What makes you feel worse than being told you're dying?

As you probably all know by now, the doctors told me I probably only had about a year to live. That was back in September last year. Like me, you probably can't imagine how you will feel in a situation like that and you go through a whole gamut of emotions as does your loved ones and in the end you feel all sorts of emotions particularly anger and frustration and so on but then you deal with it and get on with life.

Well today I learned that there is even something worse than being told you are going to die...... It's that moment when you realise that you have lost your frigging wallet which contains your whole life, practically. Bank debit and credit cards, cash, the lottery tickets you have just purchased and are probably winning ones at that, medical prescription cards, photos of the Grand Children, etc, driving licence paper and photo .....

Shit, shit and double shit your whole life starts to unravel especially as you suddenly realise also that for the first time in your life you actually have money in the bank and what happens if some 'clued up nefarious' person has gotten hold of it and manages to rob you of what you have before you get a chance to cancel all of the cards, shit, shit and double shit again.....

And of course the financial institutions while trying to be helpful, I suppose, add to your growing anger at yourself and frustration by being complete arseholes when trying to report it.

Both Barclays and Santander make you pay for the call MBNA you get a free call. You get through to the first two and it is an automated message put in your credit or debit card details, you ain't got them to hand, "say you don't have it". "I don't have it". "We'll put you through to an agent". And you are duly put through to a Barclays agent who is a foreigner, but only after we get a long automated message ....... I want to report my lost fucking card I don't want to hear you are regulated by the fucking financial services authority, and then when Mr non speaking first language English gets on, even when you spell your details phonetically, he still doesn't understand you ... As Penny would say (well maybe not a correct quote, but close enough) 'Holly Crap on a Fucking Cracker', what is wrong with you people, I want to report my lost bank card that I was stupid enough to be careless with, give me someone who can understand me and get rid of the automated crap WHEN REPORTING A LOST CARD, is it too much to ask for, I think not.

Santander was just as bad with the automated message, what is it with financial institutions, when you press the option to report a lost card SURELY this is an urgent call and you should be put through to a PERSON IMMEDIATELY and a person who speaks the same language as you, but maybe in my own anger directed at myself I am being too critical? MBNA, which I consider to be the worst of my credit cards at least give you a free number to phone and there is only a short message before being put through, no details no problem, a couple of security questions and you are done with a new card on the way, so that was better. Except the other three card providers say I can continue to use my pin number but MBNA issue a new one, ah well, can't have everything.

And then you phone the police in the vain hope that someone has found it and handed it in... You have to phone Essex Police cos your local station only works part time and Sunday is not a working day for the local South Ockendon station. Having said that, the young lady at Grays was most solicitous taking my details with the minimum of fuss and my number in case it was handed in, reminding me to call my bank and credit card companies to immediately cancel the cards, bless her.

Then, having done all that but still in panic mode: A loud knock on he door and standing on the door step is a smiling young Essex policeman with wallet in hand. Some lady has just handed it to home outside the local closed station..........

Can you check the contents: Credit and bank cards, check, in fact everything was there, including the new lottery tickets, except for the £40.00 in cash. To describe my relief as ecstatic, would be an understatement. Even with the missing cash and now having to wait a few days for replacement cards it was still a huge relief and I do not begrudge the finders fee being removed unilaterally, as I would gladly have paid anyway, maybe not £40 but certainly £20 but I am not going to quibble over that.

Needless to say it has thrown my routine out a bit for the day, but like death, which I am still avoiding like the plague, I live to fight another day, week, month or year or years, and although this is only the second time in my life where I have lost my wallet, the first time was on the Maid of The Loch on Loch Lomond, on a school outing when I was about 14, so there was really nothing in it back then and I certainly never gave it another thought, I shall be much more careful next time. And the thing is that it must only have been a few minutes between losing it and realising I had done so, when I rushed back into the shop in a panic, that someone has picked it up and walked out with it.

Life goes on and I suppose I should be grateful I lost it here and not in Spain last week.....