A left-handed day or two

I woke up this morning feeling the regular pains that I am getting used to. They are probably from sleeping on too many pillows on the one hand to maintain an upright position and on the other hand to ease some breathing issues. 5 AM is a good time to get up, at least for me it is, it's the time when I get my first round of medications. The downside of waking up at this time is that my partner has to wake up with me and she's the one to make up and deliver the medications that I require. Around 15 minutes is all it takes, but in those 15 minutes sleep patterns are disturbed and for some people this means a great deal of difficulty going back to sleep.

Not me it seems. Since I was a little child I had been able to get back to sleep regardless of the circumstances quite easily. Illness does not seem to have robbed me of facility. Alas my partner is not similarly well endowed.

A few hours later, I gingerly lift the covers, get out of bed and tiptoe into my study, here I can get on with the job of early morning blog writing. There are days like today when this is simply an onerous task. My voice is not really behaving, so the new Dragon Direct dictation package is not working as well as advertised. This means a considerable amount of annoyance as I try to cope with the lack of functionality that my voice provides for this exceptional program.

Still, life is short and is no sense in complaining about things that I can't do anything about. So I will stop complaining right here and move on to more interesting news about cancer and its consequences.

As some of my readers may have become aware, I have lost the use of my right hand this has had some rather interesting side-effects.

I am no longer able to drive. Bleeding obvious you would say and I would agree with you. What you may not have thought about is what happens to a driver's licence in the circumstances. In my case, my driver's license is also proof of identity that I use when I need to. Since I can no longer drive and since this licence has now expired, what can I use instead? Obviously the thought of carrying about a passport is among the possible answers, but not one that I favour. So what else is around?

To get the answers to these questions, I visited an ACT shopfront. When I explained to the young assistant who was there at the counter what my problem was, she was immediately extremely helpful and told me that there was a card available with photograph. I was overjoyed, I mean, an identity card with photograph, what more could I ask for? I sat down at the little cubicle where my photograph was to be taken and waited patiently while the procedures behind the scenes were being taken care of. The camera was set up, I was told to move and squiggle until everything was just right and then snap my photograph was taken.

I was called back to the counter and I was presented with the documentation that needed completion.

Among the items that had to be filled in by me was my signature. I confessed at this point that I was unable to do this because my right hand was no longer functional. This is where the problem started. It became painfully obvious that I could not get a card unless I was able to sign the document from which the signature would be copied onto the card. Of course if I could not sign the document then I could not have the card.

We danced around this little point for some time with me suggesting that the organisation must have come across the problem of people being unable to sign for one reason or another before, in which case what was the parallel process? The young government assistant was unaware of any procedure and called over a supervisor. This is an exceptionally good practice, alas the supervisor did not know either. A call for assistance went out across the office, this was only slightly embarrassing as of course it meant that everybody in the office knew my business, customers and staff alike. Not wishing to have a slight matter like my privacy hold up proceedings I went along with this to no avail. Finally, with an attitude that the customer is always right, I dared to suggest that perhaps a left-handed signature might fit the bill in this case.

Since no one else seemed to be able to come up with a better idea my notion of a left-handed signature was accepted. I then suggested that someone write a note on the documentation concerned that evidenced that while the signature was different from my previous signature this was because I had lost the use of my right hand and had to use my left hand on this occasion. The staff were horrified, there was no precedent for such a thing being done and there was no space on the paper for this purpose.

As I was becoming a circus by this stage, I decided to leave well enough alone and took my new identity card with my photograph and left-handed signature and was about to leave when noted what the card was called. It was called a "Proof of Age Card" and I was informed with a smile that this was actually known as a "pub card" by it's usual holders as it provided young people with the ability to prove that they were of the age when they could go into a pub and order an alcoholic beverage.

Naturally I was delighted with this information and just looked at my nearly 60-year-old face on the photograph and had some thoughts that I decided not to blurt out into public speech in a public place.

Several days later, when I had actually enjoyed my 60th birthday I happened to be in the library in Woden next door to the ACT Shopfront. It occurred to me that I had never acquired a library card in the ACT.

I went up to the counter and asked what I would need to do to obtain a library card. I was told I needed some proof of identity and after that I would simply have a form filled in for me and get my card. Beautiful, I thought, I handed over my recently acquired identity document and I was told that it was inadequate, naturally I asked why. I was told that it did not have my address on it. I then produced my now no longer valid drivers license and the address was taken from this document and I was given a library card. This requires the name and a signature on the card. I did my best with my left hand and it was noted that there was a difference between the signature on the card and my driver's license. I explained about my illness I explained about my operations I explained about the loss of use of my right hand and showed the librarian my proof of age card. She smiled at this strange and somewhat embarrassed creature standing at the counter. I grasped my library card and hoping that I still had some dignity I started to leave. Halfway to the door I remembered another request and reluctantly turned back to the staff who I suspect were still trying to stifle their laughter at my situation. I asked where I could obtain a Seniors Card as I had now reached the august age of 60. " Right here," was the response, so once again we went through the song and dance about my name, my address, and my age, but this time there was no longer a problem about my signature, because we had just been through all that.

I wonder if there is anyone else out there who has the problem of being unable to sign documents because they have lost the use of their right-hand and where they are having to rely upon a right handed signature as the only proof of identity that they have got until they can get new identity documentation. If there are, I would like to hear from you to find out how you resolved your issues and what if anything the government has done for people like us. If the answer is nothing, as I suspect it will be, then I wonder if the Health Care Consumers Association is the right organisation to consult with as a means of getting some action taken by government to help those in similar circumstances.

I appreciated the assistance that I was given, I have no complaint to make about the service that was provided to me, indeed in hind sight, I too would probably have been amused by someone in my circumstances seeking assistance. It really is a bit daft that there is no identity card available which has a person's photograph name and address and date of birth on it so that this can be used in the thousands of different situations when proof of identity is required.

Over to you Health Care Consumers Association, what can you do for me and no doubt the thousands of others like me?