family – Dystonia and Me

Archive, may 2024

Overcoming Fear – Baby Steps

Posted on May 20, 2024 by dystoniaandme

After being run over last November I have generally avoided going out – for months I only left the house to attend church once a week. Sometimes the panic and anxiety would be too much and it would be a few weeks in the house before my husband would be able to coax me back out.

It’s now six months later and I’m beginning to feel like I am seeing glimpses of my old self again. I’ve been having regular sessions with a trauma therapist who specialises in EMDR. It’s been very helpful.

The panic attacks haven’t stopped but they’re not as severe or as often. I can see progress. The other week on my way to collect the children from school I heard a child screaming ‘Mummy’. That sound took me back to the collision. The memory of my son standing over me screaming mummy, the terror of not understanding what happened, and the overwhelming pain, consumed me. I found myself turning my wheelchair off, crying hysterically in the middle of the pavement. The difference this time? The panic only lasted ten minutes. I didn’t have to phone for somebody to walk with me, I was able to eventually calm down, and carry on to collect my kids.

Today I need to go to the bank and update my personal details as I got married at the end of October, just 5 days before the accident. It’s a task that I should have done months ago but I was living in a vice-like grip of fear. To get to town involves crossing multiple busy roads. But I cannot avoid roads forever – even if I’d like to. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in Costa not far from the bank. Allowing myself time for my anxiety to reduce. Pacing my journeys this way and allowing myself rest periods away from the road helps make the task more manageable.

Everyday is different and has its own challenges but I’m finally learning to squash the fear back down. It’s not a race to conquer it, just one baby step at a time.

Archive, October 2023

Just Married

Posted on October 30, 2023 by dystoniaandme

Saturday 28th October 2023 we stood in front of our loved ones at our parish church and said I do.

Left to right: my sister Eloise, my husband Damon, myself, my brother Alexander and my sister Chloë

It was an absolutely magical day which I will post about in more detail later in the week. I’d been panicking in the months leading up to the day about my health. After two bouts of sepsis this year alone, my bladder becoming paralysed, gastroparesis, heart complications and more I was worried I wouldn’t make it through.

I talked all this through with our church Father, venue, photographer, families and we brainstormed methods of helping me pace. During the service the church put two chairs out for us to sit on so I wasn’t taxing my body and they told me to stay seated if I needed to even if I should be standing. I kept a stick that I had brought specifically from Neo Walk Sticks, as I loved the clear fizz design, close by for the marriage rite and walking the aisle; these were my goals for the days, and I was thrilled to manage them.

For the rest of the day I used my wheelchair. Dancing the night away in my chair meant that I could spend the night rolling on the dance floor which I could never have done otherwise.

My little girl slept through the service on her uncles lap

Archive, December 2022

Snowballs and Spasms

Posted on December 10, 2022 by dystoniaandme

I have loved snow for as long as I can remember. I’m a winter girl. It lights a spark in me like nothing else. My eyes are forever scanning the grey winter skyline in search of signs of an incoming flurry.

It doesn’t matter that the freezing bite in the air adds another layer of pain to my joints, or the kiss of the snow brings on more spasms. All of that is worth the delight in hearing the crunch of the snow, the fits of laughter of my children as they attempt to stay upright (whilst their dad dramatically falls in the snow), watching as they all run ahead in a cascade of ice, snowballs , giggles and shivers. It brings me such happiness.

Our little exploration may have exhausted me, but it was worth every single moment.

Archive, August 2021

Freedom; Are The Disabled Included?

Posted on August 11, 2021 by dystoniaandme

We recently were fortunate enough to spend a chunk of time down south visiting my mum. It was a lovely break away from routine, and the kids were over the moon to get to have a ‘extra long sleepover’ with their Granny. If it weren’t for the newly added hand sanitizers that appeared on every corner one could almost forget about the pandemic for a moment.

On our way home we chose to pull in at a service station to let the kids stretch their legs after hitting the que of another incident. The kids dad took them off to the toilets whilst I popped into the shop. I only needed a couple of items, and instantly looked for a basket as one hand is strapped up at the moment due to scaphoid fracture. There were none.

It may sound dramatic to say that I started to feel anxious at this point but it’s true. I can’t hold things in my fractured hand and my other is occupied with my trusty walking stick. In the end I resorted to cradling the items in the crook of my elbow. I dropped them repeatedly. The staff noticed from behind the counter and did nothing other than stare. Other customers, who were incredibly kind, helped me gather up my shopping as I shuffled about, hunted for a basket and confirmed that due to Covid they’d been taken away.

Eventually, feeling really rather embarrassed at my inability to hold a couple of items, I approached the staff at the tills. When I queried the lack of baskets, I was met with a shrug and a murmured grumble about Covid. I asked about how they expected their disabled customers to cope, after all they had watched me struggle and drop my items several times. In reply he simply offered to scan my shopping and bag it for me, let me pay, then he would watch it so I was free to carry on shopping. It was crystal clear that they had not faced with this situation so far.

Numerous charities and research groups have been saying this through out the pandemic; the disabled community are being left behind. Article after article has stated how disabled people have reported feeling overlooked, forgotten, isolated, ignored. Just today there was a piece on how two York Councillors were not allowed to vote on accessible parking in their area as by being disabled they had a prejudice – madness!

Freedom day has come and gone, yet now things have reopened I’ve found that actually I’m running into more restrictions that affect my disability than prepandemic – for example in the same service station they wouldn’t open up the disabled toilets as they didn’t have a designated staff member free to monitor them. They had a member of staff a few feet away though in the ladies directing women into cubicles.

While it may sound like I’m riled up about not very much it’s not something im going to let slide. I don’t by any means think that the staff in the shop should have magically have transfigured a chocolate bar into a basket but they could have offered a bag for me to go around with or to have walked alongside me and helped. Either way I would have been and out in less than half the time if if id just had a little bit of aid. Which is something I’ll put in my letter when I write to them later this week.

Archive, July 2021

Botox Side Effects – facial drooping

Posted on July 19, 2021 by dystoniaandme

Botox for me is life changing. Without it I would be hospitalised on an NG tube, unable to talk, swallow, eat, or drink. I’ve ended up in that exact situation previously. It’s unpleasant to say the least. I’m fortunate enough to receive Botox from my neurologist every twelve weeks and then a top up at the six week mark in the cycle from my maxofacial team to keep my jaw going.

I am extremely fortunate to experience very little in the way of side effects. Generally speaking I get ‘botox flu’ for a few days after and a flare in my complex regional pain Syndrome symptoms in my arm. This time though my mouth has been weakened slightly by the Botox. It’s not physically painful in anyway at all, it simply means the corners of my mouth are dropping.

At first I didn’t notice it to much, then I was hyper aware. I found myself wanting to be in pictures as little as possible as I knew I’d fixate on the turned down corners of my mouth despite the focused effort to smile. I was finding myself deleting photos of myself and the kids, myself on days out etc, over something as ridiculous as an altered smile.

It’s not as obvious in both photos above, but the fact I’ve kept these picture is a big step forward. I started to think about the example I was setting my children. It was not a healthy one. I do not want them to grow up thinking that we should scrutinize photos for imperfections. Photos have always been for us a treasure trove of memories, to help remind us of the many memories we have made together. Both my kids love getting our photo albums out to look at and this something I hope long continues.

My altered smile, is not permanent, however it is a reminder that I am one of the lucky ones who receives treatment and responds to it. That is something to celebrate not to fixate on. Whether it stays droopy or returns to normal I’ll keep snapping photos of our days out making memories. After all it wasn’t long ago I thought Dystonia meant the life I have now would be impossible. Forever thankful for Botox injections and medication.

may 2021

Looking forward

Posted on May 3, 2021 by dystoniaandme

Recently I’ve been on a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions. Hence why I didn’t automatically return to blogging following my son’s operation in March. I wasn’t sure where my head was at and needed to work through it. A handful of events had triggered it and I was up and down more than the seesaw at the park.

I’d had an assessment where I need to provide extreme detail of all my conditions right from the start to now. You can imagine how emotionally exhausting that can be, explaining to someone why you had to give up your dream midwifery degree, relieving the rapid decline in health over the years and what I do to cope. I hadn’t anticipated it to affect me so strongly but it did.

It’s taken awhile but my head’s back where it’s stronger. I think during these covid times where we don’t have our usual coping mechanisms it’s quite easy to feel sucked under. Previously I could have rung up my friends and been at the soft play laughing over a fruit shoot, while the kids ran themselves to sleep. Spirits lifted, dark cloud averted.

Im looking forward now, and focusing on the future. On the post lockdown adventures with my family, with having friends in for a brew and a natter. But also accepting that lockdown has taught me that I don’t need to be on the go and out every day. If my body’s saying no then PJ’s, Disney and baking is it. That’s perfect too.

What are you looking forward to?

March 2021

Medication Success

Posted on March 28, 2021 by dystoniaandme

As I have mentioned previously following a discussion with my neurologist I tried a couple of different medications to see if we could get a better handle on my spasms. In particular the spasms around my jaw as these cause me significant issues with pain, dislocations, and make it next to impossible some days to relocate my jaw; I’ve had the joy previously of coming round from an operation to have my jaw relocated under GA, only to dislocate when I wake up due to spasms, and have my surgeon coming running over to put it back in and bandage my jaw up. Not a pleasant experience.

Trihexyphenidyl is the medication we have added into my daily regime and it has made a huge difference. Little things like I can brush my teeth now with an adult sized toothbrush rather than a children’s one are possible, and instead of dislocating my jaw by brushing my teeth, my jaw is just in a small spasm and achy. My son commented the other day on the fact that my face isn’t wonky all the time and asked if my Jaw Dr had fixed my jaw. We had a quick chat about mummy’s silly brain and moved on, but for me that showed just how amazing this medicine has been.

I saw my neurologist the other week and he has suggested increasing the dosage further as I am currently not experiencing any side effects. I’m waiting to receive a copy of his letter to my gp explaining that I have the go ahead to do this at my own pace, so we can see just what improvements we can get.

Right now, thanks to lovely female hormones, I’m sitting here feeling quite sore all over as my body goes downhill each month due to the fluctuating hormonal changes. I’ve had several subluxes today in shoulder which have in turn aggravated neck spasms. Normally I’d be quite grumpy about all of this, and yes I’m not exactly thrilled, but having the Dystonia side of things more controlled doesn’t half make coping with the EDS etc, easier. Everything just feels that little bit more manageable right now, and that’s fantastic.

Archive, October 2020

New Found Independence

Posted on October 20, 2020February 24, 2022 by dystoniaandme

After discovering recently the wait to be assessed in my area for an electric wheelchair was likely to be several months if not more, we decided to explore what other options were out there. My happy accident after days of searching and getting to the point of really feeling like I was just going to have to accept that I was essentially mainly house bound at the moment, I stumbled across National Mobility Hire, which I have until April 2021; hopefully by then I will have had my assessment but that’s about the current wait time. I only wish I had found them sooner. This morning they dropped my electric wheelchair off and it’s as if they gave me the key to life back.

As soon as Damon had got home from work we set off out with the kids to test drive the chair. It was a complete and utter dream, to be in control was empowering and so uplifting. It gave me such a boost. Since loosing the use of my leg I’ve been unable to take my son to school, such a basic task every parent does and it has devastated me. We weren’t entitled to help from the council as he’s not compulsory school age, my partners hours change every other week so he couldn’t take him, and Covid-19 has limited our options for help as we live in a Tier 3 area. Honestly with each week that was going past it was harder to figure out; this chair completely changes that, it enables me to get him there and back again. Knowing I can do this myself again brought me so much joy.

Archive, Feb 2019

Three Becomes Four

Posted on February 26, 2019February 24, 2022 by dystoniaandme

As some of you may already be aware of from my other social media channels, we are delighted to announce that we are expecting our second child this summer. I had many concerns at the start of my pregnancy due to my previous poor experience in having my health insufficiently managed whilst I was pregnant with my son. This naturally left me with many worries as it was not an experience that I wish to repeat. My current GP is incredibly supportive and refreshingly up-to-date with his knowledge on my mix of conditions which has meant that so far *touch wood* although the pregnancy is complicated it has gone much smoother than we had expected.

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I decided to take a few steps back from my blog in the beginning months. My health was really not great and whilst normally I would process how this was impacting me by writing about my experience here I didn’t want to blog about the pregnancy until we were past the halfway point; nor did I want to write half stories. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting blogs reflecting on the different things I experienced in this time. I’ll be touching on being your own advocate to doctors, the emotional trauma/impact of going through surgery without anesthesia or pain relief, and acceptance when doctors tell you your the worse case they’ve seen but there’s nothing more they can do for you. The last few months have been easier than my first pregnancy yet extremely hard in their own way.

I’m currently awaiting the results of further testing as once again my cardiac problems have reared their ugly head. I spend most days with a resting heart rate of 130+. It’s uncomfortable, to put it mildly. We recently discovered that the type of EDS I was originally diagnosed with was incorrect and that I actually have Classical Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which may explain my current cardiac complications. I have a few more tests to go before we know more.

This has been a very quick overview of the last few months which I apologize for, but there’s a whole series of posts coming soon.

Archive, August 2017

Redefining Pacing Parameters

Posted on August 19, 2017February 24, 2022 by dystoniaandme

Since my latest flare up began I’ve been taking extra care to make sure I acknowledge my accomplishments no matter how small each day and attempting to redefine my pacing parameters. This is a key tool for me to keep in mind at all time. Mainly as it enures I acknowledge my further limitations during a flare up and act accordingly, but also as it keeps me focused on the positives and prevents me getting tuck in a emotional rut which often occurs in flare ups.

I had a wonderful opportunity as part of my publishing internship yesterday to direct and film an interview with an author signed to the publishing house. It was a fantastic experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. However like all things it required spoons, and far more than I had anticipated. Despite my lack of spoon saving preparation I got through the day relatively intact and the repercussions didn’t kick in until today.

This is where I feel like I’ve made leaps and bounds in handling life with chronic illnesses. I didn’t attempt to struggle through the pain today, or go to the other extreme and do nothing (although sometimes this is needed); instead I decided we would go about our day as planned but I would use my wheelchair the whole time, with baby snug in his sling against me, and Dame pushing me rather than me risking dislocating a joint or three by self propelling.

We only nipped out for a short while as avoiding over stimulation is key on days when I feel my health is on a downward kilter. So a relaxing jaunt to the local coffee house and then onto Waitrose was our plan. I was quite overjoyed to find a wheelchair friendly trolley. A rare treat, that has quiet made my day.