Pain right NOW!

I have been trying to write my other blog for the last hour and a bit and I am getting nowhere with it at all because I am in pain and discomfort that won’t let me think of anything else than it. So I have given up and I am letting it have it’s way I will write about it instead. I know my writing isn’t as fluid and descriptive as usual so please bare with me, but this is real time pain, not last nights and real time is hard to work with. It started about 2 hours ago I had eaten my breakfast as usual, but just like dinner last night I couldn’t finish it and I had been forcing myself to eat as much as I did, last night there was no price to pay, but this morning, there clearly is. I’m not sure exactly what it is as it has just spread and spread, I have never had to date spasms that spread and effect more and more areas. At first it was pain in the center below my breast bone and the pressure feeling that I often have. In a short time I had to go to the loo, the normal push it through that I have been living with for ages, then again, and then the pain rocketed. That is the opposite of normal, clearly making space normally ease things, but not today, the pain just got worse and worse.

It was moving and spreading, not reducing as it should, right up the right hand side of my chest into my armpit and nothing seemed to easy it. I tried lying down and walking around but it it just kept getting tighter and tighter in the middle and a spread pain grew with it. Sat back here at my PC I was breaking out in a sweat and I was beginning to feel sick. As I said I was trying to write but I just couldn’t keep my mind on what I was doing pain just over rid everything and my concentration was completely gone, not to surprisingly. Once again my breathing had to be controlled as a shallow level as deep breaths caused more pain, which by then was also working it’s way down through my gut, from breast bone to pelvic bone I had large areas in spasm and everything around them was blanketed by an increasing ache. It was like a cascade, bit by bit not just in the front of my body but through to the back, then suddenly it started to ease and pulled slowly back to just the upper area of my abdomen. It was almost as thought it had no further that it could go, so it gave up, I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.

It’s an hour since I started trying to write this, now it is just the center area, my stomach and below basically and as always it is through to my back, no heartburn, no reflux nothing, just incredible pain in my gut. Every time this happens it is worse than the time before, but still no appointment from the hospital and no idea what the cause is. I can really see no other reason other than my MS, as this feels so like spasms and they seem to spread, that is something I don’t understand. After three hours of pain that although I have my full amount of medication levels is still really bad. How can I be so drugged up to deal with pain and still feel this the way I do? At least now it is fading, but as always it is leaving behind a feeling of being bruised, almost as though I have just been in a fight or something. It isn’t just the pain though, that is just part of it, but that type and level of pain drains you, I am now once again feeling exhausted for what and why? This on top of everything else clearly takes it’s toll, my body is permanently battered, but there is a limit to what it can take at any one time. So all of this is written down and hopefully when I do get to see the doctor it will make more sense to them than it does to me, but I am really now thinking that they are at the end of what test they can do and they really will tick the box of MS, not much help to me unless they come up with a painkiller that will mean I don’t feel it.

New Year nerves

I am sitting here with a glass of buck fizz, Oliver Twist on the TV and Adam snoring, it may be a New Year but somethings don’t change. lol. I woke briefly early this morning as I was in pain down my left side again, it was more I think to the strange position I was in, propped on the back of one hip as though I hadn’t actually had the energy to move fully onto my back as I normally do. I always go to sleep on my side then roll to my back and stay there for the rest of the night, I know this is a fact as there is no sign of movement in the sheets and if I have straightened my hair it is as straight as when I lay down the night before. I guess last night I got stuck part of the way and just gave up, but the result was that this morning I could hardly move, I was so stiff that it was a struggle to get out or to put my dressing gown on. I often wondered how I manage to sleep when clearly my body is in pain, you would think that I would wake because of it and not be able to sleep again, if I can’t deal with pain when a wake how can I when asleep?

For the past couple of days I have had really bad nerve pain, they are shooting in two directions at the same time but I am not sure where they start. The fly upwards to just behind my left ear and down to my finger tips, on occasions not making it that far and stopping just above my wrist. Nerve pains are so unpredictable and when they start they take days to calm down, I have never found a reason for them starting and each and everyone makes you cringe until it passes. They may well be short in the time they hang around, but the pain level is horrendous, add to that their unpredictability and you are left just waiting for the next for ever, stop thinking and bang there is another. It would be bad enough if it were just that one but I have also one sparking away to itself in my left leg, why is it always the left side of my body that causes me so many problems? The strangest thing about the pain in my leg is that I also feel sick with it and sort of dizzy, all the fun of having MS.

New years is all about looking to the future and making plans of what we wish would happen, I learned a long time ago that those wishes rarely come true and looking to far ahead doesn’t achieve anything, it’s like a weather forecast, the future is unknown. I also think that looking too far ahead would be depressing for anyone in my position. I really believe that taking life each day at a time is the best way, if I sat here making plans for next month or next year I know that my health would get in the way and disappointment would be the only real result. So today is it nothing more ahead just a day to be enjoyed and made the most of, who knows what will happen in an hour.

It has just touched 11:30 and although on any other day of the year I would still be leaving Adam to sleep, there is a tradition that on New Years day we have a cooked breakfast, one that on the surface sounds expensive but it’s not. I always make scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and croissants, buy salmon scraps and it all costs less than a pound, but is totally delicious. Traditions have to be held to even if it is several hours later than I would have liked it. Have a great New Year, breakfast is calling.

Flare Danger

I didn’t tell Adam before he went to work this morning but I am really struggling today. There is always the danger that when something else is wrong, that MS goes into a flare, I am not sure if that is what is happening yet as it takes time to know. Flares always heighten some existing symptom on top of just being ill. The problem with having another illness or just a bug, is of course the immune system being activated. MS is your own immune system attacking you, having it activated to fight something else, means it’s normal attack rate is heightened, so staying well is more important for anyone with an autoimmune illness. What I know at the minute is I am ill and I want to go to bed and lie there, I think I have a slight temperature, but it is the feeling of wanting to be sick and just a general not well condition. I also know I need to sleep more another sign of something wrong, the past two days I have slept the full 2hrs in the afternoon being woken by the alarm and in bed exhausted by 10 having struggled to stay awake that long, sleeping again until the alarm tells me to get up.

Normally in the morning I would just have a slice of bread with my coffee and meds but today I treated myself to blackened toast and marmalade, not everyone’s choice I know, but I just love my toast burnt, so it wasn’t one of my many cooking accidents. I always find myself having treats when I feel bad, they never make me feel better but there is always the hope. I have always believed that your body tells you when there is something wrong what to eat to make it better, the burnt toast will of course add charcoal into my stomach and it is known to help settle a bad stomach, so it would explain why I wanted to eat that today, although I am not sure what the effects of the marmalade are other than a great taste combination. Unfortunately neither the charcoal or the medicine I have to stop me feeling sick are working or it could be the old problem they are working and without them I would be feeling even worse. On the good side I have just had a phone call from the MS nurse wanting to come out and see me for my annual check up and she is going to be here on Thursday, so by then I hope to have a better idea of what is going on. I can’t help thinking that this is my gallstones as I have felt like this a lot in the last few months but not as badly, when you have a many things wrong with you as I do, the big problem always is separating out what is causing what and is it something new or different.

Having been locked inside my home for so long I haven’t had even a cold for years, and luckily Adam hasn’t brought home any bugs from work, he is in general normally a person who doesn’t get things that are going around. I was worried when I went out to the hospital twice in the last few weeks that I might come down with at least a cold, I never had to spend any length of time near people, so luck was on my side. I often think that being housebound has actually kept me in better health than if I was still spending many hours in the outer world surrounded by flues, bugs and colds. I used to have bronchitis every winter and it was bad enough to be listed as chronic, I haven’t had a single attack since being housebound, on it’s own that is a huge plus as I frequently would be bad enough to land me up at the hospital for treatments to allow me to breath. It is a little strange to think that a side effect of one chronic illness has been to totally cure another, I suppose no matter how small, a plus is a plus and I am grateful for that.

The trip out and HOME

I have just returned from the Hospital, well not just I have been here for about an hour but I felt so sick when I got back into the house that I have been sat here sort of starring at the screen moving things around. The alarm got me up at 6am as planned and I managed over the next hour and a half to get myself ready to be collected. By the time the ambulance actually arrived I was slightly wound-up just at the thought of having to go anywhere. When you have been nowhere for 5yrs it is a daunting prospect, any way it arrived two guys came into the flat with one of those chairs they strap you into, I can tell you now it is hard and uncomfortable, being carried step by step down through the hall was not that nice a feeling. By the time we reached the front door I was feeling nauseous and the motion of the ambulance made it worse. I think that it was made worse because I had left my glasses in the house, the blurred action of the world passing. I was really glad when they stopped to collect another person and it was just a couple of minutes from there to the hospital. Adam had arranged for the morning off so he was waiting at the hospital for me, there was still nearly an hour to go before my appointment so we stopped outside and I had a much needed cigarette.

There was no one else waiting when we entered the department and I was straight in to see the Doctor, a pleasant surprise to say the least. She was really nice and we went over all the details of the problems that I have with eating and my bowels, she examined me as I expected including the usual embarrassment of an annul examination. I am no closet to knowing what the problem is but Adam and I both left her with the same impression that it is as we expected probably my MS. I have come home with the required containers to supply a stool sample which Adam will drop off at the hospital when I manage to collect it. I am also going back for a ultra sound and I have another appointment with the same Doctor at the start of November, so at least two more visit to go.

The journey home was worse than the trip there, we had to wait for nearly an hour for the ambulance, which was painful as I didn’t have my own wheelchair, they wouldn’t let me take it with me. When we arrived at the house I was brought back up the stair on a ‘stair climber’. It is a horrid motion and I am now an hour and half later just beginning to settle, I really thought when we first arrived that I was going to be sick. I felt so terrible that I couldn’t get back into my normal nightdress and dressing gown, I just wanted to sit quietly for a while and settle. I am so tired now that as soon as I have this posted I am going to bed. Sorry that it is a few word description but I am not up to adding in detail, sleep is all that I can think of. I will fill in the gaps tomorrow.

I surrender

I am sure everyone has been where I am this morning, one of those many many point in life where all that keeps going round in your mind is ‘what did I do to deserve this’. That thought has been there since a little after midnight last night. I had stayed up late as Adam had gone to see his aging Aunt just outside Dundee, with his mother and sister, so I wanted to see him before I went to bed. At around 10 he arrived home and we chatted for about an hour, I had had a really good evening my pain at a comfortable reduced levels, in fact from around 2 o’clock yesterday things slowly improved, I decided to stick to the dose of 70mg of the MST when it came to my time to take my evening dose. I actually for the first time felt reasonably good, when I decided to go to bed, I did feel a little nauseous as I lay down, but it settled and slipped in to sleep.

At 1am I was up, I made it just to the bathroom and threw-up, that was the first of 4 emergency visits, all with the added problems of being a double incontinence. The final return of food amazed me as I was actually bringing back peppers, I ate them over 12hrs before for lunch? On top of that not at any stage last night did I have the normal acid taste and what returned look very much as it was when I ate it? I learned a little as well, my MS has played with my eating process for a long time, food sticking on the way down, and choking are normal, I discovered it all so does the same coming back up. I would say without doubt that the bacon I ate as a treat at 5:15 yesterday evening, along with the eggs and fried onion had something wrong with them, I would put money on the problem being the bacon. If things this week hadn’t been hellish enough I really didn’t need a stomach bug on top. I clearing everything up for the final time at and returning to bed at around 2:45, hoping that I could then sleep and rest the muscles in my legs that screamed at me every time I tried to launch myself on to them and when I allowed my weight to fall on them in haste once I arrived where it was safe to be sick.

This morning I still feel a bit icky, but I have eaten half a slice of dry bread and I have taken my tablets, as you would expect there wasn’t much sign of them dealing with the pain first thing or overnight, but sitting quietly here at my PC I think the worst is over, finger-crossed. My poor guts have been attacked in every fashion possible in the last few weeks, I think they really need a rest, today I am going to eat little and take great care in my selection of food. I haven’t taken my fluid meds as I would say I am a little dehydrated, fluids will be a friend today rather than an enemy. Although I know nausea is one of the possible side effects of MST, I truly believe this is food positioning not my meds. I am no stranger to nausea, through out all my treatment for MS I have had spells of it, most I expect are due to the mix of med, but absolutely none have made me actually throw-up, that’s why I am not jumping on the MST as the cause. I have a plain and simple case of food poisoning.

I suppose that will teach me to eat what isn’t good for me. I knew we had cooking bacon, basically the left over bits not pretty enough to sell at full price, I had spotted that there was amongst it, what I would call ‘Yorkshire Bacon’ really thick fatty slices. Not considered these days as good eating and I would have usually cut off the fat and diced it to use in various dishes, but I slow fried it along with some diced onion, a couple of mushrooms and topped it with 2 fried eggs, a splodge of tomato ketchup and old fashioned heaven on a plate, well almost a nice pigs kidney and some black pudding would have made it even better. The modern faddy eaters just don’t understand what they miss when they look at old fashion meals and turn their noses up at it.

Today is going to be a play it careful and rest day, once I stop feeling that little bit sick I will be happier, I don’t think anyone likes being sick and I am included firmly in the avoid it at all costs.