Earlier I found I had run out of a medicine. It was past business hours. I figured I could phone the pharmacy in the morning. Then I remembere my daughter is in Oxford and can’t get it for me.
I’ve just asked a friend because I already feel strange. I will be dizzy in the morning. I thought I had this organised. I thought this was not going to be an issue anymore.
This kind of unwellness is so unnecessary. My every day is enough to deal with especially in this freezing weather.
I am tired. I am tired of my mistakes which cause me distress, and inconvenience others.
I don’t like to ask favours of others because of what happened with M.
I have put some time between new year’s eve and now, or rather, God has. I am still not relaxed, but I am doing better than I was.
Thank you to those who have expressed concern and care. I will respond when I feel able.
I woke this morning at 5.15 and knew that sleep would not return to me. I wrote a complaint to the hospital about Dr Davies. You know, I have noticed that surgeons generally have consistently more compassion than doctors. I think there is something about seeing a patient vulnerable, lying on the gurney, that makes them feel something that some doctors don’t become capable of. So far, I have not encountered a surgeon who was lacking human warmth. I realise now, I’ve only encountered two surgeons, but my first, the Professor, who is sadly now deceased, had a team of registrars and junior doctors who were all lovely. Wait, I think there may be a third, the guy who diagnosed me, but I was too ill to notice.
So, my complaint – I told how I was only asked about now. I was not asked any of my history. This was a first. Dr Davies was entirely uninterested in how my respiratory problems started. Or how it was at the beginning. He was only interested in right now. That is strange. And he wants me to have tests that will cause me pain and distress. I am not about to have a baby. No this is the twenty first century. I can have tests without pain and distress. Medicine has progressed that far.
In my complaint, I also mentioned my state of mind when leaving the hospital and when I got home. I cannot allow anyone else to go through what I went through. I have a role within the local NHS Foundation Trust. I need to fulfil that role. I’m firstly human. I have a duty to other humans.
I haven’t yet attempted to approach my daughter. It is too soon. I have messaged her boyfriend, and asked him to google two of the medicines I need, because their side effects are costing me my identity as me. I can become a argumentative person if someone gets under my skin. It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened most with my daughter. Because we are close.
So, I am not yet physically at peace, but my mind is getting there.
Whenever I have been prescribed a medicine, even for short term use, I almost always have the rare side effects.
You know, on the information sheet, listed as ‘uncommon’ or other terms to express unusual. I get them. So I never read the sheet. That way I can’t imagine myself into having them. In this case, for me, ignorance is bliss.
I did check while I was breastfeeding my daughter. Mainly anti-histamines. I took no medicines during my pregnancy.
The last medicine I was prescribed was earlier this year. It helps my lungs stay clear. It changed my life, as I was getting so many chest infections. In the summer, I noticed rash on my face. It is that medicine. There were other side effects too, but I didn’t realise until I read the sheet. It was an ‘ah’ moment.
So I repeatedly get a rash on my face. Every time I thinks it’s cleared up, around three weeks later it starts again. I cause met feel icky, like things on your face do.
I’ve decided to stop taking it again. (I was taken off it and then given a child’s dose.) I will contact my doctor and go from there.
It seems there are no easy choices in life. But I’m breathing, I’m keeping well, and life is good. I’ve been going drinking with a friend. It’s nice to sit with a drink of any kind, and natter.
The Aboriginal people of Australia were great astronomers thousands of years before the Greeks…their drawings of the planets and stars are found to match more recent maps of the heavens. They could tell when the rains would come, the full moon, the Spring tide. How? By watching the night sky and counting. Also they have held the knowledge of many medicines and so white man is now in a hurry to record this information as they never thought to ask before. Shame.
Today has been nightmare. My neuromuscular disease is out of control. I have tried to sleep but it’s difficult. I had a bad night due to muscle spasms and the same today. I am taking higher doses of the medicine for this. That scares me as well.
All because a previous neighbour told malicious lies about me. This wind chime situation is ridiculous and the law is an ass. I have started a petition to make a law so that no one can hang a noise making object without the consent of neighbours.
I’ve been advised to stop taking the ‘magic pill’ for which, a few blog posts ago, I was expressing my gratitude. This is because of my low mood, difficulty getting to sleep, tummy pains and a strange irritation of the skin on my face.
It was the irritation of my skin that caused me to seek help. I went to the pharmacy to ask advice from the pharmacist but found so many people were in there that I felt claustrophobic and I had to leave. Three friends had commented to me that I didn’t seem my usual self, so I looked at the paper inside the box of my medicine. Sure enough, skin irritation was mentioned, sleep disturbance and depression all in the ‘rare side effects’.
This is bad news. If I can’t take my ‘magic pill’ I will experience wheezing, tightness of my chest and may have to call 999 for paramedics to nebulize me.
So at least now I know why I have been feeling so very low in mood. It has been chemically induced. The information sheet actually says ‘suicidal thoughts and actions‘. That is quite scary. I just told a friend that when I was writing a few days ago, I thought to myself what if this tablet is keeping me alive when I don’t want to be alive. That thought scared me, as I’ve been happy until, well until when? When did my low mood first start? I have no idea. I can’t put a date on it but I know I was happy planting my garden. I was happy when I went to read in Salisbury and then in Bournemouth.
As always, one can’t put a finger on when something that is so subtle starts creeping in.
So I will keep the faith with God in whom I’ve trusted for so long and wait and see what happens.
The pharmacist didn’t send the medicine my doctor prescribed earlier this year so I am wheezing this morning. I have inhaler, so no real problem but it tells me how wonderful that tablet is….I am grateful. So grateful.
Writer and psychologist. My health, a journey with two life shortening diseases 
You must be logged in to post a comment.