Where I feel happiest

There are a number of candidates but having forced myself to decide the answer was, until 15 years ago: in bed, at night with a storm rattling the windows. For the last 15 years it’s been much the same but now I am lying spooning with P, one arm draped over her listening to her sleeping breaths as the storm rages.

Things I avoid

(1) Argument By this I mean debate whether it be political, philosophical or ethical. The problem is that I enjoy it way too much. Once we have begun to argue, I simply will not stop until you have accepted my position and renounced the feeble nonsense that you call your own. I am not one for relativism of principle and my overweening sense of self-righteousness is matched with a diabolical relentlessness. Long past 3 am, well past the point you have lost the will to live, I am pursuing you out of the door as you search for a cab, a horse, a bicycle, anything just to get you away. It is not enough to surrender, oh no, I must believe that you believe. I will not be placated. Keep me away from that stuff and we’ll get away fine.

(2) Competitive Games Never break out the Trivial Pursuit when I am in the room. Do not weedle at me until I relent and play Pictionary. When you see me sweating and refusing to play that is the sweat of an alcoholic, 12 years off the bottle, faced with a bottle of cask strength Talisker. It is not that I need to win (though I notice that when I do things run more smoothly for all concerned) it is just that I develop a sense of fairness and propriety that classifies almost any gentle warping of the rules (which I have read and memorised in preparation) as a sin reaching past fratricide in terms of infamy. Indeed fratricide is always a risk when we play games as a family. May the Lord forbid that anyone should have any fun.

(3) Nostalgia There are songs – songs I once loved – that I simply cannot bear to listen to now. They make my heart ache. I feel a welling emptiness into which I gently implode. I become drowsy and confused as if dosed with morphine syrup. C S Lewis thought that powerful longing, induced by music or some other beauty, was the soul longing for God. It overwhelms me so utterly that I have to stay focused on the gravelly future instead; eyes narrowed and walking forward like Lot.

Jobs I wish I done

(1) Cartoonist I was cartoonist for my University newspaper. Not a particularly good one but good enough and reliable when it came to deadlines. As it became more obvious I was heading towards the Law and still more obvious that the I would never be even a scintilla as good as any of those handful of cartoonists that appeared to make a living at it, I put the pens aside. When webcomics took off, I had another look at the situation. I was encouraged to find that most webcomics were appalling bad. Unfunny in a million different ways (900, 000 of them being demonstrated by strips like PvP); either drawn left-handed by right-handed artists or else by people whose artistic talent would not stretch to finger-painting on a good day. Some truly abominable piles of shite seemed to have a baying audience of near-obsessive fans. That’s what I wanted, an army of unthinking moobsophiles ready to buy T-Shirts and to pay for me to fly to Hawaii to be snide to them at conventions. Then I came across Beaver and Steve and snapped the digital artpad in two. James’s strips are amongst the best I have read in any format at any time. I hope he appreciates how good he really is. He is not alone. For a taste of the best have a look at Beardy Rick’s blogroll.

(2) Astronomer I did an Open University course in Astronomy and Planetary Science and haven’t felt so excited by every word I read since R and I found his father’s frankly astonishing collection of pornography when we were 10 (“What is that thing?!!”). However, ultimately I fail to meet the two minimum requirements for the job. First, every time I try to grow a beard it largely congregates under my chin making me look as if I am wearning a ruff woven from red and black pubic hair. Secondly, I am way too stupid at maths (bah).

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The programme was indeed focusedon the clinic we attend. They made a number of criticisms:

(1) A 26 year old woman should have been told to keep trying naturally for another year but was offered IVF.

This did not trouble us much as we know we need IVF. Another undercover patient with an identical profile was given correct advice.

(2) The “Immunological” approach that he favours was unproven.

The clinic believes that where, as with P and I, implantation difficulties exist, the answer may be that the embryo is triggering an immune response. There are no double-blind placebo tests proving this treatment.

The clinic is perfectly frank about the lack of clinical proof of effectiveness. It is a question that I raised directly with the doctor we consulted with. He gave us a speech which we heard twice repeated on the programme tonight the essential elements of which are:

(a) All new treatments are for a period unproven;

(b) It might take so long to prove your chance would be gone;

(c) It would unfair to couples desperate for a child to give them a placebo on what might be their last chance of conception; and

(d) Double-blind tests are all bollocks and you can always structure a test to prove or disprove whatever you want.

I described this approach to P after our consultation as “quackery” which is exactly what it is. My eyebrows pretty much vanished under my receding hairline when the doctor tried to discredit all clinical trials. However, the argument is effective because boiled down its says “Ok this may well be snake oil but look at our figures – can you really afford to walk away from the chance that it might work?” It is effective because it taps into the rich vein of utter desperation that brought you to their door in the first place.

I cannot complain about their honesty though. We knew what we were doing. Frankly, I’ve read enough about the placebo-effect to want to play a hand in its famous last chance saloon.

(3) Because the therapy, which involves transfusion of human antibodies, is untested and because those antibodies can reach the child, the therapy may place the embryo at risk.

The good Doctor T admitted that this did “worry” him. This did suprise us as we had no idea there was any such risk involved. We certainly had not consented to it. He went on to add, in essence,  that every treatment involves risk. The only point made to P had been that she had to be “comfortable” having human blood products transfused. She felt misled.

Again, to be scrupulously fair, we have encountered a failure to identify risks to us in other clinics so this practice is by no means unique.

(4) Before they start any immunological treatments you have a blood test that requires 18 vials of blood that are shipped to the States for analysis at a cost of £780 (about $1200).

The panel of experts that the BBC gathered to review the covertly obtained tapes opined that the test was entirely pointless. The blood was taken from “peripheral circulation” which, for the likes of you and me, means “the arm”. Apparently, there is little sensible relation between the blood in general circulation and that in the placenta. The analogy given was that it was like trying to count the number of black cabs in central London by looking at red cabs on the M25 (a large freeway that circles the outer edge of the city).

This is where I really began to growl. Our test results have just come back. It did not seem to me to be terribly likely that they were unaware of the difference in peripheral circulation and placental blood and this began to smack of fraud.

(5)  Test Results misleading

The 26 year old was told that the test had shown abnormal levels and she would be best advised to have IVF whilst being treated with steroids and human antibody transfusions (at a cost of anything up to £10, 000 (about $15, 000) a cycle). A pathologist tested the blood samples and stated that they were entirely normal.

Either that was a very bad mistake or it was out and out fraud. Either way it does not encourage us to put any faith in our result: one somewhat raised level indicated a need for steriod treatment.

But at the end of the day, what about their figures? They have a 54% success rate which is by far and away the best in the country – hence Dr T being worth £38 million. Do we care how much mumbo jumbo is involved and how much cash we have to spend unnecessarily if they can deliver a baby?

The next point was little more than an insinuation: that the people with lower chances of success are shipped around the corner to a sister clinic which has substantially less stellar performance figures. Dr T felt that was unfair and that they had been the best even when there was only one clinic. Who know? But the attack on the figures kicked at the last prop and that prop fell out when it became apparent that the second clinic is unlicensed and that nevertheless, and in breach of the criminal law, he has continued to perform IVFs at that clinic. His argument was that he had many desperate patients that he could not in good conscience, turn them away. I am desperate but not so desperate that I need to pay a criminal a fortune.

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Ok! Thinking caps on again. I have now entered a whole new emotional state prompted by this headline on the BBC website:

“Police visit two top IVF clinics”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6225951.stm

The best I can come up with for this mixture of anger, panic, and upset is “grrrrrrrief”.

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