I live with an elephant in the room; it comes with me wherever I go. Some people don’t mind the elephant, some have one of their own, others have a dislike for these elephants. It’s not always clear as to why. Maybe it’s worry, perhaps lack of understanding, and sometimes it’s ignorance.
Learning to accept my elephant of many names was a task that took great strength and many many years of learning to love myself all over again. I’m a sensitive soul; when my elephant upsets others it’s hard not to be offended. But I cannot change what I am, nor the diagnoses attached to me, or the symptoms that are ever present. Therefore the elephant is always in the corner. Sometimes small, sometimes big, sometimes putting on quite the performance.
However, I am who I am because of the path my life has taken. Disability has taught me a lot about myself, and it has opened my eyes to the need for self advocacy in a world that is a far cry from being disability friendly. The next time you are in a room with an elephant, address it, embrace it. Disability elephants are not scary things.
After a week long stay I was finally discharged from one of our local hospitals yesterday evening. I was admitted due to pain in my left eye which has optic neuritis, it had become overwhelming, to the point I felt I had to apply pressure on my eye to relieve it. I had also lost the sensation in the bottom half of my right leg.
During my time in the hospital they decided to carry out a Lumbar Puncture and MRI knowing that my neuro team wanted to do these anyway. The LP side effects I’m still dealing with, I am still having issues with my bladder, my whole leg now has no sensation, and I have a permanent horrondous headache. Both tests came back clear which left the dr’s there confused. On discharge I was diagnosed with Complex neurological disorders and global sensory loss in the right leg, and told my neuro team would take over figuring out the cause.
Today I had an Opthalmology appointment at another hospital. The opthamologist in charge of my care is wonderful. I sat down, he faced me and said “So you have MS ” he was quiet matter of fact about it. I corrected him and pointed out that my tests had come back clear. He muttered that they were wrong and went on to examine my eyes. After several tests he sat back looked me in the eyes and again said “Rebecca you have M.S”. He was quite insisted that my doctor’s must have missed something on my scans due to the state my eyes were in.
So where do I go from here? Such wildly different view points, everyone agreeing that my local neurology team needs to see me again and review what the different teams have found. However getting hold of them is darn impossible. Both myself and my gp surgery contacted them a few days before I was admitted informing them I was going downhill, and needed input desperately. Neither myself or my gp’s surgery has had a response yet.
Right now I’m very emotional and very stressed. I’m taking things moment by moment and trying to just accept things as they are and get on with it. But I work best with action plans and right now I don’t even know who’s responsible for my care. I feel very lost in the system.
When I was 17 weeks pregnant with my daughter I underwent surgery to remove a mole on the underneath of my right breast that had early cell changes. Due to the fact I was pregnant and it was a relatively short surgery they didn’t want to give me a general anaesthetic, so decided a local would do. Unfortunately my Ehlers-Danlos means I have no response to local anaesthetic and felt every cut, and every stitch. The whole process was rather traumatic and I’ve worked hard at trying to forget it.
I was admitted to my local hospital a couple of days ago due to worsening symptoms in my eye and leg. Due to this it was decided last night to bring my lumbar puncture forward to that evening. I explained that local anaesthetic does not work in the slightest for me. They decided to give me a double dose in the hope it would work; it didn’t, which I expected, maxfax team has tried injecting several times this amount with no effect previously. Now lumbar punctures are known to be painful anyway, so to know I was having one without effective pain relief was nerve wracking to say the least.
It was one of the most agonising experiences I have ever had. It took multiple attempts to place the needle correctly as they found the spaces inbetween the spinal collum to be be extremely narrow. It’s been just over twenty four hours since and I’ve struggled to move. My whole back is in horrondous pain, taking a deep breath or swallowing liquids really seems to agreviate it. I’ve also lost sensation over my waterworks which is concerning. I’ve spoken to the consultant but everyone’s answer over this is that I need an MRI, which apparently is booked but no can tell me a day or time.
I’m missing my kids loads but I know that being here is where I need to be. If this helps put a piece of the medical jigsaw in place and leads to better management that can only be a good thing. Just got to take everything one moment at a time.
It’s a painsomnia night so I thought I would share with you all something that I’ve been coming back to frequently recently. Personally I’m a very sensitive, emotional person; now some may view that as a bad thing, others a good thing, some of you will be neutral. I can see the pros and cons, but it’s what makes me me, so yes I may cry buckets everytime we watch certain episodes of Vikings, or The Lion King but i’ll also laugh myself to stitches five minutes later. It’s a rollercoaster of life. It’s real, honest and truth.
So why do I, and I know many others with chronic illness will be able to identify with this, go on autopilot everytime a doctor, family member or friend asks after us? You know the drill, you walk into the drs room the doctor greets you and asks how you are before you get down to the nitty gritty. It’s a formality, so like a healthy person you respond with I’m good thanks, and you? It’s ridiculous! Why is it so hard to say you know what I’m actually not great at the moment and I need some help.
I forced myself to do this yesterday. I could hear the usual auto response slipping out my mouth, so I caught myself, took a breath, looked the doctor in the eye and said I’m pretty awful and I don’t know what to do. Now saying that wasn’t easy but boy did the relief for sharing the burden feel good. Making that choice to let the facade of I can cope with everything slip for a moment to ask for help took an incredible amount of inner strength and it’s something I’m going to practice doing more often. Vulnerability is not something to view in a negative light, in fact it allows others to reach out and see if they can improve your situation. Sometimes just talking things over can make a difference.
So just pause for a moment and think; are you like me and guilty of putting walls up? Is it worth flexing your inner strength and letting that vulnerability show? Let me know what you decide to do!
Some of you who have popped on to here over recent days will have noticed small changes popping up around the site. It’s an exciting time for the blog. In the eight years its been running for it has had the same look, so it was about time it had a make over along with a brand spanking new feature. Hopefully this means you’ll find it easier to navigate, but as always I’m only a message away and you can always drop me a line over on the Dystonia and me Facebook page if you’re having any difficulties.
Dystonia & Me; Spoonie Talks Logo
Spoonie Talks is the blogs latest new feature, this will be a weekly podcast posted up every Friday evening. I am overly excited about this. It’s an idea I have had bubbling away in the pipeline for awhile but it was never quite the right time. However sometimes you’ve just got to grab the pandemic by the horns and give things a go, so I’m launching Dystonia & Me: Spoonie Talks podcast and hope to have the first episode up and running by the end of the month.
How can you be involved?
While some of the the episodes will just myself talking, I’m aiming to make this an interactive series bringing light to issues that my readers, and the Dystonia and me community feel strongly on. This really could be anything! It could be on a specific condition that you would like to spread awareness about, you could be a carer and wish to discuss what that’s like, maybe you want to share your journey to diagnosis, tips on balancing illness and home life, pacing, perhaps you are a charity and want a platform to speak on. The possibilities are really endless.
If you think this is something you may be interested in, drop me a message through the facebook page and we can have a chat. The more the merrier!
The Return of Facebook Lives
During National lockdown I was on the Dystonia and Me facebook page twice a day doing facebook lives to check on how everybody was doing both physically and mentally. This meant I could provide links to resources for those who were struggling, and hopefully for those who were feeling isolated it meant that they had something to look forward to.
Now with my health not being at its most stable at the moment twice a day is not something I can commit to, however I feel (and some of you have messaged) that the lives returning would be helpful with so many local lockdowns in place again. With this in mind I’m going to be coming Live on the Facebook page 7.30pm every Monday and Wednesday night. It wont always be awareness spreading, it might just be a friendly chat to see how you are all doing, so join in in the comments. I will schedule these on the page, you’ll be able to set reminders for those who want to join.
Being chronically means I live with the knowledge that at some point, someday I will have a flare of one or more of my conditions. I could go months without one and then have several back to back, or they could be fairly regular. Flare ups are unpredictable, sometimes it’s obvious as to what caused them, and other times there seems to be no rhyme or reason to them. Managing them is a joke. Other than knocking back the muscle relaxants and painkillers the only thing to do is try and ride it out.
I’m currently in the middle of an Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Type 3 and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome flare up. Agony is not a strong enough word to describe the sheer amount of pain that I am in. I knew my EDS flare up was coming, my pain had been getting dramatically worse over 72 hours and it felt like I had battered every inch of my body. What I wasn’t prepared for however was my CRPS to act up.
It’s hard to communicate to people who don’t have CRPS exactly what type of hellish pain it is. The only way I can think to describe is this. Imagine you have several vegetable peelers the width of your leg, someone is dragging all of them down every millimetre of your leg with excruciating slowness. Digging the blade in to the point it reaches your bones. This evil being has a partner in crime, who is simultaneously pouring vinegar into your open wounds whilst dropping lit matches on to you. On top of all of this is Benedict the Dystonia Alien who is rejoicing in contorting your leg in every position imaginable heightening the pain further.
This pain is constant. Its at the point were it feels like a miracle if I manage 5 minutes without crying. My oramorph only makes a slightly dent in the pain. Sleep is a distant memory as my leg is ravaged with mind boggling pain. All I can do is hope and pray that this flare up ends soon and does not once again become a fixture in my day to day life.
As many of you may remember in the summer of 2016 I attempted having a little part time job, this backfired on me when my employer refused to make reasonable adjustments and my body went into an extreme flair up. At the time this wasn’t too bad, but it did leave me pondering as to what I realistically could do. In February this year I moved in with my wonderful partner, now as you may or may not know such a milestone negatively affects benefits. I’d been on ESA for quite a while, but moving in with Dame left me £400 worse off each month. The government’s current system presumes that your partner can A) earn enough to be able to afford to be the sole provider B) Is happy to financially support you.
A £400 drop in my income was quite significant as you can imagine. So I’ve been wracking my brains as to what work I could do that wouldn’t leave me spasming and seizing in a hospital bed. I’d heard about Younique, a high quality skin care and makeup company that would allow me to set my own hours and work from home. In all honesty I thought it was to good to be true, but this week I took the plunge and messaged a fellow spoonie to get her take on the business. She spoke extremely highly of it, and knowing that someone in a similar health situation to me could make it work gave me home.
So here I am now. Today is the start of my 10 day online launch party, and I’m feeling incredibly excited by this opportunity. If you’d like to see what I’m doing then click on over to https://www.facebook.com/smilesparkleglow/. Fingers crossed that this adventure will be just what I need.
Today you published the article ‘Matt Dawson: I had to have heart surgery after a tick bite’. At first I was thrilled, it is always uplifting to see articles highlighting this condition being shared by the mainstream media. However as I eagerly absorbed each sentence , I could feel my heart sinking further in my chest. In fact I’m pretty sure it dropped straight out of me and into the flat below under the weight of my disappointment! You could have taken this opportunity to really highlight the world wide issue when it comes to diagnosing and treating Lyme and Chronic Lyme Disease. The fact that you didn’t leap at this opportunity is beyond me. What happened to the BBC being at the forefront of reporting, challenging the establishment, pushing boundaries?
You even went as far as mentioning that if Lyme goes untreated it can go on to attack and cause ‘debilitating neurological problems’. This was your perfect opening to delve into the devastating condition that is Chronic Lyme; you could have examined how the tests for Lyme disease are extremely inaccurate and false negatives are a frequent occurrence; you could have investigated how NICE guidelines have left the few doctors who are up to date enough with the research in the area to believe in Chronic Lyme, unable to treat their patients without risking their medical licence. You could have mentioned how, if you are in the unfortunate situation of having to fundraise money to pay for your treatment, you are looking at a minimum of £10,000 for private medical bills and that there is no guarantee that you will be cured. You could have investigated how many people that are given the early treatment are actually, years later, successfully cured.
I was bitten by a tick at the age of 6, at the age of 22 I was diagnosed with Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease. Almost 3 years on and I am still fighting. Last year I was informed by neurologists that they were 99% certain I had MS, but then my MRI came back clean, when I brought up Lyme my case was swept under the carpet. Sufferers are abandoned, left to battle their own way through the system, made to feel like a fraud whilst their lives and their health fall apart. Unlike your report suggests, it’s not as easy as walking into a hospital and stating you have Lyme and hoping for treatment. It feels like a life sentence.
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.
Dystonia and Me 