Stress, migraines and other sh*t!

 I have had a good few days over the last week with no headaches turning into migraines until this morning. Every night though I still wake up and have to change my pillows several time to make my neck and back of my head comfortable. More often than not I end up sleeping without any pillows. Something I haven't done since I was 18-19 when I had neck issues then. The problem is with being that flat I then quite often wake up with back pain between my shoulder blades. If I prop myself up I end up with back pain in my lower back. If I could just find the one sleeping position that allowed me to sleep through the night without any pain waking me up that would be fantastic.

I can't really complain though after the years of insomnia I suffered from around 2008 until 2016 when I was given Melatonin. Back in the bad old days I would only sleep between 2 -4 hours a night for two nights then on the 3rd night get no sleep at all. On the 4th night I would sleep 12 hours and then feel absolutely terrible, almost like I was drunk without the fun part. I did absolutely everything I could to get to sleep, lavender sprays, lavender sachets in my pillows, not using the TV or phone in my room, all without any success. This cycle of so little sleep had a very bad effect on my mental health and my pain levels. Everything felt heightened, my pain could be off the scale frequently and my emotions were all over the place.

This 4 day sleep cycle would just repeat over and over. I would occasionally get six hours sleep which would be a treat. The most frustrating times were when I would drop off to sleep and then two hours later wake up and that would be it for the night. I existed on cigarettes and mugs of tea. Usually one of the dogs would keep me company and they would swap over so that they all did a few hours each. Even now if I get up in the night I am accompanied by Dembe. He will either sleep right beside me, like he is doing now as I write this blog post or he will sleep on the sofa opposite to the one I am on, so he can watch my every move.

Dembe the Labrador is curled up on the sofa, the MG Kids leg is in frame along with her Chromebook, which is open on her lap.

I cleared this morning' migraine quite quickly with a dose of Sumatriptan. However due to the stormy weather ( we have a weather alert for heavy rain and thunderstorms until this evening ) the top of my head feel's like it is in a vice and being squeezed so hard my eyes feel like they are going to pop from the sockets. For as long as I can remember I have had headaches when the weather is stormy. I feel a bit cheated though as friends over an hour away have had massive thunder storms. Mr Myasthenia Kid's mum rang us to check we were ok as where she lives they have had torrential rain and copious amounts of lightening. We have had a few showers and currently the sun is shining. It is very humid so I haven't bothered sorting out my hair. It will stay straight for 30 seconds and then frizz. There is no point wasting any energy on it.

This will sound completely bonkers but I am quite a private person, despite the blog and talking about all manner of things. There are things I keep private because they involve other people or because I just don't want the sympathy vote. Sometimes I am still processing stuff in my head and just don't have the energy to deal with the questions that writing about an issue will cause. Things are really stressful here at the moment, we never seem to get a minute to catch our breath. But we keep going like everyone else does because the world doesn't stop just because you are having a shit time.

There are several issues going on but the one that is worrying me most at the moment is Dembe ( and this was probably the source of the migraine this morning). On and off for a few months poor Dems has had an intermittent limp. Not an obvious one, one that unless you knew what you were looking for you wouldn't know it was happening. We had him at the vet's last month to be checked out and the vet couldn't observe it in him, isn't that always the way. He was put on some medication a it was hoped that perhaps it was a soft tissue injury that needed some rest and some anti inflammatory medication would help. Within a few days he was doing so much better and no more limping. As a precaution we cut his walks with the dog walkers right down to the bare minimum, ensured he didn't do anything too physical. Sadly on last Thursday the limp came back, I still had pain medication so I gave that to him. The limp settled and then on Monday was back again.

I rang the vets on Monday evening and got Dembe booked in for an appointment the following day. Mr Myasthenia Kid took him to the appointment as they only allow one of you into the building at the moment due to Covid. This time the vet could see the limp and she gave Dembe a full check over. Since this limp started there has been no swelling, no heat coming off any of the joints in his leg and for the majority of the time his limp is very subtle. You actually have to watch his head as he is walking towards you, every few paces his head bobs down, that's how subtle it is. It is so intermittent that we and his dog walkers have been unable to catch it on video. So the next step is x-rays of both his front legs. The vet has checked his back legs and his hips are sound. Hip Dysplasia is a massive issue within the Labrador breed and we ensured both his mum and dad had low hip and elbow scores. We also stuck to the rules about not allowing stairs until he was old enough and also we stuck to the exercise rule of 5 minutes exercise per month old. However sadly Labrador's are also prone to elbow Dysplasia and no matter all the precautions you take with your pups sometimes shit happens and this could be one of those times. I am not too concerned as he is insured, so they will pick up the tab. It is the fact that he maybe in pain, that he has to go to the vets and stay there when he has only ever been left for 30 minutes with someone else in his life since he was 8 weeks old ( other than his dog walks).

Those of you who have followed my blogs will know about our first dog Travis who passed away shortly before his 3rd birthday. As a teenager we also lost a family dog when she went into be spayed as she was allergic to the anaesthetic a situation that was just tragic. For some reason with Dembe I have always wrapped him in cotton wool and my fear about him having to be sedated for the x-rays really has me on edge. Plus the fact that he is coming up for his third birthday has me freaked out. I know he isn't sick like Travis was but I am just paranoid about it. If you want to read more about the dogs we have had please use these links http://themyastheniakid.com/2014/10/30/the-dogs-in-my-life-part-one/ and http://themyastheniakid.com/2015/08/06/the-dogs-in-my-life-part-two/ . I need to write part three to cover Willow, Frankie and Mollies passing within 55 weeks of each other but even though it is several years on it is still just too raw.

I was much more chilled with the other dogs, than I am with Dembe. I have gone back to being like a brand new dog owner and going to the vet about everything! I did feel when we brought Dembe home I had completely lost my confidence and I was always terrified I was going to hurt him ( accidentally obviously).

So until the X-rays come back from the orthopedic specialist we will be none the wiser as to whether he has Elbow Dysplasia or a soft tissue injury or anything in between. If it is Elbow Dysplasia depending on how bad the joint is the treatment could be conservative, treating it when it flares up, reducing his weight a little etc or it could mean an elbow replacement. The thought of which terrifies me as the recovery period is 12 weeks of crate rest which he will go bonkers, quickly followed by myself and probably Jay. So for the moment all professional dog walks have been cancelled. He is allowed 25 minutes off the lead a day and then small lead walks as he point blank refuses to go to the toilet in the garden. He has had his pain medication increased and hopefully that is helping him. The vet constantly reassured my husband that she felt whatever the issue was it has been caught early so the damage shouldn't be too great.

Dembe is fine in himself, loving, affectionate, eating and drinking fine. He keeps wanting to zoomies in the house so I am having to think up games we can play that doesn't involve too much food and too much movement! He is pretty chilled most of the time and is quite happy to snooze. I just thank our lucky stars that he is no longer a puppy as he would be manic with the need to burn off energy.

So the migraine this morning was not unexpected as that seems to be my default setting when stressed and at least they have reduced in number since my whinge post.

The last Bank Holiday of Summer 2021

 The last bank holiday of summer has been and gone, (celebrated in England, Wales and Northern Ireland), for many it signals the end of Summer and the start of Autumn. I can't believe it is September already, the weather is certainly letting us know it is by being markedly cooler. In some ways this year has whizzed by and in others it has crawled. It has been a strange year here at the Myasthenia Kid house, full of sadness and wishing that things could be different. It has been 8 months of constant change and things don't look very settled for the future either. Some days it feels like you are in the eye of the storm and others that you are on the outside edge of it looking in. All I can do is be there for those that need me and hope that it is enough.

The one bit of good news is that my headaches / migraines have eased up ever so slightly over the last week ( runs around furiously touching wood). Dare I say it I have had a couple of headache free days. Which is a miracle after the last 4-6 weeks. I did end up with a bad head last Sunday evening, mainly due to the fact I was out in the sun all day with no hat on ( my own fault I forgot to bring it with me) and I was probably a bit dehydrated as I just didn't drink enough during 5 hours that we were out. It meant I ended up going to bed very early and the following day I had issues with my blood pressure being very low. As soon as I had drunk enough I started to feel much better.

I ended up increasing the amitriptyline I take for nerve pain last week and that seems to have helped knock the headaches back a bit. I can still wake up with a sore neck and head but with a hot water bottle applied for an hour or so it does ease up considerably. I always try not to take medication unless it is absolutely necessary, which probably sounds ridiculous with the amount of medications I have on repeat prescription. I am always concerned that the Sumatriptan will stop working so I always try to head off a migraine before it is needed. Sunday night I ended up taking it along with 3 soluble aspirin and paracetamol as per the protocol I am supposed to follow. When I have a particularly vicious migraine this always helps massively. I have now started using the 3 soluble aspirin and paracetamol when I have a bad head that is not quite a migraine, that's usually enough to clear it. I am hoping now that I have got on top of the headaches / migraines now I can slowly put an end to this debilitating flare up that came out of nowhere.

As I said earlier we all went out together as a family on Sunday, me, Mr Myasthenia Kid and Dembe. I do love it when we can escape our four walls every now and again. People don't realise how small your world can become when you are pretty much housebound. A change in scenery always does my soul good, we travelled down to see Mr Myasthenia Kid's mum and catch up with some family who were also dropping by. I saw one of my nephews who I hadn't seen in such a long time over ten years. He is so tall now and what a good looking chap he has turned out to be. He was busy organising the cutting of Nanny's lawn with the petrol Lawn mower by another of my nephews. Jay and his brother and my niece were cutting the front hedge. Whilst me and my sister in law tackled some brambles with secateurs and supervised the dogs. We got torn to shreds as we didn't have any gloves. I didn't even realise I was bleeding until I noticed the handle of my secateurs were wet. I ended up covered in plasters. It amazed me how much everything had grown in the few months since the last time I visited at the end of May.

It is a really lovely garden and Dembe loves running around in it. Quite often we will catch him doing Labrador zoomies by himself out there. The garden is a little sun trap and gets the sun all day long, so I am gutted I forgot my bloody hat! I have never really done any gardening before, I have popped a few plants in a pot and weeded from time to time but I have never done any real cutting stuff back or pruning out the dead wood from shrubs. I actually found it rather therapeutic and it is handy that quite a bit of it can be done sat down. I did pay for it on Monday and Tuesday but like most people who are chronically sick you don't mind having a few rough days if you have actually done something to warrant it. It is when your health takes a nose dive and there is nothing you have done to trigger it that you get angry / frustrated.

Thanks to the bank holiday I will be completely thrown out for the rest of the week. I wont know if I am coming or going or what day of the week it is. I see Mr Myasthenia Kid has started getting the bins ready for Thursdays collection ( I am writing this on Wednesday) I will have to break it to him gently that due to the bank holiday Monday the bins wont be collected until Friday. Plus with Mr Myasthenia Kid not working a late today like he normally would that will really make my head spin and I will not have a clue what his shift pattern is until I am in front of a calendar.

The next bank holidays in the UK won't be until Christmas (I do believe we need more between September and March) as Mr Myasthenia Kid has a generous annual leave provision he has another two weeks of holiday booked between now and the second week of November. His first week is at the end of September around our 21st Wedding anniversary, I am struggling to comprehend that we are 4 years away from our Silver Wedding Anniversary ( 25 years ). He has another week booked off for our birthday at the start of November. So it isn't too long at all until I will have some company for a week during the day. With Covid and lock downs it has been more isolating than usual, which is why I enjoy visiting Nanny Morris and catching up with Jay's family so much.