Box-ticking twats

This may come as a shock to some of you but doctors don’t always tell the truth. Now I’m not suggesting that they go out of their way to deliver malicious falsehoods, but sometimes they don’t always tell you everything about your condition or how long it might take to put right.

Some of these lightweight porkies can be attributed to the fact that medicine is as much an art as a science. Everyone’s body heals at different speeds and mine just happens to be stuck in first gear with a gearbox full of sawdust.

It would appear that my four to six weeks in traction has now been extended to a minimum of eight weeks. This is getting dangerously close to Christmas and certainly means I’ll be celebrating my 48th birthday on my back without the benefit of alcohol or a meal at a nice restaurant.

However, every cloud has a silver lining and in this instance my silver lining involves putting two fingers up to the Department of Work and Pensions. The department’s website describes itself as ‘a large organisation’; I’d like them to add the words ‘useless, incompetent and vindictive’ to that description.

When I was first taken ill, I reluctantly agreed to apply for something called Disability Living Allowance. This is a laughably small sum of money supposed to help you with mobility and care costs. The most severely disabled person – such as a blind quadriplegic with brain damage – might be eligible for the maximum payment of £60. You see, I told you it was a trifling sum. But without work, and in the words of the great god Tesco' every little helps.

I duly filled in my 120-page form detailing my bowel and bladder habits along with a host of other deeply personal and totally irrelevant questions and sent the form off fully expecting to receive a cheque by return.

Eleven weeks later I did receive an envelope from the DWP. Unfortunately there was no cheque enclosed. Instead there was a letter telling me that I wasn’t entitled to any allowance as in the DWP’s view I would be better by November 6th. Brilliant. Why do we bother with doctors when some shiny arsed keyboard jockey of a civil servant already knows the exact date of my recovery?

I wrote back to DWP and told them they had got it wrong and suggested they try contacting my doctors.  Eleven weeks later they wrote back and said that I couldn’t have any money as they were still convinced I would be better on or by November 6th since they'd obviously looked up my condition in their I-Spy book of diseases.

I genuinely think that ‘fuckwit’ is too kind a description for these box-ticking apes who hold such power over my life. Did they come to visit me and see how ill I was? Of course they didn’t. Clearly they’re all bloody clairvoyants and medical geniuses.

I have now appealed (well begged, actually) for my charitable hand out and I’m told it will be another eleven weeks before they can get round to sending me a letter telling me to fuck off again.

Please excuse my lamentably bad language but I’m sick to death of the ridiculous series of nonsensical hoops that these sadists are making me jump through. Where are all these benefit cheats? Do you think I could get one to help me fill in my next form?