I have a condition called Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome,  (also known as Irlen Syndrome) which for want of better words is like an extreme form of dyslexia, aggravated by lighting conditions and colour, where an indicator of the condition is migraines. I’m in the contextual review stage of my phd and the troubles I have had reading some books printed in (the hated) Times New Roman, and my absolute agony as everything on the page jiggles about  with transferring numeric data from one table to another for statistical analysis has meant I have had to apply for disability assistance.

In backing up with claim for assistance we have needed a doctor’s note to say I am a migraine sufferer. I live in Dundee now, and about  a year ago I tried registering up here, but they lost my registration. I tried again, and went into a different medical centre, I didn’t exist on the NHS system at all according to them. I temporarily registered with a different medical centre yet again, who have the worst service in Dundee and are a group of arrogant charlatans, but this was a desperate moment, and back in 2002, when I lived in Dundee before they were the original people who prescribed me immigran for my migraines. For some odd reason, this medical centre still had me on their records from when I was originally registered there, before I left in disgust when they mistreated me and I ended up with scar tissue on my lungs. So in tracing my records for the disability claim I rang them up, but low and behold my records mysteriously had vanished. So they keep me on their system from 2002 – 2008 when I don’t use their service, then in 2008 when I need their service I am gone… exaplain that one to me.

They tell me that according to their database I am still registered in Edinburgh. Unfortately the Edinburgh doctors have never treated me for a migraine because immigran no longer works ( and neither does maxolan or any other medication, I have tried!)  so the best thing for a migraine in my case is to pray for  the oblivian of a coma, but it should be on my records that I have been prescribed it in the past. I ring up the Edinburgh doctors and explain the situation – they don’t know me as an individual person, they are a group practice, and I am aware of this.

ME: “Just look me up in the database – you’ll be able to see that I have a history of migraines”
DR: “We don’t have a database”
ME: “What do you mean? When I go to the doctor, you have your computers and my records up on screen – that must be a database!”
DR: “Well some practices may have that, but we only see what has happened at our practice in the database.
ME: “Are you going to say there is no NHS wide database that enables patient records to be traced? What exactly do you mean then, when you say you are sending records over to another practice?”
DR: “All the papers get sent across”
ME: “Papers? Are you going to say that those illiegible scraps of paper that the doctors have scribbled as they have “consulted me” have followed me around Britain from when I moved from Dundee, down to Bournemouth, to Corfe Castle, to Gillingham and then up in Edinburgh?” I don’t mention that prior to Dundee I used to live in London, where there is probably still another set still registered in an Islington Medical Centre.
DR: "Yes"
ME: “And none have gotten lost along the way?”
DR: “Well we wouldn’t know if they had would we?”