I guess I have been avoiding this post for about a month and
a half now because if I didn’t admit it then it wouldn’t be true. I guess I shouldn’t
be so surprised and disappointed in myself because it is something that was
always supposed to catch up with me eventually due to the long term use of pain
killers that reduce serotonin levels and in a way it still isn’t happening how
it should because my brain isn’t the cause, my thyroid is.
Firstly I think I should apologise to the family and friends
who I have been too ashamed to talk to, logically I know that I shouldn’t feel ashamed,
deficient or defective but that is how I feel.
I have now been off work for fourteen months, I am in
constant pain and I’m tired-not long day, been for a hike, worked hard or even
done too little tired, it’s a bizarre, bone deep fatigue that never really goes
away even on the rare occasion that I sleep well several nights in a row. I generally
spend ten to twelve hours in bed in order to get four to six hours sleep. This fatigue
is something that has never been a problem before, I have often spent months at
a time living on four to six hours sleep with no problem, the thing that makes it
so hard is the constant waking during the night, for every hour I sleep there
is second hour that I spend trying to get the pain back under control and get
back to sleep (something not helped by the neighbours from hell
upstairs-eviction day tomorrow, YAY).
In addition there is the reality of daily life when there is
very little to do. To start with it is great to have time off but once you
realise that everyone else is at work and even the godsend of maternity leave
tails off there are only so many things left to do and basically all of them
involve being alone. Then you have those wonderful days during the week when
someone has time off and wants to do something. Instantly there is a solution
to the boredom and loneliness until the reality catches up. ‘Let’s go to
Bristol/Gloucester/London/Liverpool, we can do a little shopping and the
disabled badges mean we can park close so it’ll be fine!’ Yeah, great idea! Oh
wait, during this shopping are you going to want to browse because I’ve had to
give that up, I browse online then make a beeline for what I need before
fleeing because the effort of standing in a shop is too much. So basically
there is the choice of going somewhere like a zoo where I can hire a scooter or
Cheltenham. Oh but Rory doesn’t go in the car so I need to charge him in town
because he won’t survive the ride there, back and around town...
Anyway you get the picture, there are a lot of limitations
on what I can do, the main place I go is the gym-in general quite a solitary
activity- and the pharmacy, aka my new friends! For about eleven out of the
fourteen months I was frustrated but it wasn’t too bad, I felt positive
generally (obviously there were some bad moments but I laughed at them
eventually) but something has changed and I don’t like it!
Today I went to the doctors, going in I knew there were several
things to talk about including the fact that the two non painkillers that alter
your brains reception to pain were not working correctly-I will be coming off
them over the next 6 weeks to go onto something else but in the meantime my
pain will gradually increase as they decrease-the fact that my thyroid is
underactive and I had a whole list of symptoms which apparently are attributed to
hypothyroidism. The result is that my doctor agrees that I am depressed,
something I think he suspected after the last time I saw him a couple of weeks
ago, and that the chances are my thyroid is on its way to ‘failing’ but in
order to be sure I have to wait 6 weeks for another blood test to fully
confirm. For those of you paying attention this means that the next 6 weeks are
going to be rather interesting as my thyroid symptoms are likely to increase as
my pain drugs decrease.
In the past I have understood the concept of depression and
how it works but the reality is a bitch! This isn’t new, I always knew it was
but its different to understand the concept and to experience the feelings. In addition
(and I have been reliably informed that I’m being silly) the fact that there isn’t
actually anything wrong with my brain chemistry-just my hormones- I feel like a
fraud admitting that everything isn’t great and positive.
I guess at this point I am wondering what the point is, I do
physio and go to the gym for rehab and to help protect against future dislocations
but things are getting worse so quickly I have no hope of catching up let alone
getting back to the point where I am ahead of the deterioration. There is
nothing much I can do and no one really to see and even when there are people
or something to do there are so many restrictions on what I can do I end up not
wanting to put people out and just staying at home wondering if I would have
bothered getting out of bed if I didn’t have a housemate coming home who would
be worried if I hadn’t.
So my solution? Buy a wheelchair! Basically I am stuck in a
catch 22 situation, it is very hard to go out and do something because I generally
need someone with me and then I feel like I am holding them back with my
limitations. In addition I find that at the moment I really don’t feel like
doing anything. My reasoning is that when you combine crutches, Rory, blue
badge and a wheelchair there are fewer excuses to not do something. Hopefully this
will work. In the meantime I need to try to figure out where my motivation and
concentration have gone. I am currently reading what is almost certainly the
best book of the year, but I can’t motivate to read it and when I do my
concentration won’t last more than a couple of chapters.
Well, there it is, the black dog has finally caught up, many
years after it was expected but it has run me down (not a hard feat, I barely
remember having the ability to run). I sit here watching the Paralympics wondering
if there is anything I could compete in but I have yet to see a single sport
that wouldn’t stress my joints in an unacceptable way. So I guess I will work
on pushing myself in my chair at a reasonable walking pace while exercising my
quads ready to get back on my feet after surgery. All I need to do now is to try
to keep getting up and starting to get more into my day than staring at the
wall wondering if things will ever get better. Of course they will, it’ll just
take time and possibly hormone therapy!
Sorry for the crappy post but I guess this is what my blog
was for...
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