to fix the problem of my arthritic degeneration.
I was apprehensive because I couldn't imagine having cerebral palsy with involuntary movements and having a rigid neck at the same time. It would be like the tail wagging the dog (obscure I know).
I was, however, pleasantly surprised when I talked to Julie who totally got and understood my apprehension, especially after humouring me by reading my column about my last appointment there.
We agreed that I would go through with my appointment to see Nicole the neurologist for the nerve conduction test to ascertain whether or not the tingling in my arms and hands is a result of carpal tunnel (which I don't believe for a minute) as opposed to my neck slowly turning to talcum powder.
Greens co-leader Metiria Turei announces she will stand down as leader and retire from politics.
I would go to that appointment and talk to her, as someone who should know a thing or two about cerebral palsy, about the pros and cons of surgically giving rigor mortis to my neck.
The letter with the appointment time came. I diarised it. I blathered on about it. I asked Julie to email the neurologist to give her the heads up on what I wanted to discuss, and she again humoured me by attending to my request.
The appointment was on September 8. On Monday the 11th, I came to work, opened the calendar, my eyes bulged, I flushed, I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand multiple times while chanting "idiot, idiot, idiot!"
I somehow totally forgot about the appointment. I know that missing specialist appointments at any of our public funded tertiary health organisations is teka (the essence of wrong), not cool, at best frivolous.
The outpatients' booking officer told me she thought I was a very "on-to-it person". Julie the pre-operative nurse wouldn't even return my calls. I shudder to think what Nicole the neurologist is going to do when they eventually plug me back into the system with a nerve conduction test which measures your bodily responses to electric shocks.
Was it a case of unintended consequences vs subconscious intentional sabotage? They're very closely linked and, like both microscopic amoeba and politicians (similar), they are all around us.
Take Metiria Turei's fall from grace and her eventual resignation after she spilled about her historical benefit fraud. Was it a badly thought-out plan to gain street cred?
Was she being blackmailed? Or was she just sick of it and wanted to take a break subconsciously?
What about Shane Reti's declaration at the candidates' debate on Monday night that he wouldn't push for the government to repair the ailing Northland railway track?
What about Kelvin Davis at the Tiaho 'Meet the Candidates' event with the disabled community when he answered the wero (challenge) from the audience which challenged the candidates to 'pull together to pay for a New Zealand Sign Language interpreter to be present at the candidates' debate' with something jellyfish-like - along the lines of "you can't accommodate everyone's language Maori, Chinese, Indians".
Were they all getting a bit tired?
■ Jonny Wilkinson is the CEO of Tiaho Trust - Disability - A Matter of Perception, a Whangarei based disability advocacy organisation.
