Dembe

I don't write about Dembe all that often on this blog, mainly because he has his own blog. However this last week has been a roller coaster of emotions. I always try to share as much as possible with my readers ( and thank you for reading!) whilst holding back a little so I have some privacy. Dembe is a huge part of my life and is my baby boy. So you can imagine the emotional turmoil I was in when he had to go to the vets all day. It has had a knock on impact with my health, leaving me exhausted, several migraines and generally feeling well below my usual level of shittiness.

 On Wednesday last week ( 29th September ) Dembe had to go to the vets for the day to have some X-rays taken of his front legs. Dembe has had an intermittent limp for a few months this year and conservative measures of rest and pain relief were just not working. He was also showing signs of being stiff when he got up after being laid down for a while. All things we should not be seeing in a dog that isn't even three yet.

Dembe had to have both legs x-rayed, 3 different positions for each one and to do this he would need to have a general anaesthetic. We really didn't want him to have to under go a G.A but we had done all we could and we needed to know what was going on with him and that he wasn't in pain.

Mr Myasthenia Kid dropped him off at the vets at 08.30am and so began the longest day of our lives. We were told that we should hear something by 2pm and that if we hadn't we should give them a ring. Jay caved at 13.50 as he needed to know Dembe was ok. We found out that he was fine and that he had been out for a little walk and  had been to the toilet. We were told the vet should ring us back in an hours or so.

The vet rang back around 90 minutes later and if it was actually possible those 90 minutes seemed longer than the whole of the rest of the day. Sadly she told us that Dembe has bilateral ( both legs ) Elbow Dysplasia, - you can find out more about ED here. The vet told us that his left leg is more badly affected than his right. However both legs are only showing very subtle changes on the x-rays. The  x-rays will be sent to an orthopaedic specialist who will provide us with their expert opinion.  The good news was that there were no bone fragments floating around the joint, so he wouldn't need any immediate surgery. As the condition was discovered early treatment will be conservative management, getting his weight down, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy. He will adore hydrotherapy as he is a water baby, as any self respecting Labrador is!

I have never been so glad to see my baby boy in all my life. He really wasn't with it when I saw him walking down the car park. Everyone kept telling us what a lovely boy he is and they thought it was so sweet that he had come down with his blue dinosaur. The vet nurse talked us through after care and said he would probably be out of sorts for 24-48 hours. She also told us that there was a risk of him having diarrhoea as that was a side effect of one of the medications he had been given. They had also given Dembe's nails a trim. She said that he doesn't like his legs or feet being touched, I said no doing his nails is a two person job! 

When we got home I said to Jay do you think he wants to go around the block but Dembe made it clear that he didn't want to by going straight into the house and jumping on the sofa with his carrot.

 

Our little space cadet was really out of it.

Dembe had a really awful time after the general anaesthetic. He cried solidly for 24-36 hours, only stopping when he slept, briefly! Or when he was eating or out for a walk. He had awful diarrhoea as a side effect of the medication he had been given. As he won't go to the toilet in the garden this meant Dembe had to be taken around the block frequently. Poor Jay was out at 9pm, 10.30pm, 1.30am, 2.30am and 5am on top of the frequent trips around the block during the day.

The crying went on through most of Thursday, just a little whimper constantly. It was clear looking at him that he still wasn't fully out of the G.A. His eyes were like saucers. I was very relieved when his natural treat box arrived and he was very interested in it. The chewing broke up the crying.

 He had a huge hairy cows ear to chomp on and that cheered him up.

He was so sad and pitiful it was heartbreaking that we couldn't comfort him. The first time he was really happy and started looking more like himself was when he had a present delivered from his Auntie Beverley. She had sent our beautiful boy a Turtle toy. He wagged his tail like mad and was so happy he paraded it around the bedroom!

That was the first time we saw a glimmer of the Dembe we know and love since he had come home from the vets.

 

He was still having diarrhoea on Thursday during the day so I had to ring the vets and get him some stuff to soothe his belly. The vets advised us that it might take 24-48 hours to resolve.

Dembe was a lot better Friday still a bit whingey but we had longer spells between cries and he spent an awful lot of time sleeping.

As you can see from the photos his eyes are totally different and he is fully present.

By Saturday he was completely back to normal!

Yesterday (5th October) our vet rang us to give us the details of the report the Ortho Specialist had written. The specialist concurred with our vet, that Dembe does have bilateral Elbow Dysplasia. We were given 3 options 1) CT scan to provide  more detailed images and then from what they show form a plan, this would involve another general anaesthetic, 2) Open up both elbow joints - arthroscopy have a look inside with a camera and see what is going on, obviously this involves another general anaesthetic, 3) manage conservatively with hydrotherapy & Physiotherapy using pain relief when needed. Mr Myasthenia Kid and I had already discussed this at length before we saw how Dembe recovered from anaesthesia and had decided on avoiding surgery if both vets concurred that the joint is showing subtle changes, which they did.

The vet talked me through the things that we can do at home, so any slippery floors need to be covered up as much as possible with rugs. Well all our downstairs rooms are laminate flooring, I had already ordered some runners to cover large sections of the floor to stop him slipping. Upstairs the bathroom and Mr Myasthenia Kids bedroom are also laminate flooring, so I will need to get a small rug for the doorway in Jays room. The bathroom already has bath mats down. So we were ahead of the vet with actions we could take, as we were with the next few suggestions.

The vet told us to start him on joint supplements, we started him on Golden Paste last week. I made up a batch for him and he is really enjoying it. I have also got coming some green lipped muscle extract and some salmon oil. Both highly rated as supplements for dogs with joint problems. I just hope I can get him to take them! He is such a fussy animal.

We also need to get his weight down to the skinnier side of normal as this will put less strain on his legs. So we are actively trying to get his weight down, going on how he looks rather than weighing him at the vets.

Exercise, he can no longer have professional dog walks. He can no longer walk for longer than 25 minutes at a time, during that time he can't chase after a ball or play with other dogs both activities he loves because we can't risk a fracture of the elbow or making his joints worse. I am so sad for him, I can't lie I hid in the bathroom last night for a bit and just cried and cried.

Dembe has been referred for Hydrotherapy so we are awaiting the physiotherapist to get in contact with us. This will be used to strengthen the muscles around his joints and protect them in the long term.

So last week was very full on with all the stress surrounding Dembe and what they would find in the X-rays. Dembe has been very clingy since he was in the vets for the day. But he is walking much better and is no longer as stiff as he was getting up from a lying position, that makes us happier with the decision we have made regarding conservative management.

Confidence

 I'm a bit calmer than I was last week and I have managed to carve out some time for myself to enjoy my creative pursuits. Which always puts me in a better frame of mind because it makes me feel like I have actually achieved something. I have struggled since being ill-health retired to feel that I make a valuable contribution to society. People always ask "what do you do for work?" or "D why Io you work?" and it is a real conversation stopper when you have to say "no I have been ill-health retired since 2008". My disability is pretty much invisible or not well understood by others, so even when I rock up in my mobility scooter or wheelchair people don't understand why I would need to use these.

I have in the past had family members that don't get the fact that I am in pain every day and that is all I have ever known. I don't tend to say much about it because well quite frankly talking about it bores me, so if it bores me what does it do for the other people? I am quite private which seems weird when I write a blog every week. There are very few people I am 100% honest with when I talk about how I am feeling at any given time. I learned from an early age that complaining about pain meant you weren't believed or were accused of being a hypochondriac and that was by people who should have known better as their job was to nurture and protect me. Plus as I grew up I made the mistake of being honest with people when I was in pain and it was used against me and I was told I was draining to be around. I know now that the woman I was dealing with, who was also my boss was a sociopath and completely incapable of  empathy towards me and even her own family. At the time though in my 20's her attitude was very damaging and stopped me taking care of myself when I was quite seriously ill for fear of being judged by her. When working in a close environment as I was and at her mercy, I was completely paralysed with fear. These days I don't put up with that kind of treatment but it has taken me a long time to get to this point.

Leaving work was hugely damaging for my mental health, even though the previous two years working had been extremely damaging also, when I was with a team that refused to acknowledge my physical limitations and I was treated like a burden. My card had been marked, my face no longer fitted and the senior team decided that I was going to be worked out. I desperately hung on making myself sicker and weaker until I collapsed and there was nothing left in the tank. I was admitted to hospital and slept for 48 hours solid, only waking for the bathroom and something to eat. I was burnt out by it all, physically and mentally destroyed, it took me a very long time to claw my way back and realise that despite not working I was contributing to society in my own way.

This is why sewing, machine embroidery, crochet have all become so important to me. They have been an outlet for my creativity that had been stifled for so long after being led to believe I was academic and not creative. I had no confidence at all when it came to being creative. I taught myself how to sew on my sewing machine, my embroidery machine and I then two years later taught myself to crochet. Due to being pretty much housebound and obviously numerous lock downs with Covid 19, Youtube, magazines and books have been my teachers. I do find I am a visual learner however many of these videos assume a level of experience I don't possess. So when it came to sewing I threw away the rule book, warp and weft meant absolutely nothing to me and nor did cutting fabric on the bias. Mostly I have got away with throwing away the rule book. I did the same with leaning how to use an embroidery machine, I embroidered designs on fabric that the book and many fellow embroiderers would have said wasn't going to cope with a dense design. I taught myself ways of getting the fabric to behave the way I wanted and have shared what I have learned with newbies. I make mistakes, of course I do. The number of times I have managed to catch a fabric underneath the embroidery hoop and rendered what I have just spent an hour on useless. I have many towels with half designs on where I failed to secure it properly in the hoop and the design has drifted from the outline. I like perfection when I embroider and sew and it is hard for me to accept anything less. Even though I know perfection doesn't exist.

My creative outlet hasn't just filled a void in the respect that it has given me something to do, it also challenges me and demands that I find solutions to problems. It uses my brain in a way that I haven't done since I stopped working, which is both exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure. So it was weird this year when suddenly I became anxious about using my embroidery machine and my ability to sew. It happened out of the blue, suddenly and unexpectedly I was too frightened to sew. Something I have adored since I started back in 2017. It meant projects were started and left semi completed for months at a time. My sewing area suddenly fell silent and gathered dust. I wanted to sew I really did but I couldn't focus long enough to do it or feel confident enough to. 

This year has been a tumultuous year with Jay's father passing away, me making a drastic change so that I walked away from those who were causing me harm and stifling my personal growth. There are also countless other things going on and I think the fear of sewing / embroidery was just a symptom of the mental anguish I was in. Eventually it got to the point where I had to use my machines as I needed to make a gift for a friend and I also needed to replace a wall hanging that I had managed to dye pink and nothing could be done to rescue it. In the end I just had to put my big girl pants on and take the plunge. I pushed myself well and truly outside my comfort zone, tackling projects I had always put off due to my lack of skill. I proved to myself I could do it and needed to stop listening to the negative voices in my head that had held me back my whole life.

I am rather thrilled with what I have created, it is still a work in progress and there are still days I have to force myself to get the courage to use my machines. Like the book says " I feel the fear and do it anyway".

All the fabric apart from the balck background fabric is Liberty. The patterns I got from www.womabtquilts.com - spinning compass points ( the central design) and the Flying Geese ( the triangles) are from www.forestquilting.com. Both patterns were free and just needed to be printed off. It is a technique called foundation paper piecing a technique which I have done only a around 3 times before attempting this piece and now I am completely converted to it. The reverse of my wall hanging looked like this,

I had great fun removing the papers although it did make a bit of a mess! 

Dembe was very curious

As I said it is still a work in progress and if I am well enough over the next few days I will be attempting to finish it.

My anxiety / confidence will always be an issue, I know now that sometimes you do have to fake it until you make it, pushing yourself to do the stuff you don't feel comfortable with as by running away from it makes it a much larger issue.

Holiday

 As hubby is on a weeks holiday from work I shall just leave you with this video of Dembe having a swim on Woodbury Common this week. He loves having a swim. Jay takes videos as I can't be there to see him swimming.

Post bank holiday

As it has been a bank holiday here this week in the UK I have only just remembered that I needed to write a blog post for Thursday....it is Wednesday at 4pm.

Over the bank holiday Jay came down with a virus ( not Covid ) - throat like he had swallowed a packet of razor blades, aching and full of cold and in the spirit of wedded bliss he has given it to me. Whilst he is now well on the road to recovery I am 4 days behind him. So the day where he spent most of it asleep, I am keeping a two year old Labrador occupied whilst he waits for his dad to come back for his dinner break to walk him as due to schedule conflicts / accident not one but two dog walker's have let us down. It is just one of those things and it can't be helped. It is just the day I needed a knackered pup more than most I wont have one and I feel so awful I could just cry!

 I can update you on the car front we have a new set of wheels, which Jay collected last Tuesday. I have been taking HRT since 20th August and haven't had a migraine since taking it. Which feels very strange after having three a week. This is the longest amount of time since May that I have gone without a migraine and that was just 10 days. I dont want to jinx myself but bloody hell, I haven't missed them at all.

I can't say I am surprised that both Jay and I have been hit by a virus with all the stress we have been under sorting out getting a car, dealing with the insurance, solicitors etc. It was going to come out one way or another. The only good thing is that I have lost my appetite which I have to say rarely happens.

Over the bank holiday weekend I got some crochet done and have manged little bits here and there over the weekend. I have to be careful due to the injury to my neck caused by the crash and not upsetting the nerves which make my hand go numb. I have a physio appointment scheduled for next week.

HRT

 Good god I feel old, as of last Thursday night, I started HRT ( Hormone replacement therapy). I was put on it for a number of reasons but the main one was an attempt to get a handle on my migraines that have just spiralled out of control since March this year. Leaving me some weeks having 3 a week. I was feeling permanently exhausted by it all, some of it was the migraine hangover and the rest was the Sumatriptan that although stops the migraine in its tracks leaves me feeling drowsy for the next 24 hours.

I'm not the youngest person to be put on HRT, I know people who have been placed on it since their 30's due to premature menopause or surgical menopause ( post hysterectomy ) but I am a good 5 years below the national average of the onset of menopause which is 51 in the UK. So whilst I am 46 and amongst the first in my friendship groups to be placed on it, it is making me having to deal with the fact that the first flush of youth is well and truly over. Middle age is upon me and it is making me feel sad. 

The sadness has nothing to do with my fertility being over, that isn't something that has bothered me. Although I can understand why some women would be upset by this especially those who have entered menopause early before they had the opportunity to have children. I am lucky I don't feel robbed by it, just relief as my periods were just so painful they would dominate 14 days out of the month. I would get cramps up to 7 days before my period began along with tremendous amounts of water retention, I would have period pain for the whole time I bled and it would be at the same intense level throughout. The pains when I had them were so strong I could time the contractions of my womb ( one of the many reasons why I don't have children as if periods hurt that much the pain of having a child would kill me, no word of exaggeration). Having periods made me feel like a prisoner in my own body. I had asked repeated doctors to let me have a hysterectomy, all they would ever say was no because I hadn't had children yet. The best thing that ever happened to me was being put on the contraceptive pill cerazette which stopped my periods completely. I was no longer dictated to by my monthly cycle.

Since 2016 I have endured ever increasing peri-menopausal / menopausal symptoms. I started sweating really heavily at the slightest physical exertion after not really being a sweaty person. I noticed my natural body odour change as well and became paranoid that I smelled, despite Mr Myasthenia Kid and countless friends telling me it wasn't the case. Then out of no where I was hit with crippling anxiety. I have always been an anxious person but this was off the charts, like nothing I could fully explain. I felt like there was a tight ball of barbed wire in my chest and I carried it with me everywhere. I had a constant feeling of my heart skipping a beat in fear. Due to the level of bereavements we went through in a short period of time I put the ever increasing anxiety levels down to a response to the grief. My life felt like it was spiralling out of control. It wasn't uncommon for me to wake up at 1-2am in a full blown panic attack with absolutely no idea what I was panicking about. 

I would find myself in a cycle of  very unhealthy catastrophising thought patterns. I never looked for the silver lining only the absolute worse case scenario. I spent the first year of Dembe's life worrying constantly that he would die. There was no indication that this was going to happen, it was just a constant thought in my mind. I worried about him constantly. The worst thing was I couldn't share my fear because I was concerned that people would think I was deliberately trying to harm him or that I was just plain weird. It was a very lonely place to be and I feel like I missed out so much of that first year due to this irrational fear. I put my fear down to Travis, our first dog becoming sick at 6 months old and passing away just before his 3rd birthday. I also reasoned out losing Frankie and Mollie in quick succession had just made me hyper-vigilant and that it would pass. I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night just to check he was still breathing.

Carrying that level of anxiety day in, day out is exhausting. Especially when it is yours alone to bear.  That is why I can't get over the fact that with just a few doses of HRT (4 so far, I am writing this on Monday morning) that ball of barbed wire in my chest has gone. I have lost that feeling of everything being out of my control. My anxiety hasn't gone completely, I think I will always have some level of anxiety as that is who I am . I would be anxious if I didn't have anxiety! I am feeling much more relaxed and even Mr Myasthenia Kid has said there is a glow about me, something he hasn't seen for a very long time. He said the look of worry has gone from my face and I am back to being like the old me.

HRT hasn't been without side effects, had I known that one of them would be rampant diarrhoea - and I mean the time when it sounds like you have taken a piss out of your ass ( sorry if that is TMI but really I have been writing this blog for 12 years if you are only just offended where have you been?)I would not have started it on Thursday night when I was going to be travelling with Jay and Dembe to look at cars, with at least two 90 minute journeys. Thankfully I woke up at 5am so I could take many doses of imodium ( 8 tablets I ended up taking that day) to stop everything I had eaten form 1973 on-wards pouring out of me. Thankfully after the first day this side effect stopped. I had reached out on social media and asked if anyone else had suffered this side effect and a few people had. I also googled it and found that I wasn't alone with this symptom. Thankfully it did settle down after Friday and I have been fine since.

After the first dose I immediately felt different - well the next morning. Normally Fridays trip out to buy a car would have had me awake all night and feeling anxious and I felt none of those things. I felt reasonably relaxed and happy. Again another feeling I hadn't felt in a while, happiness. Whilst I hadn't been depressed, it was more like a feeling of being low / blue every day, I just felt more in the moment instead of caught up in my head . I even found myself singing which is something I haven't done a lot of for many years. For a couple of years I have felt like an imposter going through the motions of my life, now I feel like it is me. I am not having to pretend I am happy or that inside that I am not a simmering pot of anxiety and rage. Rage has been another symptom I have suffered from. I could and would just explode over the smallest of things.

I am still crying at the drop of a hat which winds me up no end. I only have to watch a slightly sentimental advert and the tears are rolling down my face. I have got into the Canadian series Heartland ( about a horse whisperer, her family and a horse ranch). I watch it most nights before i go to sleep as it is on Netflix and there are 13 seasons. I haven't watched an episode yet without crying at something. I seem to be lasting longer before the tears start, I am hoping that as my body gets used to the HRT * which could take up to 12 weeks, these tears will stop.

I am yet to know if the HRT will make any difference to my migraines, I woke up with one on Friday for the first time in ages. Normally I have been having them start in the afternoon with a classic aura. It could take up to 12 weeks for it to reduce  / stop my migraines. It could also not do anything at all, which means I may have to try different types of HRT to find the optimal one. I really am keeping everything crossed that at the very least my migraines are reduced if not stopped as the last 5 months have been very tough with so many days lost to them.

The hot flushes I was having have also reduced in severity since starting HRT 4 days ago. My hot flushes tend to go in cycles, sometimes they are awful every 20 minutes all day every day to the point my clothes are soaked through and I have to go and change. Filled with the paranoia that I am stinking of B.O due to the level of sweating. It got to the point this summer that I gave up drying my hair. There was just no point as the heat from the hairdryer and straightening irons would have me sweat so profusely that I would have to wait an hour to cool down before I could get dressed. I couldn't apply make up ( on the rare occasions I wore it) as it would just be sliding off my face due to the sweat running down in. When the flushes were at there worst it would leave me feeling dirty and down because I had no control over what was happening to my body despite using supplements such as red clover, sage, black cohosh, royal jelly etc.

This severe sweating cycle would then out of the blue just stop sometimes after months, sometimes after weeks. I would be able to dry my hair and only have to dab my face a few times. I would have possibly two flushes a day and the menopause would be back to feeling manageable. It was the never knowing day to day what the menopause would bring that would leave me feeling stressed.

4 days into HRT and the sweating / hot flushes are reducing massively. I haven't had to change my t shirt 15 minutes after first putting it on because I had armpit rings - something I have never suffered with even when I was well and would go to the gym. If it stops these or just reduces the hot flushes to the point where a tissue will dab the beads of sweat off my face I can live with that after the summer I have just been through.

Just 4 doses in and I can understand why some women say that HRT is a miracle drug and has given them their lives back. Until I started 4 days ago I really didn't realise how much of my life had been lost to the menopause over the last few years.

Oh and we did get a car on Friday and the plan is that we will pick it up tomorrow ( Tuesday 25th August 2020).

Car Accident

 It goes on and on, we are still waiting to hear from the insurance company whether or not the car is a write off. Unofficially the garage has told us they believe it is but it is all in the hands of the insurance company. With Covid many of their workforce are still working from home, so everything is taking far longer than it should. It is frustrating when some of us are already back to a semi normal - as in hubby is back at work and has been for a while. The stupid thing is for every day that the car is at the garage with nothing happening the insurance company will be getting billed. Same for the hire car we have been provided with. It would be in the companies financial interest to make this process go as quickly as possible but instead it feels like we are constantly walking through treacle. I really don't cope well with uncertainty. Not having a car, not being able to look at cars, as there is no point until we have a decision makes my anxiety go up through the roof. Plus with not working I am stuck at home all day with no real distraction from it, fielding the phone calls from the Police who are now involved, thankfully not about us but the other driver and the insurance company as and when they don't hide behind the data protection act, like they did this morning......when it has been me that has been injured and they wanted to talk to Mr Myasthenia Kid about it. You couldn't make it up.

I am still in pain from my injuries, my left arm constantly has pins and needles. Previous when I have had a trapped nerve in my neck the pins and needles would start usually when I was sat at the sewing machine. That healed and I hadn't had any issues for quite a while, since the crash I get no respite at all from the weird feelings in my arm that cover the whole of my shoulder joint, go all the way down my arm and into my fingers. It is incredibly annoying, I scratch the back of my hand a lot because the feeling can be like an itchy burning pain. I have had to stop though as all I do is rip the skin and it doesn't stop the feeling it just intensifies it. I also still can't turn my head properly, so I struggle to look behind me or turn my head to either side. Which isn't great when I am using my mobility scooter, well it isn't safe. So that is now also off limits for the moment.

What has surprised me most is the low mood, it has come out of nowhere. I am guessing it stems from the feeling of things being totally out of control, being in pain and just the turmoil this accident has created. I just don't want to do anything at all, then I feel guilty for not wanting to do anything. It is crazy, doing anything I would normally do is causing me pain or for the pins and needles to intensify so it takes away the desire to do anything. Which then leaves me with no distractions at all so I fall down the car accident rabbit hole and find stuff to obsess about and worry about. 

I hate all this adulting stuff. I am envious of Jay as for 9 hours a day he gets to forget about the accident and do his job. It is with me 24/7, with no escape and idiots on social media telling me that I don't need to worry that the car insurance will pay for a new car. Having already had one car written off nine years ago I know that these people mean well but are living in la la land. The insurance won't pay out what it would cost to replace like for like. They will give us a pay out that could be £500-£1000 short of what we would need to replace like for like. That is why you can get gap insurance when you buy a car, it covers the gap that the insurance leaves because the insurance company only pays you blue book price or what a car dealership would pay for the car, not what they would charge you if you bought it. It is a bloody racket with the consumer losing out all the time.

There is also the additional complication that many car dealers just aren't open or they are appointment only due to Covid. So it isn't like we can just have a mooch around and look at cars either. Another one of the joys of having a car accident during lock-down! what fun it is.

I'm so sorry that this post isn't all rainbows and roses but I have always tried to be honest when writing this and I am feeling really down about it all. I can't pretend otherwise.

Thankfully Dembe is fine if not a little clingy, he seems happier in the car again now after being a little stressed last week. Jay is having problems sleeping, quite often I hear him rattling around in the middle of the night. He is also having anger issues and is on a ridiculously short fuse. People may say it is only a hunk of metal and that would be the case if it hadn't caused all these other issues. Jay is feeling bad because he couldn't protect me from being injured and he couldn't stop Dembe being exposed to a car accident. Is it any wonder he has been impacted psychologically. When I do manage to sleep I am having the weirdest dreams, again all stemming from the accident.

In the week since the accident we have had a handmade lampshade delivered where the fabric has been used the wrong way up, my hair straighteners have gone bang - great in the current weather as I am now a frizzy mess, my big toe nail on my left toe has decided to peel off out of the blue. The only good thing is that my gp has agreed to me having HRT in an attempt to stop my migraines and the awful vasomotor symptoms I am having due to the menopause.

Before the crash we had bought a lazy spa , that was delivered with a European 2 pin plug which isn't very good when we use a 3 pin plug in the UK and an adaptor wouldn't be safe. So I have also been having to sort out a refund from Amazon who are saying it could be 6 weeks. So I could do with a change in my luck currently. It is about time the universe found someone else to pick on!

Bugger!

Well I didn't think I could hate 2020 anymore than I did last week and bugger me it had some more treats in store for me. Sometimes even I find it hard to believe the stunts my body pulls.

I managed to have my first migraine with a proper full blown aura in 6 years on Friday morning which takes some beating. I was reading the newspaper online when I became aware of the fact that my left eye was struggling to see the words on the screen, in fact words were missing and the screen seemed ultra bright. I knew straight away that it was probably a migraine but I thought, it has been so long. Maybe it is the sun shining through the window hitting the screen and that's why I can't see? I struggled on for a few more minutes the weird thing was when I was looking at the screen my vision was fine. Then I looked across at Mr Myasthenia Kid and half his face was missing. At that point there was no mistaking this was a good old fashioned migraine. The last one of this type I had on my 40th Birthday how's that for timing?

Hubby immediately sprang into action and got my migraine grab bag so I could take all my meds and then go back to bed. I absolutely hate the aura stage of a migraine which for me can last up to an hour before the headache begins. During that hour the visual disturbance just gets worse and worse, even with my eyes closed in a dark room. There is no escape from it and it leaves me feeling terribly disorientated. I am so grateful to have finally been prescribed sumatriptan, it is my wonder drug as it really does just halt the migraine in its tracks. Some days I feel as rough as a badgers arse, for those of you outside the UK this is what a badgers arse looks like. Other days I may feel a wee bit groggy but after a few hours I can do some bits and pieces and I am not totally wiping out a day. It really has been life changing. However the number of migraines I have been having lately has been averaging around 2 a week and I am heartily sick of having them. Of course it is now leading up to the window that always means migraine time the 18-22nd of each month. I am hoping ( god loves my optimism) that this month I wont get it but who knows? I have had more than my fair share these last 4 weeks.

So that was Friday, which was then followed by an eventful Saturday. About an hour after I got up on Saturday a nice bout of Vertigo started. The room did one spin every so often and when I walked / stumbled really anywhere it felt like I was on a boat. Thankfully I always have a stash of meds nearby for this and to be fair it has been quite a while since I had the spins. I sat down with a coffee and tried to relax and let the medication do its thing. After a while I was bored so I decided to go and sit out in the garden. Big mistake as I went arse over tit over a plant pot ( concrete ) that Mr Myasthenia Kid has so helpfully left in the middle of the patio. Had it been a normal day I may have been able to right myself but with vertigo? Not a fucking hope - apologies for the language today it is just happening. So I tumbled across the patio all the time trying to right myself without success. I realised at this point that I was going to end up crashing through the fence and falling 4ft down onto the patio in front of our shed if I didn't stop staggering, so with the fake turf on top of the gravel I aimed my dive onto that figuring it would hurt a lot less than landing on the gravel.

Gracefully I hit the deck and if you believe that, you will believe anything. Immediately I was in a world of pain, both wrists, my left shoulder, my left knee, my left buttock and all along the left side of my back.

The only reason I didn't scream obscenities out loud was because the neighbours children were playing in the garden and I didn't want to teach them anymore bad language than I had already. Most of it was aimed at Mr Myasthenia Kid for being so stupid as to leave a bloody plant pot right in front of the patio doors! When he knows my vision is a bit dodgy and I can lose the sight in one eye if my ptosis strikes and I can't open my right eye.

So all my plans of sewing etc went out the window. Instead I spent the day dosing myself up on pain killers and sitting on hot water bottles. My ankle blew up like a balloon, i had to take my slipper boots off because it got so large it was starting to feel constricted. I was bloody furious because I needn't have fallen and I hate feeling vulnerable like that. I forgot to say the minute I landed on the artificial grass Dembe came rushing over showering me in kisses checking I was ok. Initially he wouldn't let me get up until he had checked that I wasn't seriously hurt.

Sunday was spent doing crochet very slowly as my wrists were still throbbing from the fall and my left leg was elevated all day due to the swelling. I still hurt all over but at least nothing was broken. 

Thankfully the vertigo was gone by Sunday morning, my leak is still causing me problems. It is still there and some days the head pain is worse than ever. I am still attempting to pace myself by lying down every few hours but it is difficult when I get absorbed in something to remember to. I only remember when my head starts feeling like it is crushed in a vice and all screens seem to be burning the back of my retinas.

As I am the worlds worst person at pacing myself due to the fact that giving up work due to my disabilities has made me feel like I contribute nothing at all to society, I push myself constantly beyond what is sensible and then end up paying for my stupidity. I feel that everything I do has to be better than everyone else so that people don't feel sorry for me and that I don't look weak or vulnerable. The fact that the falls and faints have become much more regular occurrences is making me feel very vulnerable and it is doing a number on my mental health. I have always struggled with never ever feeling anything I do is good enough and probably also a bit of impostor syndrome (find out more here. ) People can tell me that what I have sewn or embroidered is the best thing ever, my blog could be awarded a Nobel prize for literature but I would still be waiting for one person to say that my work is shit. It is hard to live with the constant fear that people will discover that what you do is actually crap. Add in physical disabilities and you have a wonderful mixture of weird ideas running through your head, not only are you not good enough creatively but you can't even do the stuff normal people do. It makes you feel less than. Which is why I probably do push myself too hard to prove I am worthy of my place within society.

Word for this week is Bugger!

A lovely photo of Dembe to lift your spirits

Health update

After last weeks post Spondylolisthesis, my back improved massively. Just yesterday I was considering dropping taking the naproxen as it hadn't caused me any issues at all for a number of days, then I woke up this morning and bang the pain was back.

I have pushed through as much as I can today but I had to give up at 14.30 and take some diazepam. The muscles of my backside are really tight and sore. When they are like this it is a symptom of the Spondylolisthesis, it aches down the back of both my thighs and no position is comfortable. Standing feels like someone is kicking me in the arse, sitting makes my buttocks ache and I get severe pain in my coccyx. If I could lie down knowing that by doing so I wouldn't be woken up at 2am by my back throwing a tantrum I would. So at the moment my only relief is by having a hot water bottle applied to my back ( far too hot ) and regular changes in position which makes doing anything difficult because those changes need to be made every ten minutes or so.

If I knew why my back had kicked off so much today I would be happier, I didn't use my sewing or embroidery machines at all yesterday. We had a relatively lazy day but even in that we were moving around and I certainly wasn't static for hours at a time. Which I know does cause me issues, so I am at a loss. I have avoided all the things I am supposed to like lifting - can't do that anyway, staying static for too long. All I can think is that I have turned weirdly in my sleep and hyper-extended my spine and it is letting me know today that it didn't like it.

I have always found wherever possible distraction is the best possible thing to combat pain but some pain is just so strong that no amount of distraction can stop those nerve signals being acknowledged by your brain. That is why I like sewing / embroidery / crochet as it means I can distract myself most of the time but today it hasn't mattered what I have done those pain signals are just getting stronger and stronger. I am very glad that we now have a dog walker who takes Dembe out for an hour when Jay is on a late night as it means Dembe settles very quickly in the evening and I will be able to go to bed and attempt to get comfortable relatively early on tonight. Rather than Dembe needing mental stimulation for 90 minutes or so, to tire him out and get him to wind down for the day. 

Much of the last few days has also been spent on high alert as from now until the 23rd (ish) I am on migraine watch. This week of the month is usually when it strikes. Yesterday ( Tuesday) I was convinced it was going to be today as I was starving hungry all day with nothing satisfying me. I am still trying to work out what the signals are that I am going to end up having a migraine but there is nothing I can say is 100% concrete that is a definite clue that it is going to happen. I have noticed mood changes the day before, hunger and sometimes the evening before my vision goes a bit weird. However it doesn't happen on each one, which means sometimes these things happen, I get frightened because they have been so bad and then nothing. Which is exactly what happened last night. 

I am a few weeks into the Migraine Clinic protocol and they advise that you really need to have been doing it for around 3 months before you can say if it has had any effect on your migraines. You can find the protocol HERE. So it is too early to say at the moment, also I have been known to skip a months migraine and have it two weeks later so a cycle of 6 weeks rather than 4 weekly. That is the major issue I won't know when the next one is coming. I have worked out that dehydration is a trigger but it is a rare trigger as due to my excessive thirst I do tend to drink much more than the average person. The day in question when I did suffer a migraine it followed a day where I had been drinking alcohol from around 2pm in the afternoon (Cider at 4% so not the hard stuff). Because I didn't have any additional fluids I am pretty sure that is what triggered that one and I had to use my emergency meds. I was very grateful that I did have my grab bag made and everything in one place as it meant I could take the meds and get my head down.

I have been religiously taking my supplements and even managing to remember to take the midday dose of the one I have to take three times a day. A new alarm on my phone helps me remember!

As sitting is literally a massive pain in the butt and I am having to type this sitting down I am going to wrap this up now. Plus I took half a diazepam about an hour ago and that starts messing with concentration levels. Plus I want to tidy up a bit before Dembe gets back from his yomp on the common!

The best dog

One of my favourite sayings about dogs is,

Everyone thinks they have the best dog.

And none of them are wrong.

W.R Purche 

Dembe since coming home with us on 11th January 2019 has proven time and time again that he is not just the best dog but an exceptional dog. Highly intelligent and intuitive especially when it comes to matters of my health. It started when he was very tiny. He would some how know that I had a migraine and would lie quietly beside me with his face pressing against the side of my face that was hurting due to the migraine. He wouldn't leave my side unless dragged away. I just put it down to him being impossibly cute but there are so many instances over the last 12 months that have made me realise that his behaviour isn't just a fluke but something very real.

Around 3 weeks after we brought Dembe home I came down with a chest and sinus infection. I was floored by it, it was probably the closest I have come to feeling like I had the flu without having it in a few years. Dembe would have been around 10-11 weeks old and full of beans. Due to the fact we were still toilet training him I couldn't go to bed, I simply didn't have the energy to be going up and down the stairs every 30 minutes ( I couldn't have done that on a normal day let alone this). So I would lie on the sofa counting down the hours until Jay would be back home so that I could crawl into bed.

A pup of this age is normally a live wire, yes they sleep quite a bit but when they are awake they are into everything. Normally Dembe would have been, however he seemed to know that I was poorly. Instead of running around playing with his toys, for 4 days straight he would lie on my feet or chest up on the sofa and sleep, as I slept. At the time I thought it was odd that such a young pup would alter his behaviour so radically. As soon as I started to be on the mend the crazy pup came back and yes sometimes it was a little too much for me as I was still feeling pretty rough but to contain all that energy for 4 days whilst I waited for the antibiotics to kick in was pretty weird.

 At the time I just put it down to a fluke, that I was projecting and seeing what I wanted to see after losing my beloved nurse Frankie. 

There have been a couple more instances over the year, where it was clear that Dembe was picking up on health stuff to deal with me. We have had a couple of dog training sessions where Dembe has wanted to just get back to me where normally he will quite happily ignore me. One night I was sat quietly on the sidelines when I suddenly lost the vision in my right eye, I knew I had a migraine brewing but as there was only 30 minutes left in the lesson I didn't see the point in making a fuss. In the end I did have to speak up though as Jay and the trainer couldn't understand why Dembe wasn't focusing on the lesson like he normally would and all he kept doing was looking back at me or attempting to get back to me.

We had the same thing happen a few weeks ago during an agility training session. Out of nowhere earlier that morning I had been hit by vertigo. I had taken my medicatiom to attempt to stop it in its tracks but my head was still spinning. I was having to be careful how quickly I turned my head. Dembe again was really unsettled, every time he was off the leash he was back at my side. One of the fellow spectators commented on it and I just said "It is because he knows I am not feeling well, he gets very protective of me if he senses something isn't right." I then went onto explain something that had happened just a week or so earlier.

To the uniformed observer this way look like a cute photo of me and Dembe having a cuddle. Although it was cute and comforting it couldn't have been any further from the truth. I had been feeling not quite right all day. Jay had just gone back to work after coming home for lunch when I had the strongest feeling that I was going to pass out ( even though I was sat down, you see I can pass out in any position it is my super power). Initially I tried to fight it by clenching my buttocks and calf muscles in the hope that this would get the blood circulating. However when I started yawning ( this is a key indicator that my blood pressure is dropping rapidly) I knew I was going to have to get myself to the floor as quickly as possible and then get my legs raised. Dembe was asleep beside me on the sofa.

I quickly got myself down on the floor and got my feet up on the coffee table. I expected Dembe to sleep through this. Instead he got up and then curled up beside my head resting his face against my face. Normally when I lie on the floor this signifies play time. I was fully expecting to be licked, trampled on and toys dropped on me as he would think this would be part of the game. However he didn't move he just snuggled beside me, I took the photos after I had been down on the floor for ten minutes as I couldn't believe that he was doing this. I tried to get up but he wouldn't let me, he had me pinned to the floor for a good 30 minutes. If his face wasn't against my face he was lying on my arm making it almost impossible for me to move.

What I find incredible is this is not something I have ever taught him to do, this is something he has done on his own. He was also just 14 months old when he did this, he is now 15 months old.

I still find it hard to believe that he is so in tune with me that for whatever reason he knew that I was very unwell at that time and needed him to look after me. Feeling that ill, whilst alone is scary. Thankfully I had my mobile phone on me as the top I was wearing has  what I call a kangaroo pouch pocket. I always try to wear clothes with pockets so that I always have my phone. I managed to get in touch with Mr Myasthenia Kid and explain what had happened I got really tearful when I explained what a wonder Dembe had been. He asked if I wanted him to come home but I said until I knew if I could sit up or not unaided there wasn't any point. Around 30 minutes after I first hit the deck I was able to sit up, resting my back against the dresser. Another ten minutes later and I made my way up to bed and spent a few hours lying down . Again Dembe behaved beautifully, he just came up to bed with me and slept beside me.

Which if you had ever met Dembe you would know what a normal active, annoying pup he can be. Who regularly crawls onto my lap and knocks the chromebook from my hands because it has been at least 15 seconds since I gave him a cuddle. Who throws his crocodile toy, well any toy of his choosing that day around the lounge and to hell with the consequences. So to adapt his behaviour on his own accord is really quite amazing to me.

This is what I am battling against at the moment trying to write the blog post

 He is not a quiet pup, he isn't massively high energy but if he wants your attention he has ways and means of ensuring he gets it. Who could resist that face peering around the computer screen.

I thank my lucky stars everyday that we were lucky enough to have Dembe choose us to be his human parents.

I do feel like I need to point out that just because of Dembe's unique ability doesn't mean I love our previous dogs Travis, Mollie, Willow and Frankie any differently. Life will always be marked in sections before the Weims, after the Weims. Life goes on but it goes on around a huge Weimaraner shaped hole. And it always will. Dembe is not a replacement but our boy and the beginning of a new chapter. He is currently our best dog, same as Frankie, Travis, Mollie and Willow were when they were with us.

Raynaulds Phenomenon / Syndrome / Disease

My memory is shocking, particularly over the last year so I can't remember if I have written about this before or not. Last night when we got home from dog training ( sat in an open Barn with temperatures just above freezing ) I took off my gloves to find my hands looking like this.

The photo was taken at least 10 minutes after we got home, as I suddenly thought whilst taking my make up off, "I really ought to take a photo of this because this isn't normal". When I first took my gloves off my fingers looked like they had been scalded they were so red. What shook me was the straight line just beneath the knuckles on my hand ( which had gone by the time the photo was taken) but you can sort of see the remnants of on my left hand. It looked so strange that I couldn't help but keep examining them. It was only as I finished removing my make up that I realised that a photo could finally prove what I have been telling doctors for years, that I have Raynauld's Phenomenon / Syndrome / Disease. For years I have had this condition mildly but last year it  ramped up a gear, weirdly being at its worst during the months of July and August - the height of summer.

My hands took an age to warm up, well the whole of me did. My legs were frozen despite wearing tights under my jeans, a long coat, knee high Dublin River Boots and multiple layers on my top half. I also sit with a blanket over my legs to ensure I stay warm. So its not like I don't dress for the weather. I have even been known to secret a hot water bottle on my person during the lessons.  I hadn't been uncomfortably cold until the last 10 minutes of the lesson. I had been crocheting all the way through but had to give up as my hands had really started to hurt and become difficult to manoeuvre. It took a good 3 hours in bed with my electric blanket on it's highest setting to warm my legs back to normal. I have been the same after being exposed to changes in temperature ( it doesn't even need to be cold weather) for as long as I can remember. When we had a bath ( we removed it as I wasn't safe climbing in and out) I would get in it after walking the dogs ( when I was well enough to) as even when I had been walking, well wrapped up for an hour, my legs would go white and become like blocks of ice. 

My legs have always been the most painful when exposed to drops in temperatures. They take hours to warm and it is very painful. When I say drops in temperatures, I mean even the slightest things like a cool breeze on a summers day, the sun hiding behind the clouds for a few minutes, being caught in a blast of cold air from the air conditioning. These are all enough to set me off. It has come to the point now that when travelling in the car no matter how short the journey, I have a blanket over my legs. It is the only way I can limit or stop the pain the drop in temperature will cause. It also stops the rows with my husband when on a sweltering summers day I am begging for the air conditioning to be turned off in the car as the draft it is creating has set my legs off.

I have spoken to my doctors about this for again, as long as I can remember. I am greeted with blank stares. They can't explain it or they just decide it is just another one of my myriad of weird symptoms that are possibly all in my head. You know with me being female, I am obviously bored and just crave attention from the medical profession. I love being poked and prodded wasting my days in hospital. Honestly who enjoys that shit ? So as usual when I am greeted with blank stares or the refusal to acknowledge the symptoms I just leave it because life is hard enough when you have the diagnosis of PoTs and EDS. For many doctors that just translates to hysterical female patient. They don't believe it until they see my heart go nuts on a monitor with the slightest of postural changes or after they have seen my bendy body tricks. Some of them can't understand how someone can be in pain all day everyday, with no break. Well I am here to tell you it's possible, only because I know no different. I can't understand how people can not be in pain everyday or wake up feeling like they have slept. I just can't remember the last time I felt like I had slept.

For years my hands have been going pale and my nail beds would go blue. I have even had it where one hand is a normal colour and the other is paler with dark blue nail beds. I have even shown doctors this and been told I just have poor circulation. Which yes I agree with due to PoTs I do have poor circulation. But they mean peripheral circulation not whole limbs, like legs.

This last summer I started noticing the tip of my nose kept going white. It was so white you could see it through foundation. It looks like I have drawn a white heart onto the end of my nose. Then when the whiteness goes my nose goes a deep red and starts to sting as the circulation comes back. Now it is quite difficult to capture photos of the tip of your nose going white so you will have to bear with me, with these. However it is more obvious in the last photo with how white it has been when my nose flushes red.

The 2nd and 3rd photos were taken 5 minutes apart. The first photo was taken the day I had first noticed how white the tip of my nose was. I also had a bad hormonal breakout when these photos were taken! thankfully since changing up my skin care regime and taking some supplements my skin is much clearer although I still get the odd breakout - menopause related.

My ear lobes are also prone to becoming ice like and white - but its almost impossible for me to get a photo of my earlobes and it doesn't always happen when hubby is in the house or that I can be arsed with getting a photo. I mean it's not as if I haven't got any other health stuff going on.

With this possible Raynaulds ( I say possible because I am not going to self diagnose although I believe that's what it is ) it is the pain it causes that is the most difficult thing to deal with. It's what I call a down to your bones pain, no pain relief will help it just never has tackled that pain be it morphine or paracetamol. The only way to get on top of the pain is to apply heat. Which means if you are out and about and have no access to hot water bottles or an electric blanket the gnawing, throbbing deep in your tissue pain it will just get worse. Which means by the time you can apply heat it will be hours before the pain is under control. Get  exposed cold again, even just a little bit within the next 24 hours and expect it to all flare up again as bad as it was initially. That is the situation I am currently dealing with. On top of being tired from last night which then impacts my ability to maintain my body temperature. So I am now wrapped up indoors like any normal person would be for venturing outside the house. Very shortly I will be getting out my heated throw so I can cover my legs with that as they are resembling blocks of ice. 

It is just yet another thing that is escalating on top of all the others. 






For more information on Raynaulds Disease
https://www.sruk.co.uk/raynauds/what-raynauds/

Reflections

The start of a new year always makes me a little reflective. I always think that now I am in my forties I should have my shit together. When I was a teenager people in their forties all seemed to know what they were doing, were confident and self assured. Now I am in my forties I realise like everyone else my age that those forty year old's I admired were just winging it. No one has got their shit together and we all are just making it up as we go along. All that those 40 year old's had that I didn't as a teenager was life experience. I don't think there will ever be a eureka moment in my life where I feel like I have figured everything out. I think I will forever be winging it and pretending that I know what the hell I am doing.

As you get older I do think you appreciate the simpler things in life. You put home, happiness and friendships above the material things. You also start to refuse to put up with so much crap or maybe it is you finally get the courage to start putting yourself first for a change. At the end of last year I made some quite sweeping changes. I reassessed some relationships, I binned some, I reinvigorated others. I pushed myself to make an effort with those I didn't want to lose. It is funny during the hard times you really notice who runs towards you and who runs away. And there is the third group of people those that in public or on a public forum make all the right noises but do nothing practically to help.I have noticed this a lot over the last 4 years.

 Those of you who follow the blog or know me personally know that basically over the last 4 years Mr Myasthenia Kid and I have been to hell and back. Briefly ( which is a laugh as even briefly so much has happened each event is a blog post in itself) in 2016 I developed a CSF leak which left me confined to my bed for much of the year and if not in bed lying down. It made socialising very hard, several of my friends were wonderful but one in particular would make all the right noises you know the "just let me know if you need anything" and when you did ask you were met with radio silence or a long list of excuses as to why they couldn't help. I will never ever be able to repay Imogen for how she helped us during that year, looking after the dogs at the drop of a hat for 8 hours whilst I got treatment at a hospital an hour away. Same for my parents who when Imogen couldn't help would come up and drive me back down to the hospital a journey of over 100 miles. 

In 2017 we lost our dear friend of over 20 years, Andrew, in a car accident, his passing made me realise I needed to make more of an effort to stay in contact with my friends as none of us are guaranteed a tomorrow let alone a next week. In this year I also lost a family friend of many years who I would have regular conversations with via Facebook Messenger and telephone calls, although we never met in person. Later that year I was to learn my Grandmother and my dear friend Pam ( my neighbour twice and the person I saw most other than my husband) had both been diagnosed with lung cancer, Willow our 11 year old Weimaraner passed away on December 15th and it broke my heart. Due to the events of the following January I don't think we ever mourned her passing properly. Both Imogen and Heather rushed to my side that day. Another friend offered but I realised at that point that I didn't want her there at the time I was surprised by my feelings but let it pass thinking it was grief.

In January 2018 we lost both my Grandmother, despite knowing that both their diagnosis had been terminal we had lived in a bubble that it wasn't going to happen. I had many conversations with Pam, she moved between despair and complete denial. It was emotionally hard going for me, which probably sounds quite selfish and self absorbed but I challenge anyone to listen to your friend of over 20 years talk about the fact they are dying and walk away untouched. Pam passed away the same week Andrew had a year earlier, which I have always found quite bizarre, especially since Pam had accompanied Jay and I to Andrews funeral less than a year earlier.

 We had no idea then at the ticking time bomb that was contained within Pams body. Looking back now there were subtle signs that something wasn't right, she had looked really tired all the time etc a whole heap of little symptoms that added together were something deadly. Even if we had known then I doubt much could have been done but it makes me angry that mistakes were made in her care and the people that made those mistakes have got away with it. 

When Pam passed away both H and Immie rushed to be by my side again. The other friend basically told me she was coming, despite me saying that she wasn't needed. It was uncomfortable, for everyone as it was like there was a cuckoo in the nest.  I didn't know why I didn't want her there, I just knew that if I was hurting she was the last person I wanted present. I should have listened more to what I was feeling and realised that those feelings were a huge red flag. But instead I blamed myself, telling myself I was cruel and unreasonable to be feeling like that. 
Reflecting back on the situation the lesson I take away from this is don't ignore those feelings / intuitions / gut instincts. If I hadn't of ignored them I would have saved myself another 18 months of being treated like shit and only being visited when she thought other people may see her doing it. It was very much a keeping up appearances situation.

There are still a lot of emotions to process from the January of  that year. I haven't stopped crying since starting to write this and the grief has come out of nowhere as I certainly wasn't feeling sad before I started writing today.

In the July of 2018 my mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a very rare type at the same time I had stuff going on in my life that was extremely stressful. I was already suffering from terrible anxiety and depression after losing by now 5 people from my life and one dog ( in the February I lost a school friend who I had known from the age of 11 and we used to have regular chats on social media, just last night I thought I must ask Jon what planet I can see in the nights sky currently, as Jon had bought himself a telescope not long before he passed - totally unexpectedly and I had to remind myself that he isn't here). I struggled to get up and out of bed as the stress was doing a real number on my chronic health conditions. I was passing out frequently and had issues with ptosis. The heat of the summer didn't help either.

My mum then had major surgery in the August, in the September we had good news that although what had been removed was cancer, it was tiny, the size of a pin head and very unlikely to return. She is currently in remission, no one is cancer free until they have been 5 years clear. She has regular checks at the hospital and will do for another 3 years.

I finally thought that we may get some peace, after all what the hell could happen to us next? Surely the universe was done toying with us now? But no, 2018 was going to end badly and 2019 wasn't going to start any better. On 29th December 2018 we lost our beloved boy Frankie aged 12 ( a Weimaraner) and his Mum Mollie (Weimaraner) followed him over Rainbow Bridge exactly a week later on January 5th 2019 aged 14. Both had incredibly long lives for the size of dog they were but at the time it felt like my world had imploded. I had spent every day with my dogs since 1st June 2008 ( except for hospital stays ) They were a huge part of my life and most of the time the only company I had except Jay.  I didn't know that I could be in such emotional and physical pain and yet still wake up day after day. I thought Mr Myasthenia Kid was going to drop dead from a broken heart he looked so fragile and  broken. Even with Dembe our Labrador puppy coming into our lives on January 11th 2019, we were struggling.

This was where I noticed this friends  persons absence even more, no messages checking on how I was doing. No card, no flowers, no visit. Yet again H and Immie were there by my side, along with Paul, Pam's partner. I will be forever touched by Paul coming over on the Sunday after Frankie passed and then coming over again the following weekend when Mollie passed. He sat and shed tears with us and told us not to worry that Pam would be looking after them until we all met up again.

 I had cards and flowers from friends and cyber friends and yet no call to check how we were, beyond the initial messages of me telling you what had happened. That is when the penny finally dropped, that when I needed you, you disappeared as you had done so many times before, unless there was an opportunity for you to be seen as a "good" person. There were so many people I only knew on Facebook who came to visit to check that we were ok or who messaged me out of the blue. I have never felt love like it, so many people hugging us, looking out for us, physically being present. 

When Dembe arrived oh my goodness, so many visits. I have never known a puppy get so many toys and presents. I had baby gates offered within minutes of me asking on Facebook if I could borrow some, the same with crates etc. Nothing was too much trouble for people. It was overwhelming and it was something I have never experienced before and I am so touched by all those people. However it made this persons lack of action / concern even more painfully obvious. That hurt, even with all the pain I was in already the fact that we could all be so easily forgotten was another huge red flag.

Initially I made excuses,  maybe I hadn't said I was struggling? Maybe you didn't realise I was grieving? Maybe you didn't understand the depth of my grief? But even to the village idiot it would have been glaringly obvious. Contact over the year became less and less. It felt more and more like it was one way traffic which indeed it was. I was lucky when I messaged you if I got more than a couple of sentences out of you. Again I made excuses, you were busy with your new life now. You certainly made me feel like I was interrupting you living your best life. When it got to 4 months since I had last spent any time with you and even longer since we had spent any time alone, the decision was made. I had waited a month at that point for a message to be answered. I snapped. I was faced with the prospect of you turning up on my birthday and I knew I couldn't pretend for 5 minutes let alone several hours that everything was ok and that I was grateful for the few crumbs of attention you had thrown my way.

You would have never put up with being treated like that by anyone, yet I was just supposed to accept this? The last 2 years had passed in a haze of grief but I was starting to feel stronger. I knew that your behaviour  was now emotionally damaging to me. I couldn't move forward if I was going to continually wound myself, wondering what I had done wrong, why I wasn't good enough or why you felt you could take advantage of my good nature. So I ripped the band aid off and called time, reasonably amicably. I had been hesitant about hurting you when it was clear from your actions you had no concern about hurting me.

I suppose I am reflecting on all this as that is what the new year does. December and January are full of anniversaries of people and pets passing they are hard months. It's only now on 22nd January that I feel like the weight has been lifted . That I realise that the last few years I have been operating / functioning with a low level depression going on in the background. That the anxiety has lessened enough for me to see things clearly.

 You had changed or maybe the real you had come to the surface? Perhaps I chose not to see the real you or the nasty comments you made on a regularly basis. I put those down to you being verbally clumsy despite the fact you claim to be a writer. I realised I had put up with far more than I had ever credited myself with. I was right to call time and that belief is unshakeable now. I'm not the only one that has noticed that you have changed, grown colder and more bitter than you have ever been. I feel sorry for you as your world is shrinking and you are so full of yourself you can't see it. One day you will come crashing down to earth with a bump and you will be all alone. Maybe you want it that way, so you can perpetually be the victim?

I reflect back and realise I should have found the strength earlier. That I should have seen the pattern that I could never depend on you. That you liked to take and use, yet giving absolutely nothing in return.  You may think you have everybody fooled but truthfully more and more of us are seeing through you. I hope you find some peace because only someone who is utterly miserable with their own life finds joy in hurting others.