I’m going to start this blog with a quick note on general illness. If someone you love is ill with the flu, tonsillitis, chickenpox for example. Make them cups of tea, bring them water, get medicine from the pharmacy, cook them food, keep the house quiet, ask them if they need anything, look after them.

The reason I write this first is my personal experience of lack of any sort of care. I’ll always remember Christmas 2005. I got the flu on Christmas Eve. By Christmas Day I was achy and ill, in the afternoon I gave up and went to bed. I spent the next week in bed as you do with proper flu. My boyfriend at the time went about his day, making food for himself, playing video games, getting out ok his mountain bike. Generally having a great week. He treated me like I had leprosy. In…