Hello Everyone,
Yes it's me and I'm back. This is rather long so I hope you are sitting comfortably!!!!!!!
I can not tell you how much I have missed you all. Thank you so very, very much for all your comments and e-mails, had a problems being able to type, but more of that later.
Thank you all so much, I was amazed when I came back in here and checked e-mails to find so many messages from you all, you're all so lovely and I am so very fond of you all, even more so now.
I wish I could echo what you have all said and give you good news, but I'm sorry to say that it's been a nightmare with one thing after another hitting me rather hard.
I was first off line because my daughter left home to move into her own little place and we were so busy with the re-dec and the move and settling her in that time simply ran away with me.
I then got ill and that's when it all went a bit mad.
I try not to say to much about my health as to be honest and I hate to moan on about it or for that matter to bother others with it all, but I have taken a very bad knock and it's come as a bit of a shock. Ms Independent has had to admit that she needs help.
I have for a number of years now suffered from excruciating pain in various parts of my body. Mostly in my hips, lower back, shoulders, across my collar bones and in my neck. Sometimes it has spread down my legs to my knees and down my arms to my elbows. Added to that I have a serious heart condition called cardio myopathey (god knows how you spell it, you'd think I'd know by now) basically it is an irregular heart beat, but your heart can also just stop, leading to sudden death. Well there's no other way to put it, it really is as brutal as that.
One of the reasons I gave up work last year was because, if I'm being honest work had just got to hard, as soon as I got out of bed, I was working out what I had to do that day and how long it would be before I could crawl back in to it, but with the amount of pain I was in, it was often very hard to get a goods nights sleep and so things just kept getting worse.
Francis,(with an i) finally put his foot down and said that enough was enough and that he was going to refuse to work with me any longer if I didn't stop altogether and take time for me.
So I packed in and boy was I miserable, then I found blogging and life was better, then came the web building and I really had thought I might pick up.
I kept praying, any day soon, any day soon, any day soon, I would be better, that I would feel less pain. To no avail, instead things really started to get worse.
Trips to my doctors followed by hospital checks, nothing wrong with me, I was a little overweight, perhaps I was a bit depressed, to it's all in your head and you need to find something to do with your time, was the considered opinions of my doctor. A man who has known me for 23yr and had in fact not seen me for 10 of those years, other than for normal health checks or something to do with the children. The last comment sent poor Francis (with an i), normally a very calm man, into a total tail spin and he lost his temper with my doctor and told him frankly that he wasn't doing his job correctly, to which the doctor said that we were welcome to get a second opinion.
So Francis said that we would be doing so. This was all relayed to my sister E, who told her doctor, who told my sister that she would see me and so off I went again for yet more tests.
This whole thing has been an emotional roller coaster and has made me very weepy. I cried one day because Bear didn't come as usual for his dinner and another day I cried because it was raining and I had just cleaned all the windows. Even I had to admit that it was all too much for me and I was so glad to get to go and see my E's doctor.
Any way last month it became way too much for me and after my beautiful Patricia was finally settled into her home, things came to a sudden stop.
I think it was a combination of things, my daughter leaving home somehow left me bereft. Silly really as she is only 5miles up the road, but it felt like a million.
I definitely over did it while settling her in to her flat.
The hated neighbors have been worse than ever before and have also caused us no end of trouble; which I won't bore you with, but it was added pressure I didn't need.
Then my heart decided to play up. Just as the pain got the worst it has ever been and decided that it would move into my hands, meaning that I couldn't use them.
Suddenly I just wanted to sleep, so sleep for England is exactly what I did. Badly I might add and sleep didn't seem to do the trick, because the pain got in the way of peaceful sleep.
Finally I got to see a specialist and things are looking up. I saw her just over a week ago and I have to say she was amazing and they now think that they know what is wrong with me and a few more tests should point her in the right direction.
The specialist thinks I have a couple of things wrong, first my heart needs to be look at more closely, but she feels it is something that can be put right, by losing a few pounds, as I said I am a little overweight and that will put a strain on it. She wants to manage my pain with a 3 fold attack.
1 a strict diet of whole foods, lean meats, fruit and veg....by the barrel load. No diet foods, will explain that later.
2 more sleep, by giving me an anti depressant to relax muscles and mind, in the hope that I get better sleep.
3 and me giving myself permission to be ill and sleep if I want to without feeling guilty.
So far so good, while the pain is very bad, it has decreased a little and I can use my hands again. I am hoping to be able to make jewelery again soon and I have missed the sewing machine.
I'm sleeping better, eating loads of fruit and veg and I feel a bit more hopeful that I can get better and the bonus is that I have lost 7lbs, so that's good news for my heart.
I have to go to a pain management course at a pain clinic and see a councilor about my inabilities to let go of all the responsibilities that I have had for the last 15 yrs of single parenthood...if that even makes sense.
But like I said, I am getting better already.
Oh I forgot to say, the specialist thinks I have (on top of the heart problem) FIBROMYALGIA and CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME, funny thing is with the fatigue syndrome, you'd think it means all you do is sleep, oh no it can also effect those of us who don't sleep, giving you just the same symptoms, but not the sleep...well there's one in every family and I guess I'm IT, you know the "difficult" one!!!!!!!! Remember I had flu back in the summer, well she thinks that is when this all stated to build up.
About diet foods, you think your doing the right thing by using them, wrong; they contain some very, very nasty chemicals, these build up in your body, slowly seeping into your neurons and opening pain receptors. Please look out for ASPARTAME, SORBITOL, MANITAL, XYLITOL AND NUTRA SWEET as these can be what is called an "excitatory neurotransmitter" that may stimulate pain receptors, causing you immense pain. Oh and drinking caffeine on top of these chemical, just sends them into hyper-drive.
I gave up smoking a few years ago and got fat, so used diet foods and drinks to control my weight (not as well as I had hoped, as I am over weight) and it looks like this is what has caused the problems, now I am on a strict diet for the next few weeks in order to try to detox my system, although the specialist did say that my illness has no cure; as yet! I will have to learn to control it, as once the pain receptors are switched on, they do not know how to then turn them off again.
Only how to manage them. Some doctors believe that it is a 21st century disease, as we now ingest more chemicals than at any other time in history.
As for my bestest friend Peter Pan, well he was nowhere to be seen while I was ill, you'd think he would have popped by, just to cheer me up. I am most annoyed that he left me without a sense of humour for weeks on end and plan to throw flour bags and eggs at him next time he calls by, which must mean; if I am thinking along those crazy lines again, I really must be on the mend and will be up to my old tricks on a computer near you very soon.I am sorry to have worried some of you and I guess I didn't take into account that as much as I am fond of, some of you, some of you are as fond as me.
I can't tell you how much your comments and e-mails have lifted my spirit to night. I have some friends and family who have shown less concern for me, so it was wonderful to know how much you have cared and missed me.
Boy!!! that was long, I don't know about you, but I need to lay down after all that.
LET MISCHIEF COMMENCE.
