Relief

It looks as though it is going to be a day of pain. 3 hours into my hours of being awake and my left leg is already volunteering for amputation. Everything didn’t seem that bad when the alarm sounded, but I think I had one sock on and my toes just into the second when it all began. It varies each day when it kicks in, I’m not saying that I sometimes feel full of energy and without pain, there is always a low level or background pain, but the stuff I want rid of varies as to when it actually makes itself known. This morning my left leg started early and by the time I have sorted out all the little things needed to be done before actually really being awake, it was screaming loudly. Now I am sat here, with not one part of it pain free, there is the background and the searing pains all over the place for my toes and soles upward to the top of my thigh. I know I often joke about amputating different parts of me, but when I described my foot having a feeling like it was in a marshmallow sock or numbness with the pain in side, the pain clinic Doctor said that nerves do that, they make it feel as thought thing like feet are bigger than they are. He added in that it was just like people who have lost a limb feel as thought it is still there. I can’t imagine how cheated I would feel to be absent from the offending limb, but to still feel that every bit of the pain was still there, in the same places as thought it hadn’t been removed at all.Like most jokes there is a grain of truth behind it because yes I do sometimes feel that I would be better off without the actual area that is causing me a problem, but take that to it’s ultimate and with in a week I would be a quadrupedal amputee.

Last night, again, it was my arms that were proving that their nerves system was in place and working to it’s fullest mad setting it could. Although the most dramatic pain the ones that make me jump and grab hold of them are in my arms, it is my fingers that I find the most upsetting. Just sitting watching TV with Adam beside me, sounds a relaxing way to end my day, but it is a mixed feeling to be honest. I can no longer sit on the settee in comfort, it is too soft and too low, so Adam moves my gel cushion and adds my inflatable one on top, from their daytime location here on my office chair. The two together raise me about 4 inches, so I am perched slightly above his level, although we are beside each other. By that time of day I have pains all over the place, so much so that I can’t sit back in comfort, I land up leaning my elbow on my knees and hunching into a doubled up position. A position that I am sure doesn’t help much with the pains in my lower legs and in my arms, but there is no position that works better, so what can I do?

I spend a couple of hours every evening in this odd position because I want to be beside my husband and not on the other side of the room. No where is pain free so like my entire life it is a pay off system, to do what I want means accepting something will hurt, I just have to decide which is more bearable, not fulfilling my need or my ability to take the discomfort, more often or not I accept the pain. Life shouldn’t be that way but that is were I am, what can I really do about it, nothing. Yesterdays blog was fired by much I have written here, I now know that I have few options when it comes to my pain control, increasing my MST is the only thing that will be of help in the future. The effect will be a fuzzed up brain, fuzzed brain means less computer time, less TV time, more sleep time. I have to weigh up what my needs are, can I really deal with the pain and still have the things that make my life happy, or do I reduce the pain and reduce my happiness. It’s a hard one. At this second I cope, but will I in a weeks time, to a months time or a years time. I just don’t know and I don’t like not knowing how to deal with things, I am used to having some sort of control over. I guess it is just going to take sometime for me to sort this all out in my head. I will sort it out, I know I will.

Listening but unable to oblige

Late yesterday Adam discovered we had had some mail in the morning and there was a letter for me, it was from the hospital and it was a letter which I have never seen the like of before, nor has Adam and he works in the record department. The letter said they had written to me to arrange an appointment and that this was my final chance to contact them regarding the appointment they had arranged for me. I have had no letter from anyone as you all know, on top of that it is from the hospital I asked not to go to. If I believe it, it sounds as though there is supposed to be a letter that has gone missing. Neither of us actually believe it, so Adam is going to do something a little sneaky, he is gong to phone then on Monday on my behalf not really telling a lie, he is just leaving out the part that he is my husband, he is simply going to say who he is as far as his job title, to see what they say. I really can’t believe the mess and the problems of getting what should be simple hospital appointment.

During the day my arm remained more than annoying but late on last night I found myself sitting on the settee in floods of tears due to my left arm, the sensation had increased as the day went on, I still could call it pain but I had lost all ability to find any position where I wasn’t being driven mad by it. When it became really intense I had this feeling that I had to squeeze it tightly, but my hands weren’t big enough and I wanted the pressure in two different places. I remembered there was a ‘tubie-grip’ bandage normally used for sprains in the medical cabinet, so I put that on over a 10 inch area with my elbow in the middle and grasped my wrist as tight as I could and it helped. Slowly over the next hour it lessened enough for me to go to bed, I had had a couple of extra Gins last night as well because of it, and the combination of that and the bandage I slept. I woke this morning to be still very aware of it but once again at a level that I could bare it, I took the bandage off, but within 10 mins it was back on. I really don’t understand this or why it wants pressure or how it is helping, this is really a new one on me. I don’t need to be a Doctor to know that something is happening to the nerves in my entire arm but what to do to relieve it and make life easier I an at a lose. Any suggestions welcome!

I have to say it has made me wonder if I bought some pressure stockings if they might help with some of the pain in my legs, it might also help with the fluid retention. This morning I have found one of my left wrist braces, Typing with it on is not easy, so I am going to try and wear it when I am not typing long sections like this, to see if that will ease it a little. I have this silly image of slowly covering myself with bandages and splints just to be able to sit on a chair. All though the bandage and brace are helping, my left hand over the past couple of days has been going down hill rapidly, what ever is happening in my arm I would say is a side effect or a part of my hand once again returning to useless, it has been slowly weakening over the last couple of months and having lost it before so I recognise some of the symptoms. Last night at one point although I could move it and it was work, I found myself guarding it and not wanting to use it, I actually found myself at one point standing in the kitchen trying to pour a Gin and Tonic with one hand again, I haven’t had to do that one for several years. There is the constant feeling that it doesn’t want to work it’s a little odd, but it is heavy and just like it needs this pressure it is also asking not to do anything. I always listen to my body but it is asking what isn’t really a possibility that I can oblige, two hands in general are needed, especially when so much else of my body doesn’t work either.