What a day: Part 2

I have remained overweight since the year of inactivity waiting for my Degenerative Disc Disease to be diagnosed. I exercised as much as I could (walking up and down the classroom for example) within the constraints of my Lecturing post, but, although this halted the increase in my weight, the combination of pain and the limitations placed on some types of activity by medics meant I could no longer exercise strenuously enough to lose the extra weight I had already acquired.

My weight increased again when, during the year following the onset of my current depressive episode, I spent a year as a Day Patient at the local Psychiatric Day Hospital, attending various therapy and educational groups to address my “mood”. There was a well-equipped gym at the hospital but I was unable to make use of the facilities because of my DDD.

I get some activity now by walking with my camera and photographing and watching birds. (Some say I photograph “anything” to which I reply “only things that interest me”, but it is mainly birds). I take this exercise whenever I am able, I find the Birds and the photography help push the pain to the back of my mind for a short period of time, but once again I am unable to exercise strenuously enough to reduce the weight I gained during that period.

Once I had recovered from the depressive episode enough to think about food and eating again I began to address this problem through diet but I was too late. About this time last year I was diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes and now the major part of my diet is selected for me through the things I must not eat.

So now I take handfuls of Pills. Pain killers and muscle relaxants for the back, Anti-depressants, and, for the diabetes, tablets to control my blood sugar and others to correct marginal blood pressure and cholesterol levels which would not be deemed serious enough to require treatment if the diabetes were not there.

Because of all these things I sometimes become dizzy when rising from a sitting position, not a problem if it happens immediately because I just sit back down and wait for the dizziness to pass. On three occasions I have been caught out when the dizziness started after I had walked away from my seat and on each of these occasions I have fallen. I escaped unharmed on the first two occasions but during last occurrence, three weeks ago, my legs buckled under me and I suffered a badly sprained ankle.

I heard a bang as my right foot bent under my weight but as I remained conscious, and could wiggle my toes (a trick I remembered from my football playing days), and, because I am used to feeling a variety of weird sensations and pains in my feet and legs from the damaged nerves in my spinal cord, I decided to wait till the next day to see what happened. I took extra’s of my prescribed pain killers so that I could sleep.

The next day the foot was so swollen I could not put my shoes on. Stuck now because I could not drive and felt I was not entitled to call an ambulance as I was no longer an “emergency, I resolved to get through the weekend and contact my GP on Monday.

The Poggle phoned that night, frustrated that her weekend plans made it impossible for her to come and help (which is why I did not call her) she suggested that if things were still bad the next day that I should get a taxi to the Casualty Department. This good solution had not occurred to me.

My mind was made up at 4am the next morning when, despite my “double dose” of nighttime pain relief, I was woken by severe pain from my foot that was by now roughly three times the size of its companion. Remembering from my Social Work days that casualty was probably full of drunks at that time on a Sunday morning I waited until nine and called the Taxi.

I gained my first experience of the world from a wheelchair because staff were so concerned at what they saw that I was sat in one and pushed from place to place. One of those places was the X-Ray department where we learned there was no break but a very bad sprain. The doc explained the implications of that and suggested I call on my GP during the following week to request follow up Physiotherapy. (I wondered, but did not ask at the time, why he did not strap the ankle, learned from my GP since that the combination of my age and the diabetes could mean strapping would inhibit fluid drainage).

Until yesterday I was unable to drive through fear that if I needed to brake suddenly the pain might cause me to take my foot off the pedal so I phoned my GP last week and explained what had happened, we agreed there was no need for him to come to me, I would get in when I was able.

The Poggle (who is my ex-wife and current best friend of whom you will learn more one day) visited on Sunday. She is an ex SRN and currently has a small reflexology practice. For four years she has given me regular free reflexology treatments (more of this at another time too because they have definitely brought be relief from both the Sciatica and the depression in the past). She was concerned at the colour of my skin above the sprain, she thought this might be Cellulitis and suggested I contact my GP to have it checked. I called in following my analysis yesterday to book an appointment but his slots were all booked for over a week so I phoned him when I got home to explain the situation and ask if I should go to Casualty again. He found a space when he could see me today.

He confirmed the Poggle’s view and prescribed an anti-biotic, telling me this is yet another thing he might leave to do its own thing and maybe go away, but could not afford to do so because of the Diabetes, so from today I am being treated for three different conditions that might not require intervention if the Diabetes were not there. Because I know he is very resistant to prescribing anti-biotics I looked “Cellulitis” up on the Net when I got home, seems it is something else that can be quite serious.

That’s a drag eh.

What a day: Part 1

8.30 to my Analyst, four sessions a week at this time to see if we can find reasons (other than medical) for the depression and the OCD.

11.30 meeting with the Poggle and Ben, my keyworker from the supporting people scheme. Good news here, seems like I will be getting a refund on my Council Tax and benefit to help with this from now on.

Better still; it seems that after nine months of battling against bureaucracy, the DWP are going to pay the interest on my mortgage. This has been a massive worry for me and I owe the outcome to the Poggle and my Son who have accompanied me to meetings to act as my surrogate memory, and written letters and made phone calls at times when I have not been able to do so.

There would not have been an issue if I had been assessed last October as being entitled to income support: and/or: if this had been a rented property. However, because I receive a small pension after being retired from Social Work on health grounds, I exceed the permitted income limit even though the pension does not cover the cost of my mortgage and the monthly service charge on the ground floor flat I require because of the degenerative disc disease.

There would be no problem if I lived in Scotland, my disability alone would have meant help with my mortgage even if I was still working but here in England they make you wait until you only have £6000 in savings before you can apply for support. They then impose a six month waiting limit before they will consider help with the mortgage which means you spend most of that £6000 waiting for the help to arrive meaning, in my case, that my emergency fund for if the fridge breaks, or my one of my Children or Grandchildren needs help, has gone.

Can’t help feeling there is something very wrong here.

OCD

And then of course there's this bloody OCD which is KEEPING ME AWAKE right now. The washing machine I programmed last night to switch on and work away while I slept has just come on to remind me it is tomorrow.

My OCD is recently diagnosed, I didn't realise that everyone else doesn't have several conversations (what I did last, what I'll do next, what I did in 1963, what i mustn't forget to do next week, what was that tune I heard on the radio last week,etc etc) going on in their head at any one time. It isn't the "stereotyped" activities, hand washing, locking doors several times, that occupy me; although I am often encouraged over and over again, for days at a time sometimes, to carry out a particular activity, usually one that either puts me at risk or will have long term repercussions.

Collecting music has been one of my healthier obsessions over the years, at least, it's healthy when I have money which right now I don't. So what was the answer to those jumbled feelings I put out here earlier this week, well retail therapy of course.

In my teens I collected vinyl 45rpm singles. Because I was music provider for the local youth club I had pretty well every top ten single between 1968 and 1972. Some of these got lost or "borrowed" before they'd hardly been played, some got left behind as relationships ended and so on and so on. Not a big problem so long as I was focused on collecting LP's but one day, out of the jumble of thoughts careering around inside my skull at the time: A Revelation: The World, especially my world, would be a better place if I can replace that collection of 45's.

Believe me, this is serious, the world will be a much better place, pestilance and disease ended, and no more madness in my head.

Big problem.

No more 45's

There are CD's though, and all those wonderful compilations.

And so it began, and soon afterwards a Music Library Programme (its called Visi Trax and its brilliant and you can get a free download for 100 items while you experiment with it and its really cheap when you want to upgrade to get the rest of your collection on (see Synapsa Link above the counter >>>>)), to enter my 930 Vinyl LP's, Cassette Tapes, and CD's on. That's 13478 tracks. Many of these duplicates because I had the same piece on all 3 mediums but mainly because in order to complete my singles collection I often have to buy a compilation CD in order to get one track, hence, I now have "Will you still love me tomorrow" by the Shirrelles 15 times in order to get "one offs" like "This wheels on Fire" from Julie Driscoll et al.

So this week, I traded off the desire to bang my head on the walls to stop the noise, against working on the collection, after visits to Amazon and Asda I have 10 Titles, that's 17 CD's (allowing for multi's, one is a 5 set), that's approx 340 tracks of which I probably already have 315.

In a few days the Euphoria that I now possess "Ob la Di Ob La Da" by the Bedrocks once more, (the fact I already have several versions by both the Beatles and Marmalade never really counted because it was the Bedrocks I owned back then) will fade and become replaced by guilt, and other negative feelings over the money I have spent.

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, for now I am "feeding my compulsion" by cataloguing all these tracks (Title, Performer, Year, Composer etc) even though I've done many of them several times before, no headaches, no "arguing" while I have this to concentrate on.

There you are then, another little bit of me, if you've enjoyed it perhaps you'd help me out, there's this song "Birds and the Bees" from a duet called "Warm Sounds" in 1968. I think it might be the last piece of my jigsaw but It seems to be discontinued everywhere. Now this isn't the song of the same title by Jewel Akens, totally different song, but if should come across "Warm Sounds" please drop me a line.

Oh, and don't worry if this happens in a few years time, rest assured I wont have forgotten, in fact I'll still be humming the tune several times a week lol.

Luv

Bri (((x)))

A Quick thought part 2

So that (A Quick thought part 1) reminds me about the downside of my physical disability. Everybody has had "a bad back" too; so unless I go through the whole rigmarole each time explaining how the discs are crumbling away from the bottom up, (3 at the last count), and that arthritis is taking their place and compressing the spinal cord confusing the nerves and causing permanent Sciatica and various other complications that come and go; they think I'm talking about the way they feel after they've done a pile of ironing.

Before the DDD was diagnosed the same (not my current) GP who told me "be prepared not to work for a very long time" based on the whole range of my symptoms insisted on writing "Sciatica" on my medical certificates because that was the one thing he was sure of.

I remember a personnel officer phoning me and saying "Sciatica, I get that after I play tennis and it doesn't stop me working" I asked him if he also felt it from buttock to toe tips down both legs and whether this meant he had to stop after every third step and crouch down like a frog to get some relief. Perfect when you're walking around the supermarket and can pretend you are checking out the bottom shelf. Not so good when your holding up the post office Q or are afraid to overtake the little old lady with the shopping trolley who's moving marginally slower than you are because you doubt you have the acceleration and, even if you do, you will have to crouch as soon as you pass her and she will bang you with her trolley as she overtakes you tutting. And then the dilemma 15 minutes later when you catch her up again.

Anyway, the personnel officer thought I was describing something "much worse" than sciatica. When I told the Gp this he just wrote SCIATICA on the next certificate claiming the personnel officer should learn that sciatica of itself can be disabling. Without any further input from me he began to add "acute back pain" on subsequent certificates, this seemed to do the job for personnel but still drew me some weird looks from the worlds "bad backers" whenever I gave this as reason for not working.

Eventually I was told I might never walk unaided again and that I should give up work. As they could not offer a different prognosis whether I worked or I didn't I found a job (Lecturing in Further Education) that I would be able to do from a wheelchair if and when that day ever came.

It still has not come, but I was forced to cease working three years ago when, following the death of my Father, and other losses, I suffered my eighth episode of acute depression.

As I've been visited by depression approximately every five years of my adult life (and before that I believe) I had, especially with the Poggle's help, become quite good at handling it and had only needed medical intervention on three occasions. This time is very different and, probably because the background physical pain I suffer is recognised as a precipitating factor to depression in itself, I seem to be unable to shake of the depression or the medication or the anxiety or the inadequacy etc etc.

More of that later, I promised some poems. I wrote the following poem two years ago when my mobility became impaired to the point I was afraid to have a bath when there was no-one here (I live alone) in case I "fell in" or "fell out". I contacted Social Services from where the wonderful Jenny came up with the idea of the electric chair in the poem.

Freedom

With the freedom of a child re-grown Today I took a bath alone

Free from fear, without a care Into the tub with no-one there

I even reached my distant feet With the help of my new plastic seat

And with waste still running to the drain I filled it up and went again.

The plastic seat rides up and down (Not far enough for me to drown)

So I no longer need to shout For help to come and get me out

No more floundering like a big beached Whale I’m told my plastic seat can’t fail

It will refuse to take me down If it can’t get me up again.

I have forgotten, just can’t tell The last time that I felt this well

A time to reclaim some of the cost To happiness when skills are lost

Freedom to choose when to lie and soak With fags, the radio, Southern Comfort and Coke

To choose such moments on a whim Without needing to bring my loved ones in.

No more wondering how I smell I’ve not bathed, can others tell?

No more planning what to cook, specially fry So the smell doesn’t linger on me for days

No more need to stand in the pouring rain So I’ll feel properly clean again

And no more odour of sweaty feet I think I’ll like my plastic seat.

Sometimes I’d think back and I’d laugh At the child who so resisted baths

Oh Brian if you’d only known What awaited you once you had grown

But I’d think these thoughts with no regret I’d rather remember and feel, than hide and forget

And with my plastic ride I’ll have such fun Disability Nil, Brian One.

© Bri 2006

A quick thought

A letter today from the borough Council, "thank you for the letter from your GP telling us you were suffering from depression during the requested dates. Unfortunately he does not say you were incapable of dealing with your own affairs during these dates, please obtain a letter stating this" etc, etc, etc ----------.

Someone else who thinks the depression I have is the same way they feel when they sit in the pub saying "I felt really depressed today because I realised it wont be Saturday for another two days"

More to follow on this
Bri

First Post

O.K. I guess it's time to start. It's only taken four days since I first registered on the site and that's pretty good going for me. Time spent going over and over help pages etc. making sure I was doing things properly and waiting for it to feel right.

Days and hours spent trying to sift through the many ideas competing in my head about how to start this, a lengthy intro? a poem? a photograph? Which of these things says most about, may be my record collection? may be my writing? What will you be interested in? Am I writing this for me or for you? How will I know what you think of it? How will I know if you've read it?

Today - the realisation - it will never feel right so get on with it.

Not the best o0f days but then it was never going to be. I feel quite tearful. With the help of the "Poggle" (you'll get to know her) and my son I've spent much of the past 6 months trying to sort out my entitlement (or not) to Council Tax Benefit. Today a Statement with a minus figure at the bottom, I think this means that they owe me but I don't understand it. I don't know if I want to cry because it looks as if I've succeeded or because I don't understand it.

Once the manager of a retail department with a million pound turn over, once a Social Worker sorting out this sort of thing on behalf of others, once a lecturer helping others to understand how best to help those needing guidance with things like this, today, someone who does not understand a simple statement, someone who's eyes begin to blur as I look at the page, someone fighting a mind that wants to take him anywhere except to the meaning of that piece of paper in case the news is not what I want it to be.

Knowing the problem this causes me I have not opened a brown envelope for months, waiting for my Son or the Poggle to visit so they could explain the contents. No such luxury this month, holidays and work commitments keeping them both away so I've had to brave (how pathetic is that) the contents of many such envelopes, some waiting on the coffee table for over a week before I felt able to face them. At least this was a first day opening so I guess I should feel good about that.