Something’s got to give!

I’ve not blogged for quite some time now. I’ve had a lot going on, nothing new there I know. I’ve been feeling very up and down and at this moment in time I’m down.

I have a hospital appointment tomorrow with the hopes of finding out what they are going to do about my foot injury. I’m scared. I’m worried. I’m anxious. I literally feel sick to the stomach because I’m dreading what’s going to happen. 

I made a formal complaint against the hospital a few months ago. I had very good reason. It’s 14 months since I injured my foot and yet I’m no better off now than I was was the day I dislocated it. I’ve not seen the consultant since I made the complaint so I don’t know how I’m going to be treated. Maybe I deserve to be treated badly. Maybe I deserve my foot to be like it is. Maybe I’m going to be told that my foot is never going to get better. Whatever the outcome, I am feeling really worried.

My life has been on hold for over a year now. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for me and as it stands this doesn’t seem like it’s going to end any time soon. I don’t know how I’m going to cope with this. I’m already feeling like something is stirring inside, like a storm gaining momentum and ready to hit any day soon. 

I feel so helpless and I don’t know what to do to stop it. I know what I want to do, but that’s not an option right now. My one support technique that I’ve always relied upon isn’t available and this scares me. What am I meant to do now? I know if I do cut myself I’m going to be branded as mentally unstable which is ridiculous as cutting isn’t the problem, the problem is the problem.

Something’s got to give.

Too much going on

I’ve recently slowed down on my blogging    just because I’ve had so much going on. It’s been nonstop for weeks and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all.

I was recently ill and ended up in hospital which was an absolute nightmare. The emergency doctor I saw was a total arse to me. Because I have a history of mental health issues he accused me of exaggerating my pain and put it down to being depressed. I was so, so angry when he said this to me and also upset. This doctor had never met me before and yet thought he had the right to judge me in such a horrible way. He sent me to hospital in the end but I think it was more because he didn’t want to have to deal with me. Luckily I wasn’t disrespected this way once I arrived at the hospital and eventually got a diagnosis and the treatment that I needed, which I might add, I could have only gotten in hospital.

That incident has really bothered me to the point where I’ve lost confidence in my own perception of the pain I feel. What if I can’t trust my own judgement when it comes to pain etc? What if subconsciously Im causing myself to feel more pain? Not knowing is really making me reluctant to continue taking the pain meds that I’m on. I’ve even started to reduce some of them but it’s gotten to the stage where I’m in so much pain that I’m unable to get much sleep or do too much during the day. I hate the fact that someone that met me once for only 5 minutes can make me doubt myself so much! 

I’ve been feeling so much stress and anxiety recently. Since getting ill my mood has yet again deteriated and made me question whether or not I should have the surgery on my foot. I’ve gotten to the stage where I just don’t care about any of it anymore. I couldn’t careless if I don’t walk properly again! It’s so frustrating that it’s nearly been 10 months since my accident and I’m losing the will to live. I would just love to go to sleep and not wake up, at least then I wouldn’t have to deal with everything that’s going on right now.

I was meant to be having surgery of my foot yesterday, but it was cancelled. I’ve now got to wait another 6 weeks until the new date which seems like a lifetime away. I keep getting people saying” keep your chin up” or “stay strong,” which annoys the heck out of me. I know it shouldn’t as people are just trying to be supportive, but it’s not helping at all. I just wish people would back off and leave me alone sometimes.

I know I must sound like such a bitch and I really don’t mean to come across that way, it’s just that time tired of this, or everything.

Typical

Nothing is ever simple us it?! I have finally found a painkiller that actually has made a difference to my level pain and it appears that I have a sensitivity to them. My gums and the back of my throat have been bleeding since I started the new tablets, so I was informed to stop taking them immediately by my GP. This is so typical of my body to do this. It’s almost as if my body wants me to feel the pain. 

Thinking about it though, I only truly feel alive when I feel pain, so perhaps subconsciously my body is rejecting the medication on purpose. Or it could just be that a higher power from above feels that I deserve this pain?! Who knows. All I know is that I’ve been left feeling in pain, again. I had real hope for this painkiller as its the first time in 5 months that my pain has decreased when taking this particular tablet. 

Siiiiiigh!

When I’m feeling physical pain, like I am now, I always start feeling really low again. Most if the time I don’t realise how low I am until things get so bad that I don’t eat, drink or even get out of bed. Things aren’t that bad at the moment, luckily, however in a little concerned that as the pain starts to return there is going to be an increase to my mental anguish. 

I’m also aware that my low mood can also  impact on the severity of my pain. It’s like the two are interlocking and it’s hard to break the cycle. I can seem them as being a dark cloud and heavy rain, the two go perfectly together, just like my depression and pain. If I could get get on top of one, then maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to get on top of the other. 

The good die young….

….but why? This evening I’ve been thinking about a memory that’s had me in tears. 

When I was 13 one of my brothers was taken ill and was admitted into hospital. He was diagnosed as having major issues with his pancreas and progressively got worse over a number of months. He ended up in intensive care and was there for a good few months. He was having surgery nearly every day at one point to remove parts of his pancreas, but it didn’t seem to help. He was getting worse and worse. 

It got to the point where he had a major internal bleed and we were told he was unlikely to make it. My family was advised that we should all see him and stay with him as he was unlikely to pull through. This was a really difficult time in my life, as well as for my family. My brothers illness really put a strain on my whole family in many different ways. For over a year my sister (who is older than me) and I had to look after ourselves whilst my parents spent pretty much 24/7 at the hospital with my brother. Of course I don’t blame them for this, I wouldn’t have wanted or expected them to do any different. 

By some miracle my brother pulled through. He started to get better and eventually moved out of intensive care back up to the ward. I spent all day every Saturday and Sunday’s  up there with him with him and became closer than we’d ever been. He was 5 years older than me so you can probably imagine that we didn’t always get on too well together. But him getting so ill allowed us to build a solid relationship that we’d never had before.

It was just before Christmas on the 19th of December and I was breaking up from school for the holidays. My mum picked me up and said that my brother was having a bit of an off day and I’d be better off being dropped off at home than going to visit. So that’s what happened.

Around about 4:30/5 pm our house phone rang. It was our family GP calling. He asked if my mum was available to talk which seemed a little odd as I knew she was at the hospital. My GP said that he’d call back later. A little bit later I suddenly got a sickening feeling in my stomach like something was wrong. It was weird as I’d never had this feeling before. An hour or so later my parents car pulled around the corner and came towards our house. The weirdest thing was my dad was in the car with my mum. He was meant to be working so I knew something was wrong. The pulled up outside our horse and I opened the window to ask my dad if my brother was okay. He didn’t answer me and came into the house and asked if my sister was upstairs, which she was. He then went up to find her. My mum then walked through the door and it was obvious she had been crying.

 I asked what was wrong and she said “Dave’s dead.”

I couldn’t quite comprehend what she’d just said. She then went to the sofa laid down and was at airing into space. It was then it finally hit me. My brother was dead. That’s when I started crying and the reality hit me that if never see my big brother again. I’d never be able to talk to him, laugh with him, make memories with him. He was gone. Dead.

That was quite some time ago now. But while I am typing this the pain I’m feeling now is just as bad as it was back then. I miss him. I miss him so much that it feels like my heart is being ripped out and shredded to pieces. It hurts so much. I can’t remember what his voice sounded like and I hate myself because of this. I makes me feel guilty like I’ve forgotten him, but not fully. This isn’t the case at all. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him or miss him. The only comfort I have is that with every minute that passes I am that little bit closer to seeing him again.

So tonight I’m going to go to bed crying and thinking about my big brother that I miss so terribly and I’ll try to figure out why my brother was taken away so young.

I love you David xxx 

Why can’t things happen sooner?

So today I had an appointment with my new consultant for my foot. I was very nervous before going as the last cosultant I saw lacked in bedside manner and made me feel extremely stupid and little. I was scared this would happen again, but luckily it didn’t. My new consultant was fantastic! He spoke to me as an equal and even gave me a chance process all the information by answering a ridiculous amount questions. 

I can’t saw I’m overly happy about how long it’s going to take to start seeing any improvements, but at least this is a start. I’ve had my foot put in a plaster cast which took ages to do because of the position my foot was locked in. It took 3 staff members in the plaster room to straighten it by only half a cm or so. I was in absolute agony whilst they were doing this and unfortunately I need to go through it all again next week. I’m not even sure how long I’m going to be in plaster for this time. I just wish it wouldn’t take so long to get better 😔

After leaving the hospital I made my way to the bus stop and slipped over and went flying. So many people just walked passed me and didn’t even bother to see if I was okay. Eventually a couple came and helped me and that’s when I burst into tears. I just couldn’t stop crying. I think everything that was building upside seemed to pour out in in one go. I liked like a right fool sat crying on the bus. My mum was good enough and net me off the bus as I was so scared I was going to fall again. My confidence in using my crutches has completely gone again which means that I’m literally going to become a recluse again, more so than I already am. This frustrates me so much but everything is such an effort and so, so painful.

I am rather concerned about my mental health too. I’ve been so down recently that I’m worried now that I’m unable to get about so much again that my mood is going to become even lower. The responsible thing to do is get in contact with my GP to make sure I’ve got the support in place if I need it. 

But I guess for now I’m just going to need to work through both the physical and emotional pain and get on with it.

Today’s the day

So today’s the day that I’m seeing the new specialist about my foot. I can’t even begin to describe just how nervous I am! It’s been over 9 weeks since I’ve had any actual treatment on my foot so I’m hoping that I’ll get some answers and a plan of action to try and get get things moving along.

I’m going to be so disappointed if I don’t get any answers as I’m at the point where I’m in so much pain that I’m losing the will to live. As dramatic as that may sound, when you’re in pain 24/7 it starts wearing very thin. 

I was told by the last consultant that I’m likely to need to have surgery. Part of me hopes that’s true because that’ll mean there’s a chance they can fix my foot, however, I’m not a massive fan of going under general anaesthetic or staying in hospital. I suppose if it means that they can sort my foot then it’ll be worth it!

Keep your fingers crossed for me today please, I’m going to need as much luck as possible! 

empty heart heavy thoughts

Sharing. Somehow the more you give away, the more comes back to you. – Quoted from V’s blog  Alan Rickman has passed away, aged 69. Famous for his acting role as Professor Severus Snape in Harry Potter series. I feel like a childhood memory of mine got ripped away. Growing up watching Harry Potter and being […]

https://ghostsofnovember.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/empty-heart-heavy-thoughts/

Emotional and Physical Pain

I am currently feeling as the title says: emotional and physical pain. Today hasn’t been the best of days if I’m honest. I feel so many things right now it’s beyond a joke.

I saw my GP this morning and finally found out the reason why I have a number of different health problems, which is good as I can finally get treated. Finally I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders in one respect but at the same time I know that I’m going to need to make some life changes. I must keep reminding myself that change isn’t always a bad thing.

As I’ve mentioned a number of times before that I have a injury to my foot. I’ve already had one lot of surgery and physio and hydrotherapy on it, just it is still not better. I’ve been passed from one person to another and no one seems to know what to do about the injury. My physiotherapist and hydro-therapist have both been in contact with the surgeon informing him that they can’t work on my foot as it’s not been fixed correctly. They tried rushing my appointment forward with the consultant because of their concerns, however the consultant cancelled my last appointment and made me wait 7 weeks to seem him just to be told today that I’m probably going to have to have more surgery, but he wasn’t prepared to do it. He also blamed the consultant that I saw after my injury occurred in Sri Lanka by claiming it was plastered completely wrong etc. So I’ve now been referred to one of his colleagues who specialises in feet, which isn’t a bad thing but I now need to wait another 2 and a half weeks for that appointment.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way blaming the NHS as I know that they are under pressure, under funded and understaffed. I just feel very let down by the consultant. Not only am I in absolute agony, I am feeling so low because of this all. I’m not sleeping, I’m struggling to eat, I don’t want to be around people and I’m loosing interest in pretty much everything I enjoy doing. I’ve been told by a number of people that it was my own fault because I did the injury whilst white water rafting and that in itself is hard to hear. Of course I need to take responsibility and own my problems, but in all fairness I was in Sri Lanka volunteering and it’s a tradition of the company that I was over there with that the first weekend there all of the volunteers go to a jungle retreat for team building and bonding. Knowing that I missed out on one hell of an experience because of the accident is very hard to accept and move on from, so when I get comments about it being my own fault it hurts. I just wanted to do some good over in Sri Lanka yet I came back with very little experience and a dislocated and fractured leg.

So at the moment I am really feeling both emotional and physical pain, which of course I need to hide from my family as I know they’ll get concerned and upset seeing me in this way. I’ve just got to put my fake smile on and pretend that everything is alright even though I feel like I’m dying on the inside.