THE WINDOWLESS ROOM

The Turing Test.

“Can you imagine what the world would become like if the arseholes in charge now lived forever?”

“Yeah, exactly!”

Those were two lines spoken by two women who was playing the game called The Turing Test. A puzzle game that involves an Artificial Intelligence, sounding a lot like Jeremy Irons, and a few human people all on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. A girl called Ava Turing is woken up on a ship and guided by the AI, called TOM, through a building full of rooms with each one containing a puzzle you had to solve before you moved on.

An organism was found that when your … contaminated by it, for want of a better term, you become immortal. The ground team, made up of four or five people, wanted to return to Earth with the organism while Tom and just one of the humans wanted to prevent that.

One side thought it was a wonderful thing to cure death.

The other side believed that the immortality was a bad thing with over-population happening fast and other things and possibly viruses becoming immortal too.

I watched this video at the end of a very long day.

A day that turned out just as interesting and intriguing as the philosophical and logical conundrums of this game.

With a slight blot on the landscape.

You probably did not guess it from my recent posts and if you have probably too late but today was the day of my MRI. The one on my head and boy was it an unpleasant experience.

Originally the appointment time was 5.45pm but they called me yesterday to move it forwards by several hours.

I had posted last night about having some more serious difficulties with the anxiety attacks returning and even turned to an extreme method of coping I never had before.

I was watching a black and white classic sci-fi movie when the Internet went off at midnight.

It was a difficult night.

It was an even more difficult morning.

I had not had the damned bath I wanted to out come s pile of cleansing wipes while I pondered at 6am what I was going to do until the 12.30pm appointment time came around? I had also not got anything to drink or smoke the night before, as I had intended.

Get out, get some cash from the ATM and go to my friends shop for a cup of tea or two before jumping on the bus outside up to the hospital.

I told him about the letter that I had received the day before about the PIPs assessment and he hung his head and then shook it slightly. He looked at me and said “This time you have got to go!” to which I then said “Its in Brentwood!” and he shook his head again. “You going?” he asked “No” I answered.

We chatted for nigh on a couple of hours when a mate of our walked in …. lets call him 'Forky'. I told hom not to take it personal but I had to go to the hospital shortly. He said “On a Saturday?!” to which I said “Yup, have an MRI on my head” and then explained what happened with my seizure and I could see that 'Oh crap' look in his eye.

Just like the puzzles in The Turing Test life is full of puzzles. Standing in one of these rooms you have the right to your opinions and your ideas. The fact that you have a right … does not make you right. But many confuse the two. In The Turing Test only the one right idea will see you progress.

Puzzles in life are like that. You keep going along probing new things and coming up with new ideas to find a way through.

Hmm and I just came up with this post's title just then!

Just as the two geeky girls found on progressing through each room sometimes when you try things the answer simply comes to you.

Two answers I did not expect and equally shocking both came to me today in the most unusual of ways.

After deserting Forky and Steeeve I found myself in the MRI unit. I filled in a safety questionnaire and it was duly collected from me. I noticed a sign on the wall about the procedures of MRIs. It stated that for non urgent results they would be sent through in 8 weeks but for serious or cancer results they would go through in 2 weeks.

I never thought much more about it.

Eventually I found myself not so naked and lying on the platform to the MRI machine. Bizarrely some huge headphones made for a 5 year old were placed on my head. Then a cage was pulled down over the top of my head that had my nose pressed against something. And me with claustrophobia. I close my eyes for the duration which I was told was about 15 minutes.

Yeah, we lit was more like 30 minutes, which I found a little odd.

After what seemed like a lifetime the test was eventually over and I was pulled out. They raised the cage away from my head and I was asked to take the headphones off, which I could not wait to do.

“Your results will be through in two weeks” the guy said.

'OH CRAP!' I thought!

That notice on the wall in the waiting room about MRI test procedures?

In this instance that darned number 2 is proving to be somewhat unlucky.

In the morning and as it was Saturday and I had experienced the anxiety the night before I decided it might be an idea to go to the Urgent Care Centre after the MRI? I might be told I can take a Propranalol pill at night as well as the morning to cope until I get to see the GP again? If the Urgent Care Centre was still there and the building it was in, the old A&E, I am pretty sure had been demolished for a new building? Checking the map in the hospital I noted it was indeed still there but had moved. I also noted a building that said 'GP' on it and wondered what it was.

In the Urgent Care Centre I saw a very nice and compassionate nurse called Karen. I told her why I was there and she looked worried but said that they could not help. They do not have access to patient's medical records, bizarrely. She said that there was a GP on the site and I said I had noted the building on the map. She said that they cannot see people unless they ring '111' and the appointments were done that way which was silly. She even went and double checked this and tried to get me in. Spoke to someone called Barndoc, who I do not have a good reputation with but they have likely forgotten me. I was told to come back in and they would send me in a car to Barnet Hospital if I could not get to see the GP on the site.

So I thanked them for their help and went outside and phoned '111'. After chatting to this guy he then starts telling me, after discovering I had self harmed myself, to go to a different hospital. I ask why he cannot just make an appointment with the GP in the hospital I am in and he tells me they cannot do that.

I agree to his wants and I go back into the Urgent Care Centre to let them know what I am going to do. When I told them that '111' told me that they cannot and do not make appointments with anyone over the phone they remark “That's twaddle!” and shake their heads.

Cutting out my being confused how to get to this other hospital and my brain suddenly springing back into life I head out.

On the journey I think about how nice the nurse was and how quiet the hospital is these days, I even remarked this to the nurse and she laughed and said “Yeah”. I even stated it was like an old haunted hospital at moments and she said it probably was haunted.

After some crisps, orange juice and a bar of chocolate in the other hospital I sit around for my 30 minute wait. I thought that was a bit too fast when they told me that was how long I would be waiting. Well that was the first Doc that told me that 10 minutes after being told I would be waiting an hour before seeing that first Doc.

So the first hour they quoted turned into like ten minutes or so.

The following 30 minutes they quoted ended up over 2 hours and I had thought I had missed my name being called out at one point.

Eventually I cam called into a room …

“What are you here for?” I was asked.

“I was ordered to come here” I replied.

I explained the situation and told him about the MRI and coming here from the other hospital and said I just wanted someone to say it was OK to double up on the Propranalol for a couple of days until I see my GP.

He asked what had bought on the anxiety and first assumed it was the MRI and possible brain tumour and asked me why I thought it was a tumour. Wow! Someone actually asks a question. I told him why and he nods and I explain that is NOT the cause of my anxiety.

I then tell him about the DWP, the assessments, stopping the Incapacity Benefit, stopping the Housing Benefit, possibly being homeless in as little as four weeks and then the letter about my Personal Independent Payments.

He squints slightly and says “What?!” before he places his elbows on his desk and drops his head into his hands before letting his head drop as his finger ruin through his hair and then speaks …

“These public services?! What are they DOING?! They are just blanketing large numbers of disabled people and hoping things stick!”

My mind is like '…....wow!'

He then raises his head up and looks at me and nods to the screen before saying …

“Mr Haswell … looking at your medical notes here there is no GP or Doctor anywhere that wont stand there and back you up on all this! Not with your medical history!”

My mind is like '…....wow!'

He then goes on to say to me that there is no way on Earth I will lose the court case with the DWP over either the ESA one … or the likely upcoming PIPs one!

My mind is like '…....wow!' LMAO. It is was pouring with rain when I was in the waiting room and I was like 'Oh great!' but suddenly I simply did not care as I sat there as he talked and went …

'…...wow!'

I was then prescribed an extra 40mg of Propranalol to take at night and some diazepam.

'…...just … wow!'

Was this really happening? Did he just say all that stuff he just said to me? Really?

They had no Propranalol but gave me the Diazepam but I just didn't care. In fact after feeling the way that I did after that Doctor reacted the way that he did, was as compassionate as he was and understanding he was … well I had an affect on me made actually by a Doctor and not his medications!

'Just …. wow!'

Oh boy here is someone I would dearly love to have as a GP!

When I left I made it to the bus stop and it was going from a drizzle to a medium heavy rain and I just stood there looking like Bishop Brennan from the Father Ted comedy when he travels an entire journey from Ireland to Italy to see the Pope but stunned the whole time because he is sure Father Ted just kicked him up the arse but cannot quite believe it and for the whole journey is in a frozen state of shock and confusion. Until in front of the Pope when he suddenly comes to and says “He did kick me up the fecking arse' and knocks out the Pope with a right hook before running back the the airport!

That was me … just staring at the rain in stunned confusion thinking '…..wow'

I think that is enough 'wows', lol.

Suddenly a few things started to make sense. I was explaining the Fibromyalgia and how it affected my feet, arches, ankles and other things along with memory. He was just nodding. I completely missed it as I normally get blank looks from Doctors. He must have been familiar with Fibromyalgia and more than most. I remembered he still did not look confused when I told him about the anxiety attacks shutting down my legs the way that it did.

But I am sure that none of this finer detail is on my medical notes and I am sure the Costochondritis is not on their as every time I get a letter from a GP with my ailments it … seems … to have a different collection of ailments … on each letter? Oh feck!

I cannot believe I missed that.

I have three GP letters and they are all on here and each one's list fails top match up with any of the other two!

That must be how they do it? If pulled up on it is given as an honest error. It would LOOK like an honest error or oversight. The funny thing is that the letter I have which contains the most of my ailments, pre-Fibromyalgia diagnosis, the DWP claimed to me that she filled in the form wrong and unable to fill them in correctly. Because there was too much on the form … they would have had to accept my DLA application at the time. Which they did not and saved another 3 or 4 years of not paying me.

Except when I asked for them then they would have realised I would have spotted the omissions and so every medical file they had on me vanished. Oh and I am not speaking metaphorically here … they really did vanish when I asked for them! Lol. Or as I prefer to put it and just as I put it to them … “You burned them!” and ten days later £4,500 was paid into my account.

He basically said in a roundabout way that if the court found in favour of the DWP on either court hearing then they were corrupt. He also said '...these public services …' and did not single out the DWP so it was plural.

Only two were mentioned and that was the DWP and Enfield Council and the only others involved in this would be the NHS and HM Court & revenue Service. So was he thinking only about the DWP and Enfield Council or one or both of the other two as well?

This was without the bloody possible outcome of the MRI or the drastic measures I had resorted to the night before.

There's my ace and it was a surprise ace on the day and I ended up with two aces, thought he other one could turn out to be the worst type of news admittedly.

Oooh you better believe I have a very good ace card now.

Oh yeah … I forgot, it was three aces.. Three aces were gathered up today and I had already acquired one ace. Just that normally the aces are … well, not very nice. Except for that last one.

Back in that windowless room of puzzles you have to see and visualise all the angles and sometime … just sometimes things just pop into view.

Sometimes its a little bit of luck and other times its a little but of planning and persevering. Sometimes its a bit of both.

Oh and the two geeky girls were American, that said about idiots running things today.

Lol.

EDIT:

I completely forgot, yeah I do that, but in speaking with the best Doctor I have ever met ... I even bought up my blog when we talked about corruption. I told him what it was on and he pulled it up on the monitor?! Lol.

I did mention very briefly that I had a dozen in all and mentioned astronomy, computing, and animals and a couple of other things, maybe Orchids too, but did not go into detail on them.