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).

To feel human again

It has been a manic few days and it has left me utterly exhausted. I have seen that many people I could almost be accused of being a social butterfly. All I know is today I feel like the batteries have been taken out and I am working with my emergency power supplies only.

We have started back at dog training and we are going twice a week. On Sundays Dembe has his agility training which he loves and is doing so well at. On Tuesdays he has his obedience training which he loves in a different way. Both tire him out mentally as well as physically. The problem with the dog training is that there is just one day in between which doesn't quite give me enough time to bounce back if I am then adding in medical appointments or getting my hair done or seeing people. 

Tuesday was my final medical appointment out of a string of 4 over the last 3 weeks. One medical appointment in a week is enough to knock me for 6. 4 in the space of three weeks has sent me crashing. It's hard to describe what you mean to people that aren't sick. For me it means I wake up feeling more tired than when I went to bed. It is an effort at times to even take a breathe in. As the day wears on I feel like I have been at the gin, without the fun part, so my eyes are bouncing around all over the place and I feel disconnected from my body. I look very pale and run down but inside I feel like death warmed up. I can struggle to maintain my body temperature so that I am freezing cold ( even in the height of summer). I can get emotional over the slightest thing, lose my temper usually with inanimate objects that aren't doing as they are told because my hands won't work ( so I am continually dropping them ) . It makes it hard for me to complete anything that requires attention to detail.

Add in me making the stupid decision to make all the Christmas gifts for family & friends but not starting the majority of them until a few weeks ago and I feel like I am on a hamster wheel that I just cant get off. There is no down time as not doing something for a day puts me further behind but this week I have had to take a step back because I am so tired I can't work without making mistakes. Doing nothing makes me feel like a failure and that I don't contribute anything to the world...which is why I have been teaching myself how to crochet so that on the days I can't sit at the sewing machine / embroidery machine I can do something else curled up on the sofa or in bed.

The stupid thing is I keep adding to this list of things to make which is then piling on the stress. I will get there but I keep having panic attacks when I see someone helpfully posting on Facebook that there are X amount of days / weeks until Christmas. I really need to learn to be kinder to myself as even on the days when I have felt drained I have still pushed myself to do just a little something. I like to break tasks down so that I when I come to make an item it is all ready to go and the amount of time it will take to get it all together will be massively reduced. 

So like yesterday I decided to have a go at making the Doggie Christmas Stocking from Sweetpea Embroidery. Because I know I need to make at least two of these for gifts, as I prepped the fabric pieces for the first stocking I did the second. It took me longer, obviously but Jay was home and was doing all the running around for me so all I had to do was sew. When or if I manage to get to the embroidery machine today all I will need to do is stitch it out as everything is ready and cut to size. This is how I have to do all my projects, I do all the prepping one day or over a couple of days and then when I make the item I can concentrate solely on that rather than expend energy I don't have. It is very rare for me to be able to start and finish a project no matter how small in a day. As my actual time I am able to work is so severely limited. I can't sit at the embroidery machine or sewing machine all day, I am deeply envious of those who can. I am in pain within 20 minutes, so have to take regular breaks. I have an alarm on my phone that goes off every 20 minutes to ensure that I get up and move / change positions. Otherwise it will cost me £45 at the physiotherapist whilst she tortures me ( in the nicest possible way ) to correct the damage I have done to myself. 

It's the same for material prepping. Everything is done in stages. Many times I make cardboard templates to help me with ensuring I cut out the right size fabric pieces. This helps with cutting down waste and ensures that even if I am not thinking straight as long as I have the right template ( sometimes that isn't as easy as it sounds) I can be trusted to cut my fabric out. Obviously making templates adds more time to a project, it tends to only happen if I know I will be making more than one of an item. Basically the majority of my life is spent breaking down tasks into smaller manageable chunks so that I have the energy to be creative and give my life some meaning.

Currently there are boxes everywhere with bits of fabric / templates / batting all cut to the correct sizes waiting to be embroidered and sewn together. It will all get done but it will be done slowly and in the best way that I can pace myself.

I am so exhausted today as Sunday I had two visits from friends who had come to collect their table runners that I had made them, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. It was great to see them but we also had dog training in the middle of the day.

The table runners had taken a lot out of me getting made and I had been stressed out about getting them straight and sewn together nicely. I took a lot of time over it. The top stitching alone left me needing a nap afterwards last Friday. I sewed the rest of it together on Saturday afternoon.

Monday I had my hair done for the first time since August, it needed done desperately as I had already used my dressmaking shears to hack a sizeable amount off the fringe ( bangs ). After my attempt at hairdressing it was even more important that it was sorted out. I am lucky that I have a wonderful friend who does my hair for me and knows I find the whole process exhausting. Doing it at home means it takes 2.5 hours instead of 4 hours being overstimulated by lights and sound in a hair salon. 4 hours in a salon would probably lead me to be bed bound for around a day.

Tuesday - the last medical appointment was for my filling. I did it without diazepam the first appointment in ages where I have managed that. My dentist and I have now got a process that works and reduces my anxiety. I had to ask him just to not tell me any detail about the procedure. I only need to know that I require a filling not what he will be doing. It worked brilliantly as he didnt tell me on the 4th of November what the process would be and yesterday as he did it he kept quiet . It worked like a charm. I was just left with TMJ pain in the afternoon and evening, which triggered a migraine. I spent a lot of the dog training session last night losing the vision in my right eye and the feeling that my scalp was shrinking.

Today ( Wednesday ) I have woken up with the remains of a migraine, waves of nausea and just generally feeling washed out and knackered. I will push myself later to get something on the Christmas present to do list made or completed but for the minute I am drinking bucket loads of coffee in the hope it will make me feel more human again.

Ophthalmology

I wrote a while ago about a rather upsetting visit to the gp's surgery, which you can read about here. I haven't updated you all since through my blog, if you follow me on The Myasthenia Kid Facebook page then you will know about this. So I apologise for going over old ground in the next few paragraphs but after that it's all new, I promise.

So to provide you with some context back in July I saw a trainee gp or as I like to call them a 12 year old with attitude. They were terribly dismissive of my dry eyes, they looked at the Clinical Commissioning Groups dry eye pathway - so what drugs they are "allowed" to prescribe. They tried to palm me off with stuff that came under mild dry eyes and this was after I had the first corneal abrasion. So I had to point out that a corneal abrasion didn't suggest a mild dry eye problem. So I was given more day time drops but no help at all for the night time ointment that I am allergic to. I got a shoulder shrug and was shoved out the door. Just a quick update though finally after waiting since July I now have an appointment for the Ultrasound that they were supposed to request......for the 10th October! Glad it is nothing serious eh?

So fast forward and blog readers only, this is where you will find out that exactly 4 weeks after the first corneal abrasion, I got another one. So I made a doctors appointment for the 27th August. I attended the appointment filled with hope as this would be with my gp, who had more experience and didn't feel like they had anything to prove. Unfortunately that was not the case. I explained to the gp that I had suffered 2 corneal abrasions in the last 4 weeks, that I am allergic to three brands of the night time ointment that I had tried . I attempted to show them these photos to show how bad the reaction was but I was told quite firmly "I believe you"

It soon became clear though that they really didn't believe me. They asked if I was allergic to Lacrilube which I told them I had used it in the past with no issues, however there is a national shortage of it in the UK and I was using the NHS suggested replacement and I was allergic to that. They then decided, despite the computer flashing up that there was a national shortage of this drug when they tried to prescribe it to ring the local pharmacy to see if they had it stock. I could hardly contain myself when I heard the pharmacist tell them loud and clear there is a national shortage of the medication. They then proceeded to tell me that she would prescribe me more of the ointment I was allergic too and if I didn't want to use that perhaps I could get up 3 to 4 times a night to put my day time drops in.

I will admit to getting rather cross at this point and asked at what point would they consider repeated corneal abrasions serious enough for me to be referred to the Ophthalmologist? I pointed out that I have a connective tissue disorder Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and that eyes are made of collagen. I challenged them to explain why putting my sight at risk was acceptable as due to having EDS I was at risk of scarring. I was really angry, so angry I would have cried if I could produce the tears. My voice was shaking. They then said "you seem angry". What is this naming feelings shit? It doesn't make me calmer it makes me more angry, I am not a child who can't identify what I am feeling. I got crosser and replied "Yes I am angry. I am angry that after two corneal abrasions and two gp appointments I am still being fobbed off." They interrupted and said "I am not fobbing you off but the Ophthalmology department won't see you whilst you are taking morphine as that will dry your eyes out." I pointed out that I was diagnosed with dry eyes at least 5 years before I started taking morphine and I found it highly unlikely that morphine would now suddenly be making my eyes much drier than they had been for the last 14 or so years. 

To cut a long story short I had to demand to be referred to an ophthalmologist as they had tried all the eye medications open to them as a gp and now I needed a specialists in put. To pacify me I am sure she told me she would speak to the ophthalmologists and see if they would accept a referral. The attitude of this doctor to essentially prevent me from seeing a specialist when it was clear that my eyes were severely dry and causing corneal abrasions because my eyelids are sticking to my eyeballs overnight really upset me. Like I said earlier if I could have cried I would have done. I am so sick of everything being a battle and I am seriously worried for patients if they have conditions that need a consultants input that referrals are being barred for no other reason than financial. That is wrong on so many levels and against the hippocratic oath.

Funnily enough less than a week later I got a letter through to book an appointment with the Eye Hospital. Look at that, they did want to see me, even if I was on medication that could make the dry eyes worse. The fact that my letter came through so quickly made me even angrier because it was even clearer that this was about finances not what was best for the patient.


So today ( Tuesday 24th ) I went to the eye hospital. I attended by myself on my mobility scooter as on the letter it stated I could be there up to three hours doing tests before I got to see a consultant / registrar. That was way too long to expect Dembe to work as he is only 10 months and I won't put him in situations that would be too much for him for fear of putting him off due to bad experiences. So Jay dropped me off and headed back home. 

As usual whomever designs hospital waiting rooms seemed to have failed to grasp that some patients will need mobility aids such as frames, rollators, wheelchairs and scooters. The chairs were crammed together with no space for anyone using a wheelchair or scooter to get themselves into and out of that area safely. This total lack of awareness in a fucking hospital of all places really grinds my gears. This place should be the gold fucking standard of accessibility as surely the disabled are the ones who are going to be using this resource more than the rest of the population. Come on people its 2019 and we are still treating the disabled as an inconvenience or invisible.

I digress. I managed to find a spot for me to occupy that wouldn't cause an obstruction. I was worried as many people attending the clinic are legally blind, so I checked with the nursing staff that I was ok. I had a quick vision test reading letters off a board  and then I was back in the waiting room. I would be called into consulting room 7, 8 or 9. I was called in reasonably quickly by a young lady doctor. She was exceptionally polite and courteous. I won't lie I was terrified all of yesterday and this morning that they were going to treat me like a time waster and tell me I would have to come off morphine before they would treat me. After all this is more or less what the gp had suggested. This couldn't have been any further from the truth.

The doctor was very concerned to learn that I have been suffering from minor corneal abrasions for a year before having the two within 4 weeks. Fingers crossed I have managed to avoid one since 10th August - I know I have probably just jinxed myself. She asked me what ointments I had tried at night to lubricate my eyes and attempt to prevent the abrasions. So I brought out the three tubes. I then said I am allergic to all three, so she asked me to tell her the symptoms. Thankfully in the waiting room I had the presence of mind to screenshot my photos from August so they were the first photos on my phone and I didn't have to spend an age scrolling - I take a lot of photos. She was quite shocked at the level of swelling. I let her know it isn't just swelling but the skin burns and itches. She said to me that I shouldn't use the ointments with that level of reaction to them. Which left me wondering why my gp had issued me with another prescription for one of them? Had they bothered to look at my photos maybe they would have accepted how bad the reaction was. How I have got away with no abrasions since August I have no idea as at best I have probably used the ointments 2 to 3 times a week. As the swelling is crazy after one application and takes a couple of days to go down.

We then went through my day time routine with my eyes and the medications being used, plus my symptoms. I am pretty sure that the gp had stated that I had watery eyes due to dry eyes, which as weird as that sounds is a symptom that some people have with the condition. I never have. I used to have eyes that watered every time I yawned but they don't even do that anymore. The consultant seemed genuinely surprised when I said no my eyes don't water and she rechecked the letter she had in front of her. She was very pleased that I had taken matters into my own hands and tried different drops as it moves the situation forward ( I brought all my eye medications I use or have tried with me). She told me if I hadn't of done this she would now have to try me on various medications to see if they worked. As this had already been done she could go straight to prescribing Ciclosporin eye drops. 

The Ciclosporin eye drops are to used instead of the night time eye ointment. She has warned me they will sting badly when applied and probably make my eyes water. If I can stick with it around 80% of people who are placed on them find they work for them. They will take 3 months to reach full effect. However she wants me back in clinic in 6 weeks as by then I should know if they are helping at all. At that clinic appointment depending on how they are working they may add steroid drops into the mix . She let me know if the Ciclosporin drops don't work we haven't reached the end of the of the road and there are still other things to try.

I also had a thorough eye examination. My retinas were checked, the surface of my eye was checked - I had the lovely yellow dye put in them. She flicked my eyelids up on themselves - that made me feel sick and she did it without any warning! She also prodded the bottom lid with a cotton wool bud ( Q tip ) looking at the tear production glands. She told me I have two issues. Firstly I have very dry eyes probably caused by a combination of factors my hormones - the delight of the menopause can make dry eyes worse, my medications - I dispute this as these medications I have been on for years and the dry eyes only took a turn for the worse 12 months ago. However I can't be bothered to argue as they are treating me seriously and not fobbing me off. Thirdly your autonomic nervous system also controls your mucous membranes so it would make sense with mine being so naughty that it has a hand in this. I made it clear that I wasn't concerned with what was causing the dryness more the fact I wanted the corneal abrasions limited if not stopped.

After the appointment I was absolutely fucked. I hadn't realised how very stressed I was due to the gp making out that I was wasting everyone's time. I was worried about the information the referral letter would contain . The doctor I saw today was really pleasant and thorough. I felt listened to and validated in my demands to be referred to the hospital. Ciclosporin can only be prescribed by a consultant and will mean ( if I can tolerate it) that I will need to attend the eye clinic every 6 months. However after two corneal abrasions it should never have needed me getting so angry to push the gp to do this. Especially when they weren't offering me any way to limit or prevent the corneal abrasions. I do worry for other patients all over the UK who have real issues that need consultant level intervention who are being denied access to them. I thank god that I stood my ground and got my referral.

Just for a few giggles - I went through the entire hospital and hospital grounds on my mobility scooter completely unaware that my face was stained with the yellow dye they had used on my eyes. No wonder I was getting a few strange looks!

It was worse than this, it was only because I had wiped my eyes I realised!

Empathy

When I wrote last week's blog post Rainbow Bridge  I never expected in a million years the response that it received. It wasn't just me hubby had people coming up to him in work, telling him that they couldn't read it without shedding a tear or that it said what they felt but had never been able to express it. I had followers on Instagram contacting me about their recent losses and long ago losses too. On Facebook it was the same, with many people contacting me or leaving a comment. . It was emotionally hard as I am very empathetic, so when people start to get tearful when they are talking to me, it makes me cry too. But when I wrote the post I was half expecting it to stir up a lot of emotions because I had been in such a mess as I wrote it. I have to be honest I never did a final check on the post to look for errors, mainly because I found it so upsetting to read, it was real and raw. I haven't even gone back to look at it now to refresh my memory before writing this one. I just can't do it, I have already been in tears today twice over the dogs. It is always just bubbling away under the surface for me at the moment, although to look at me or to see any of my social media posts you would never know.

I am so touched that something I have written has moved so many people. I thank each and everyone of you who commented or messaged me. It was very hard last Thursday as I had no idea how it would be received. I had no clue if people would think I was wallowing, being self indulgent or a drama queen. That people would think that I should pull myself together and get on with the rest of my life. I promise you I am not self indulgent, wallowing or being a drama queen. I just write about life and my experiences. I try to give a voice to those feelings that we push down and don't let anyone else see. I take a chance that people won't reject me or ridicule me because I try to talk about things that many would rather brush under the carpet. Although there have been several articles regarding the death of a pet in National newspapers it is still treated with some degree of disbelief by those who have never had an animal / pet in their lives. 

The whole point of my post was for you - whoever you are, know that it is ok to feel whatever you are feeling, to express your grief ( and it is your's and no one else's) anyway that you like. That these feelings are totally normal. You are not weird, you aren't wallowing in your grief, you aren't an attention seeker and you are certainly not being a drama queen. You are hurting and it will take time to process all that emotion. Hell I am only 8 months on and there are days where I can barely keep it together. Days where all I do is cry. Days when I feel guilty when I know rationally I have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. I just wanted you to know you aren't going mad, I honestly thought at times I was losing it. All of those feelings, even the uncontrollable rage that even surprises you when you roar, is totally normal. It is the beast called grief and it doesn't have to be something that you go through alone.

As I touched on in my blog post even when you have suffered from a significant bereavement such as a partner / child / sibling / parent / friend, people who haven't been through that kind of grief can't begin to imagine the enormity of the feelings of loss and pain. They may see you red faced, tear stained and see your grief but that is soon forgotten because it has no direct impact on their lives. The next time they see you, taking the kids to school, going to work, getting the shopping - all things you have to do despite the pain and grief they assume you are "better". They don't understand that grief goes on forever. They seem to think that grief has a timeline and by a certain amount of time say 6-12 months maybe sooner if they are real dicks, you "should" be "over" it. How do you explain that there is no getting over it? You are just getting through each day the best you can. There will be good days, bad days and the worst kind of days.  Life will probably never be the same again. But there will never be or has there ever been for anyone who is grieving a time when they are over it. Getting Over It has to be the most grotesque phrase ever. Followed by Time is a great healer. There is no healing from grief, you carry that pain forever.

I had people contacting me about dogs they had lost thirty years ago during their childhood that they still mourned for.  Others told me about their recent losses that they just couldn't process or that in the proceeding days before my blog post it had hit them, after thinking that they could keep going and carry on as normal. I was quite honest when I spoke to them and told them Jay and I have very little memory of January and February this year.

 We know we got Dembe, we know he was tiny but ask us to recall anything significant like where we took him on his first walk. What the date of his first walk was, his first bark, his first growl all the stuff we would normally remember and we draw a blank. It's not because we didn't care about it, purely our brains were overloaded processing what had happened when we lost Frankie and Mollie within 7 days of each other. I am so glad that I started the Dembe Diaries blog and his diary that I base the blog on, so that in years to come I can look back and see all those things in black and white that my brain was unable to absorb at the time.

 I do remember Jay barely spoke in the first 4-5 days after it happened. It was quite stressful as I went into list mode, trying to control everything because my anxiety spiked. His anxiety spiked because I was making so many demands on him all the time and obviously he needed to have some control in his life too. It was very difficult trying to get him motivated to help me sort the house out ready for Dembe's arrival. Especially as we couldn't stand being in the house as it was just full of reminders of how empty it was. We did cry together and we did talk about our babies, all of our babies. But the pain and grief was hard because although it has happened to both of you (or all of you) it is also an individual thing that no one can make better or take away from you. People grieve in different ways. Just because Jay wasn't breaking down in tears every 5 minutes like I was didn't mean he wasn't hurting or struggling to cope. You only had to take a look at him, ashen faced, tired and so very quiet, grief and pain was written all over him. For a few days I was worried that he was going to drop down dead from a heart attack or stroke he looked so ill.  

Grief is weird one minute you can feel like you are doing ok and the next minute it feels like the world is imploding. There is no rhyme or reason to it, you are carried on its current and it takes you wherever it pleases. There is no control of it, it controls you initially, even denying you sleep when it wants to. Both Jay and I suffered from terrible insomnia in the 7 days after Mollie and Frankies passing. We would find ourselves downstairs in the middle of the night watching crap on the TV whilst eating chocolate biscuits and drinking sugary tea in the hope we would just pass out from a sugar overdose. I remember one day within about 20 minutes of each other we both left the electric shower on, when we left the bathroom, returning to it a few minutes later, neither of us could work out why we had left it running. We had no recollection of leaving the bathroom.  Life really was being lived on autopilot, all we could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other and get through another day.


I want to tell you that things do get better, the grief becomes less overwhelming.  I feel like I am finally starting to live life again instead of just simply going through the motions. I am not saying that in 8 months you will also be feeling better, it could be less time it could be substantially more time. But there will come a time when you let a breathe out and know that you are starting to be you again.


Up until about a week ago the last time I listened to music and enjoyed it was 29th December 2018. That was the day that Frankie passed away and I had been listening to my Sinead O'connor LP. I didn't play any music for a couple of weeks. After that time had passed, I tried but I found the noise too much and overwhelming. I had no emotional connection to the music. I would rather be in silence or have the TV on low in the background.  For the last two weeks I have played music non-stop. I have sung at the top of my voice and quite possibly scared the neighbours. I have found the joy in music again. I haven't played my Sinead O'Connor LP, I think that one will take some time. I may not play it again for several years, I'm not setting myself a target, I will let it happen, I won't force it. One day I will sing something from the album and it will be like an ear worm that won't die until I play it. At the moment anything from that LP makes me sad.

We have also started planning things for the future. We have booked  a short break in the UK next year and we will be taking Dembe with us. It is very exciting. This will be the first time since 2006 that Jay and I have had any sort of holiday. It is only 3 nights away but it will do us all some good just to get out of the house and away from the day to day. I am nervous as hell as I have become a real homebody since becoming ill. Other than stays in hospital I haven't been away from the house in 13 years. It is hilarious to me that I am getting a bit anxious thinking about it when Jay and I have travelled to Sri Lanka, USA (Florida), Antigua, Paris, Menorca and various places all over the UK for weddings / christenings. I know that we can do it, it is just my world has been so very small over the last 13 odd years.

So please be kind to yourself, wherever you are in your journey with grief. Everyone does grief differently, there is no one size fits all. What works for you may not work for anyone else.  Remember living life does not mean that you have forgotten those who are no longer with us. At some point things will get easier, you will reach a new normal. It is not a journey you have to do alone. If more of us start talking about grief and how it affects us we will educate those who have never experienced it and maybe create a little more empathy. The world could really do with more empathy at the moment.

Dangerous Medicine

We all know that all medications and that  medical procedures come with a certain amount of risk - the biggest  being death. However in this day and age you would think it would be virtually impossible for a patient to die of neglect. I know mistakes can happen, they shouldn't but they do. Someone I knew of, was acquainted with has died this week due to being falsely diagnosed with FI - Fabricated Illness. You can read about Shawn here  (and yes the newspaper has managed to spell his name incorrectly.) 

We were ( the CSF Leak group ) so happy when he made his way to Germany where he believed he would finally get the medical treatment he deserved and which the NHS had denied him for so long labelling him as having a mental health issue and fabricating his symptoms to get attention. Because Shawn dared to question the expertise of those he sought help from and because his condition was outside the scope of their knowledge, that label was applied and prevented all other medics within the NHS to seemingly be able to view his case with fresh eyes and objectivity. They all seemed to just cop-out and follow the notes of his previous doctors. If enough doctors write on your notes that you have fabricated your illness, it basically means all help is withdrawn and Shawn had to die to prove to them how sick he was. When all he wanted to do was live. 

I am so angry and just so fed up with the medical profession's arrogance and their inability to admit when they just don't know. Too many people are being labelled as having a mental illness and when they eventually do get the correct diagnosis - the doctors are reluctant to remove the mental health diagnosis. I've had it happen myself, I ended up in hospital as my stomach had swollen ( I looked like I was pregnant with twins) and had reduced bowel sounds, I've had an intusscesception before as a child and I have had complications from bowel adhesion's resulting in an open surgery to remove them. (info on intusscusception ) . As I was being examined a student doctor asked me how long I had been on seroxat ( an antidepressant) the year was 2010 and I had last taken seroxat in 1999. The suggestion being that the student doctor was already looking for a mental health diagnosis for my swollen stomach and reduced bowel sounds.  She seemed surprised when I suggested she had a look at my more up to date medical notes and that I hadn't been on seroxat since 1999. She was forming an opinion on notes from 10 years ago. It must make life so easy if you can blame the patient for being sick.

On another occasion I was in accident and emergency due to the indwelling catheter that I was having to use blocking. My bladder and bowel had ceased working the day before so the district nurse had been called in and a catheter inserted to relieve the pressure on my bladder and allow the contents of my bladder to be emptied. Having had a glance at my notes before treating me the doctor asked me how long I had been suffering with somatiform disorder. An unusual question to be asked when a catheter is being removed from your urethra. Again the diagnosis was 5 years out of date but had failed to be removed. A tilt table test ( well two) had proved I had PoTs and Orthostatic intolerance and a private rhuematologist had confirmed my diagnosis of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. My Beighton scale was off the charts as I was bendy in joints that were not included on the scale, along with my slow healing, wide paper-thin scars, stretch marks as a child etc etc.

It doesn't seem to matter if you have a "proper" diagnosis ( not dissing mental health here I suffer with depression and anxiety) if you have a whiff of a mental health diagnosis in your medical records all problems from then on will be attributed to your mental health issues. Just take the trapped nerve in my neck and the numbness in my arm last summer being put down to stress. It was only when I was losing my ability to grip with my hand and had a proper examination was I informed that I had an impinged nerve and if Physiotherapy didn't help me I would be looking at spinal surgery.

I know so many people who are struggling with depression and anxiety who refuse to reveal this to their doctors and get help because they know once the diagnosis is on their records ( and especially if they female ). Many of them in the PoTs group I am (one of) the admin for I reckon 99% of the 4k membership were told that they were suffering from anxiety when they first went to their gp about their palpitations / near syncope. It's a nice diagnosis for busy gp's who only have 10 minutes per patient. The problem is so many people with chronic conditions are hiding depression and anxiety because they know they will no longer be taken seriously that we are now sitting on a ticking time bomb and there will just not be the resources to deal with it when it finally goes off.

Medicine is getting dangerous, it is ignoring those that don't fit the text-book definition of the condition they have been diagnosed with and doctors are handing out mental health diagnosis without a patient being assessed properly by a psychologist or even a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with somatiform disorder by a neurologist. It's like having a podiatrist conduct your open heart surgery. It's not a situation that would be allowed but many doctors who have no formal training in psychiatry or psychology are diagnosing conditions that will have detrimental ramifications on their patients treatment forever. 

You can complain, you can ask for a letter to be put in your notes, explaining that you don't have conversion disorder, Munchausen by proxy, Fabricated Illness Syndrome, Somatiform disorder but doctors can and do choose to ignore it. Keep shouting loud enough that you don't have the condition and it just acts as more proof that you are mentally unstable. Cry in a medical appointment discussing these falsehoods contained within your medical notes and you will be diagnosed with depression. You can't win, the doctors hold all the cards and something has to change because too many people are dying due to neglect. When I mean neglect I mean wilfully denying treatment due to arrogance or ignorance. It makes me sick to my stomach and I am so very fucking fed up with it.

The other one they like to use against you is medical knowledge, even if you come from a medical background like nursing and would know about the condition or symptoms you are talking about. I don't have a medical background so have had to research things because I can not trust the doctors to do it. The last time I trusted a doctor I ended up almost needing spinal surgery, as they told me my neck pain and numb arm was stress.

 Know too much about the condition and you are spending too much time on the internet looking up syndromes to have - real words spoken to me by an NHS consultant when I told him I was feeling the sickest I had ever felt. A few weeks later I was diagnosed with Meniere's disease and a few weeks after that I found that my prolactin was raised and it was possible that I had a pituitary tumour ( thankfully I didn't but we never found out why I was lactating or why the prolactin had been raised).

I have used the countless examples of where mental health diagnosis has been used as a cop-out by doctors to excuse their laziness / unwillingness to pursue the answer / outside their skill set on me to illustrate the point of how easy it is to suddenly find yourself fighting to be heard when you know you are sick. It is not in any way to take away from Shawn's tragic story.

I am so angry because I have lost friends and relatives from medical cock ups. My dear friend who passed away last year was incorrectly diagnosed with COPD, only to be dead from lung cancer 7 months later. How they missed the tumours in her lungs and the one at the base of her spine I will never know.  The same mistakes keep being made and no one is learning the lessons the health authorities keep saying that they are.

I will defend the NHS and its principles with my dying breath but I can't defend shoddy workmanship. The rotten apples need to be removed. The lessons do need to be learned because Sorry is no good when the patient has died.

 I feel quite strongly that we are living in a time of very dangerous medicine, where the cheapest disease is the one diagnosed, where tests are denied when there is already a mental health diagnosis present of which the patient is either aware of unaware of. The system is broken when patients can no longer trust their doctors to first do no harm.


For more information on how easily you can have an erroneous diagnosis applied to you please check out the links

It also usual plays straight into their hands if you are female.

Functional neurological disorder / conversion disorder
Medically unexplained symptoms
Conversion disorder / Somatisation disorder
Management of MUS
Factitcious Disorder
munchausens-syndrome

Anger - I have my ranty pants on again!

Warning this could get a bit ranty!

I am not an angry person. I am actually quite a forgiving person until you push me to the point of no return. It takes quite a lot for someone to push my buttons enough to get there but once they do they are left out in the cold forever.

What makes me so very angry at the moment is people who ask how I am or how my last doctors appointment went and either a) as you tell them their eyes glaze over and you can tell they can't wait for the conversation to end, b) by the questions they ask or the facial expression they display shows their complete disbelief  in what you are telling them or c) ignore completely what you have just said and turn the conversation back on themselves - their favourite topic of conversation.

I wonder if its my fault that my answers are greeted with these responses. Like all people with a chronic illness or condition I am quite stoic. I try not to moan as I get bored with it also. 

Is it because I don't grimace with every move?  Is it because I don't make it the sole topic of every conversation I have? Or is it because when I am around others I will push myself beyond my limits only to collapse when they have gone? Is this why when I am having a rough time and can't do the things I normally would that I am met with a complete lack of understanding?

I am in excruciating pain right now despite my arsenal of medications that are available to me. At present it is my back and left leg that is causing all this pain. My pain was under control until April this year and its slowly getting worse. You (the people I am talking about)  don't see the nights I am kept awake by pain. The days I have lost due to being confined to the sofa or my bed swathed in hot water bottles desperate to ease the agony and mess my back is.

Why do you constantly expect when you to talk to me for me to answer that I am ok / fine? Why ask if you dont care/believe or are bored by it all? Believe me I got bored of this shit years ago but I can't lie when yet another diagnosis has been thrown my way. Despite your disbelief, lack of care of empathy my condition still exists. I am so sorry I don't fit in with your preconceived ideas of chronic illness. This is what makes me so very angry.

I am angry that despite me getting a diagnosis from a neurosurgeon that I have spinal arthritis and there is nothing they can do. The bones are crumbling away, I am 40 years old and I am screwed. I am sorry that you don't get that the doctor also believes I have a nerve root compression that has left my leg numb in places and in excruciating pain in others. I am angry that despite me telling you this you don't actually care and I am beginning to wonder what actual purpose you serve in my life other than being completely unsupportive.

I am angry that because you can't "see" my disability and that it conveniently gets forgotten. I don't fit what with what you believe is disabled because I have all my limbs and I am not sat dribbling in the corner. Am I disbelieved because I try so very hard to fit in and be accepted. Just because I use a wheelchair / walking stick / crutches / frame does not mean I changed as a person or that my mental capacity has become so reduced i don't see you for the completely shallow self absorbed person(s) that you are.

I am angry that due to this condition I get to see people at their very worst. I am angry that I am only contacted by you so that you have the latest gossip on me. When you relay it to your audience you can feign compassion and empathy so well but the truth is I won't hear from you for months again unless something happens to me and you can use my misfortune to captivate your fans again. That makes me very angry and can you blame me?

* * *

Sorry for the rant, this post was written on the day I had seen the neurosurgeon. Despite the fact it looks like I will have to have an operation for a nerve root decompression I am more distressed about the early onset arthritis in my facet joints. People were asking me how I was and this was the response I got from a small minority of people. It got me into rant mode, which I try not to do very often. As a result of a few peoples action I have decided to no longer post on my personal facebook account about my health and confine it to my The Myasthenia Kid page on facebook.

To soften the rant I have included the picture of Mollie below. Dogs dont judge they love you unconditionally.

Mollie showing me her tennis ball collection.