Month: October 2017

A trip of a lifetime

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

 

Next week hubby and I will be visiting the Emma Bridgewater Pottery factory. It’s a trip that we decided to take around two months ago. We never thought we would get to visit it so soon. We always had thought we would have to wait for a few years before we made the trip as we would “have” to do it over two days but we decided to bite the bullet and just do it in one. It will probably leave me quite sick, there may not be a blog post next week, if the exertion hits me really hard. However I am determined to enjoy myself and live with the consequences.

 

 

A trip even for an able-bodied person can involve lots of planning, as the whole thing has seemed rather surreal to me I hadn’t really started thinking about the trip and the reality of it until yesterday. Now my lists have lists. I did order a road atlas as we are old school and don’t use a sat nav. Our road atlas was invaluable on a trip many years ago when we were on our way back from a family christening in Norfolk and the M25 was closed. I took on the navigating responsibilities and got us to the M4 by going the scenic route rather than sitting for hours in a huge tailback. Also last week I finally printed off the directions from the AA Route Planner – both there and back (I have made that mistake before!) The tickets have also been organised and placed in a folder. But that is just the tip of the iceberg of stuff that needs to be done.

 

 

Due to the sheer volume of medications I take, I have had to try to come up with a working solution of taking extra meds with me just in case I need them. I really didn’t want to be lugging around a full-size 300ml bottle of morphine when I may in the course of the day take only 20ml. Same as I don’t want to be taking 200 paracetamol or a blister pack of ten slow release morphine tablets. My handbag will resemble a pharmacy if I am forced to take all these things, I already have a print out of all my prescription medications which I carry at all times. It really is a pain in the arse having to be so thoroughly bloody responsible but the consequences would be awful if these things weren’t properly managed. Not keeping on top of my pain medications means I can be in agony for 48 hours until the situation is back under control. Even when I am having a good time I can’t forget my pain meds as further down the line I will be jolted back into reality with searing joint pain.

 

 

The anxiety levels planning for this trip has induced are off the charts. I am an anxious person by nature but it had been under control for many years just raising its ugly head anytime I was more stressed than normal. Since giving up smoking though my day-to-day anxiety levels have increased. Anything and everything is setting me off, even the most basic things can leave me doubting myself or working out the worst case scenario of every situation, what I call catastrophizing. However unlikely the catastrophe maybe likely to happen. It’s a horrible way to live as it makes you so desperately unhappy. You spend your whole life ignoring the here and now, worrying yourself sick about the future, something which you have zero control over. It literally sucks the joy from any situation. So even though the anxiety about this trip is causing me sleepless nights I am determined to go, to prove to myself that I can live in the moment and enjoy myself. If my anxiety levels don’t settle down after this trip I am going to have to make an appointment to see my gp as this level of anxiety isn’t normal. It’s not my normal.

 

 

With 7 days to go until my trip ( it will be less again by the time this is published)  my lists have lists. Writing lists does seem to soothe my anxiety until 1am when I wake up most nights in a panic about something or other. Thanks to the Lush Sleepy lotion which I blogged about here , I am getting off to sleep much more easily. It is just staying asleep that seems to be the problem. At least now, well during the day I will have a list I can check and re-check, to ensure I have planned for every possible outcome. When my mind is occupied with writing, crafting etc it is easy to feel calm and in control. The waking up in the middle of the night is just frustrating because that is now actually starting to make me ill, due to the lack of sleep. I am now panicking about not sleeping properly the night before we go…….how bloody stupid is this? If I keep worrying about it, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank god I can function on the minimum amount of sleep and I think the adrenaline alone will keep me going for this trip next week.

 

 

Next week is going to be quite hectic with our trip to Stoke-on-Trent and both of our birthdays. So if there is no blog post next week you will know why, it’s because I am utterly exhausted. I will try to get something out even if it is just a photograph from the day but I won’t be pushing myself. I am sure you will understand as I will be recovering from my trip of a lifetime.

 

The Dentist

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

It’s 13.20pm on Tuesday 17th October and I am here stressing to high heaven because at 14.15pm I will be in the dentist’s chair. Like every single person I know with EDS, I hate the dentist. I am only going today so that I don’t get kicked off the list and end up without a dentist. The last time I was there it was a nightmare, which you can read about here in my post Blind Panic .  I am still really angry that he didn’t listen when I told him local anesthetic wears off on me very quickly. He obviously thought he knew better. I ended up chickening out of the hygienists appointment because I was having panic attacks a week before it was due. So today could be very interesting.

 

A few months ago one of my back teeth disintegrated when I was eating some chocolate. I wouldn’t have minded but I was nibbling at it with my front teeth when the back molar (upper right 7 I found out this afternoon) decided to just fall apart. I know the dentist will want to fuck about with this tooth, be it a crown etc but he will be told by me that I want it pulled if he wants to play with it. I don’t do root canals or anything other than a straightforward filling with my teeth. The reason behind this is I have a shockingly low pain threshold when it comes to my mouth. Anywhere else on the body I am an absolute trooper but I never get adequate pain relief when they are messing about with my teeth. At 43 I believe I am entitled to call the shots when it comes to my teeth.

 

I know some of the low pain threshold with my teeth is caused by the abject terror and stress a visit to the dentist causes me. Me and Dentists have never got on, probably because for a lot of my life EDS hadn’t been diagnosed, it didn’t seem to matter to the dentists treating me if there were tears rolling down my face and I was screaming whilst they were carrying out treatment. I was to be ignored because I’d had anesthetic, so I couldn’t possibly be feeling anything. The problem was I felt everything. Now the association is set in my  mind that whatever the dentist does will mean pain to me. My last dentist was brilliant, very patient and understood EDS. She had got me to the point of not being absolutely terrified, which was quite a step forward. Unfortunately she has left the NHS and now practices privately. I am hoping today that I will be able to find out where as I need to build my confidence back up and hopefully get her to have a word with the guy that is my dentist now. I am hopeful that due to me almost ripping the drill out of his hand last time that it was enough of a frightening experience for him as it was for me that he takes me seriously. But it’s been a long time since I went…………..deliberately.

 

There has been a lot going on here, decorating, a trip planned and me being much more unwell than usual. I had a very bad flare up of Hidradenitis Suppurativa which then had an impact on my hemifacial spasms (**sarcasm) no really it affected my MG like symptoms really badly, (I have been exhausted, very weak muscles and ptosis coming on within 2-3 hours of taking mestinon). I have been on mega doses of antibiotics trying to avoid any surgical intervention as this is the worst flare up I have ever had. I am still not out of the woods as the antibiotics are due to finish shortly and the abscesses although have reduced in size are still there. If I could get out of going to the dentist today (not due to fear) I would have as I am utterly exhausted again today.

 

I am going to have to go and sort myself out ready to leave. The time is rapidly approaching for my appointment. I will let you know how I got on when I get back.

 

* * *

 

The good news is I am still alive the bad news is I need a filling on the tooth that disintegrated. It was quite amusing as the dentist didn’t remember me, so I gave him a brief overview of our last appointment. Which he laughed and then checked the notes, saying  “oh my goodness yes, I don’t remember it but it’s all here!” . I explained to him again that I am an absolute wuss when it comes to dental work. I told him that I believed a lot of it was psychological due to years of painful dental treatment when I haven’t been believed when I have told the dentist I can feel whats going on. That I now have a deep anxiety about the dentist and that I had chickened out of going to the hygienist in March because I had started having nightmares two weeks before the appointment.

 

I still don’t think he 100%  appreciates how very difficult it is for me to attend appointments just due to the fear but he was so gentle today, a completely different bloke than last time. Not that he was rough last time but he had a different attitude. Half way through the appointment he said “You can’t have adrenaline in your injections can you?” to which I nodded as his fingers were in my mouth. He said “ I remember you now, you faint if you have the adrenaline” again a gurgle and a nod for a reply from me. Obviously there aren’t too many of us that actively request no adrenaline.

 

I have to go back the second week of November for my filling, which is fine by me. It gives me a chance to chill out a bit after this appointment. I am utterly drained of energy now. I was better this time on the lead up to the appointment probably because there is currently so much else going on, I couldn’t sit and focus on it. Of course in three weeks I will have to go through all the stress again knowing I am going to have to have a filling but that’s life.

 

On the way home Jay said “I just don’t get why you have such a low pain threshold at the dentist and why you get so anxious, you’ve had lumbar punctures and all sorts of horrid procedures done without adequate pain relief” I agreed but as I have said I think it is a lifetime of painful dental treatment that has left me like this. He knows how hard it is for me to go and was telling me how brave he thinks I am for going. If I could get away with not going I would but I can’t having had dental abscesses before I need to be on a NHS dentists list.

 

Being a grown up really sucks sometimes.