Proffering Thanks

 The abominable abdominals, that have taunted and haunted my bodily frame since Saturday evening, have settled down to their more familiar state of dis-ease.  Concurrently, a combination of paracetamol, tramadol, and Piper's empathetic behaviour, helped me through a couple of bouts of nausea-inducing, expletive producing, painful discomfort in the upper limbs and armpits. For this relief I proffer thanks. Gratitude makes one feel better, something I far too frequently forget!

PIPER

Woes and Wherefores

You put your left hand in, you pull your left hand out … that’s what it’s all about. Well that sounds easy enough, a simple exercise but, I’ve recently been made to think about just what, and how many, muscles are used in such a simple action. In fact, in all honesty I’ve been finding the “simple” act of sitting in a high-backed armchair has become much more of a technical exercise.

Last Wednesday morning I visited the Dermatology unit, at the District Hospital, for the excision of a rodent ulcer (basal cell carcinoma), an operation which went quite smoothly (with the help of a couple of extra shots of the local anaesthetic) taking about 35-40 minutes. The cauterizing and needlework seemed to take much longer than the actual excision but, it was nice to be assured that all harmful matter had been removed.

Unlike previous occasions, when I’ve undergone a similar procedure, the dressing had to be removed after only 24 hours, and certainly not as much as 48hrs, preferably following a shower as the dressing seemed to adhere like superglue. As it worked out, my beloved removed the dressing, not without difficulty but very carefully; the skin had reddened considerably in the areas of former adhesion and the pull of the stitches became much more apparent.

With the siting of the wound (quite central in middle to lower back) it’s pretty difficult for me to see to apply the twice daily application of Vaseline to the wound so, that’s another chore for ma belle. If only I could see, and manage, the wound myself there would be less of a shock as the substance is rubbed in to the wound. Even the touch of a friend can bring a shudder to the spine. One cannot help but be aware of the wound as I try to sit back comfortably in a chair, or on the sofa, and so I am consequently unable to properly relax.

On the fourth morning after the procedure, a modest blood flow from the wound, wetting my shirt, caused me undue alarm although, fortunately, the flow quickly reverted to a slight seepage. Each move I make in an attempt to be seated, in a relaxed and comfortable posture, feels as if the muscles in the back are trying to rip open the stitches.

The upside of the situation is that I’ve been inspired to work on a new poem ‘As If The Worlds Woe’ in an attempt to capture some of the unusual situation.

Dis-Arming Dis-Ease

Being tickled so hard that hysterical laughter turns into a painful scream, I wonder if you know that feeling, because that’s how I feel now except without the laughter! Suddenly the newspaper felt too heavy, or at least too awkward to hold; the wrists succumb to a pounding tympanic throb, so I apply the necessary strappings. Next the inevitable discomfort in the armpits, suddenly the skin feels at least two sizes too small for the torso it embraces; that aching laughter sensation, referred to earlier, holds both inner upper arms in thrall. I try, with only a modicum of success, to dampen the nausea response by clasping the upper arms almost tourniquet tight against my body.

To an onlooker it must seem as if I’ve been suddenly shocked into a     distorted catatonic state.  

It takes some time before I pluck up courage to extend my forearms away from the upper-arm locked torso. A sigh of relief murmurs forth, as I release myself from this temporary stasis; it’s almost as if I’d been holding my breath alongside clasping the upper arms to torso.

It’s proving difficult to catch up on some much needed rest, last night had been one of intense dis-ease best summed up by my posting on facebook at 3.30AM:

Once I stop feeling
my skin's being flayed
whilst discomfort dances
leadenly

over joints
and muscles
then

I may get
some much needed
sleep

Night night folks!

I’m afraid the “Night night folks” was a little too optimistic. I finally managed a little, scarcely refreshing, shut-eye from around 6.00AM.

As one door opens ...

Just as one ailment is alleviated another seems to posit itself in the full spotlight of my attention.



It is with a great deal of relief that I can report on the effective suppression of the most disconcerting symptoms of GORD, the combination of esomeprazole and domperidone most definitely curbing the most acute intestinal and oesophageal rebellion. Doses of a moderately potent liquid antacid are no longer de rigueur before retirement au lit.


A numb tingling sensation in left hand and wrist still requires frequent application of a wrist splint to offer a modicum of relief but, proves relatively easy to bear (not that one has any choice in the matter). Last Friday, the dentist extracted an offending molar, bringing with it much relief so things began to look rather bright! Come Monday, I once more found myself needing to resort to the use of a back support, as niggles emanating from the lower lumbar region began to increase in intensity.


On Tuesday morning, stick assisted I managed to shuffle myself down to Open Church at St. Marks for coffee and a little conversation, the latter having seemed in short supply since my beloved's return to work (following last week's days off). Even though sundry niggling health concerns somewhat overshadowed the additional hours spent with ma belle last week, I was surprised to find how much more isolated and alone I began to feel now that her normal work pattern has resumed.


No sooner had I got through the door, on my lunchtime return home from St Marks, than the telephone rang. It was a call from someone at my doctor's surgery enquiring whether I'd received the letter and paperwork requiring a Fasting blood test prior to my next GP appointment (already arranged for the following day). I checked the post that had just arrived and, sure enough, there was the letter purportedly despatched on Friday 18th yet strangely postmarked 21/02/11 at 3.36pm. The spokesperson from the surgery had the audacity to suggest that I cancel the appointment with the doctor as I'd failed to undertake the fasting blood test. This was the last straw, I finally had an appointment with the doctor I'd been asked to see and they wanted to cancel it ( this was a cause for resentful hurt on my part bearing in mind the incident recorded in the third paragraph of my previous posting 'The Opening of the Floodgates').


In the event I attended hospital for the blood test on Wednesday morning before going to my doctors appointment in the afternoon, even though I knew the results would not be available within such a restricted time span. The doctor, however, did not require the fasting blood test results; the results of tests that I'd had the previous Tuesday morning were the only requirement - the fasting test being irrelevant to her investigations. The good news, on that front, is that all the results were normal; once again, I'm reassured to know that my health problems are entirely due to there being nothing wrong!


Last evening the severe back pains further intensified and became excruciating as I attempted to remove myself from the bed, to obey an urgent call of nature. I should have realized that lying down, whether on back or side, is the worst possible position to be in should the requirement to extract oneself from the duvet lair become necessary. The manouevre of rolling oneself to the edge of the bed, painfully letting ones lower limbs slide down towards the floor before one is able to elevate the torso, is neither elegant nor reassuring. Having returned to bed, ma belle made sure that my torso was adequately propped up with both standard and triangular pillows, thus enabling a slightly easier removal of myself from those environs at the due time. An additional dose of 100mg of tramadol served to further ease the subsequent manoeuvre.


At the moment my verbal outbursts, arising from a combination of frustration and intense dis-ease, could (to my shame) pass for coprolalia. It's not that my fuse burns any more rapidly, it's simply been a further victim of all pervasive cuts; hopefully, as ailments subside, a much longer replacement fuse will be found. For the present I just can't help feeling painfully frail, vulnerable and not at all nice to know.

Shattered of a Sudden

That head-floating, gut-wrenching, muscle-nagging shatteredness wraps me of a sudden in its embrace. Yesterday the deeply gnawing muscle spasms, in limbs and torso, felt like a rebuke for having deigned to commit myself to Friday's minor exertions. At times it seems like a game of damned if ... (damned if you do, damned if you don't); accepting one's limitations is an important step towards avoiding a nightmare roller-coaster experience but, in that acceptance one also risks accepting a pretty colourless plateau of existence.

I've always been fortunate in having a rich life of the imagination, and a naggingly active spirituality; this has meant that the health imposed curtailing of my socializing activities didn't lead me into an immediate state of desolation. I have to admit though that the loss of contact with many people, especially those who I'd considered to be my friends, is something that I still find difficult, when I allow my mind to go there, more than seven years on from succumbing to this wretched illness.

At least I understand this early evening's sudden yielding to shatteredness; a connection with last night's discomfortingly disturbed sleep pattern seems pretty obvious! Expressing my dis-ease in words, in some way, alleviates its claustrophobic grip

is it or isn't it?

If only it was possible to tell whether a symptom / ailment is that of a different illness rather than a further manifestation of the ongoing chronic condition! A cohort of gastro-intestinal, gastro-oesophageal, excruciating muscular and glandular aches and pains, brain-fog, orthostatic intolerance, sensory overload, chest and upper-abdominal pains, post-exertional malaise, cognitive dysfunction, can all be part of the underlying ME whilst, at the same time, any of these states could be symptomatic of another dis-ease or condition.

At what point does one call a GP or paramedics, without being considered a time-waster, as certain of the symptoms produce a distinctly different and disturbing awareness of one’s general condition. Frequently tests for a specific ailment or symptom come up with a negative result, rarely is a more holistic approach taken regarding one’s state of (well)being.

In recent months I’ve had several health scares, some that could be dealt with via surgery or medication whilst others have no apparent cause! The frustration of uncertainty tends to rebound against one’s residual wellness – a vicious cycle.

Sorry, I don’t mean to be on a downer; I’m just a bit fed-up of not feeling well.

 It’s now well over seven years since I last felt really well but, at least I’m grateful that I’m only a ‘moderate’ sufferer. At least I’ve been blessed with a considerable portion of remission days, for which I give thanks, and  a wonderful wife and lover (who happens to be one and the same person)!

The Absolute (arm)Pits

Squirming wimp; that's a role I seem to play really well, trouble is I'm not acting. The multifarious manifestations of dis-ease have really found a fresh discomforting expression this past twenty-four hours plus. That sensation when one finds it impossible to discover, or maintain, a comfortable seated posture; if I was simply observing my wriggling activity I'd swear it was a bad case of worms. [Fortunately, that's an ailment that's escaped my attention.]

What has returned with a vengeance is that aching discomfort in the armpits, the one where I have to squeeze my arms tightly to my side in a first attempt to regain a tolerable posture, before placing my hands beneath my thighs as I sit back; a griping sense of nausea then takes over. A short while later, the giddy light-headedness returns and the legs start to feel like they're made of some gelatinous lead alloy.

No sooner had we arrived at the local takeaway, last evening, than ma belle had to escort her pale faced partner back home. By the time she'd returned to collect the ordered meal, any inkling of an appetite had disappeared from yours truly and, the smell of food made me turn green around the gills. One thing I can never be found guilty of is doing things by halves - my disorientation is a complete happening.

Later in the evening I regained my composure and managed a portion of the (microwave reheated) food. By bedtime had arrived, I found myself relaxedly wide awake for the total bed-rest period. Late morning I went up for a little rest, discovering that laying on my left hand side allowed my torso to feel more comfortably at home in the world.

Salvaging The Wreckage

I quite honestly don’t know what’s going on; much as I hate visiting doctors, and hospitals, my body seems to have a contrary impulse which makes such visits essential.


The most recent such visit, after another little setback, was to the GP out of hours Clinic at the District Hospital on Saturday afternoon. I’d suddenly found myself overwhelmed by a head-spinning giddiness coupled with a griping sense of nausea invoking bloatedness. To add to this discomfort, my lower limbs simultaneously took on a leaden rubbery sensation, stubbornly refusing to be comforted by any re-positioning I attempted. The now familiar gnawing bruised sensation in the lower ribcage and abdominal region once again reasserted itself.



I have to admit though that it was the head-spinning giddiness that caused me the greatest concern. When I went to lie down, a feeling of nausea forced me to return to a seated position but, within a few moments, I needed to lay down once more to prevent the room spinning giddyingly out of control. I generally just felt crap, alternating between clammy overheating and cold shudders.



Having telephonically contacted the out of hours helpline, a doctor suggested that I get my OH to drive me down to the clinic at the hospital. The clinic seemed extremely busy, the best part of two hours passed before I got to see a GP. Having checked my blood pressure, which proved normal, he examined my eyes, ears, nose and throat. His diagnosis was severe sinusitis and an infection in the left ear and, prescribed a course of antibiotics and directed us to the nearest dispensary, which happened to be on the route home. In this instance I have to admit that the diagnosis made complete sense of sundry recent symptoms, acknowledged primarily by my attempts to ignore them.



It did seem rather odd that I was experiencing an extremely unpleasant variant of the symptoms that I would, normally, have blamed on smoking too much; having not smoked a cigarette, even lacking the desire to do so, for the past four and a half weeks that sort of unreason could no longer prevail.



Since succumbing to ME, in 2003, it’s easy to attribute any sense of dis-ease to that wretched overall condition. Whilst awaiting a gastroscopy, an investigative response to my various digestive tract problems, I’ve now developed a tendency to blame any other ailments on my intestinal abnormalities. It’s not only medical professionals who have difficulty in looking at the whole person; it’s proving tricky enough to switch my own focus away from the currently dominant site of dis-ease!

The Visitor

The door opens and, with ungainly gaited glide, the visitor zeroes in on a chair right next to mine; a harbinger of claustrophobia in what, until this moment, had been an airy space.

I feel his breath on the back of my neck, perceive a penetrating gaze absorbing all that appears on my laptop's screen. An intense sense of dis-ease crushes me, I find myself almost gasping for breath.

It's rare that just a few minutes can seem like endless hours but, today, this was the case. I had no desire to rudely scream and exorcise the presence from our dwelling place, for here is history, albeit a quite tenuous family tie.

I vacate the room and head for the garden, an opportunity to breathe freely once again. Fortunately ma belle senses my un-ease, coping remarkably well with her own, relieves me of the need to endure this painful companionability for a moment more than necessary.

When one's stamina levels are already low, entertaining can prove a stress too far.

A Pain In The ...

Last night, as I sat relaxing with my beloved, I was suddenly struck by a sharply acute pain in the lower part of my chest on the right hand side. The pain was still there an hour later, although by this stage somewhat intermittently and feeling rather like a sharp bruise. it was certainly a quite unfamiliar sensation and I couldn't put it down to indigestion but, I'd have been far more worried had it been on the left side of the chest.

Checked my pulse and, that was fine and, unusually for me when I'm in any marked degree of discomfort, or even without that prompt, there was no hint of pallor. So far, so good but my beloved was quite concerned (I had to admit to her that I was too) so, I contacted the out of hours doctor who recommended I should take some of my usual pain-killers (tramadol) and, if I felt any worse at all he would come out to visit me. That provided a welcome degree of re-assurance but, he did also suggest I made an appointment with my own G.P.

There followed a night of intermittently discomforted sleep; although I've learned to cope with my regular aches and pain, any change, to the old familiar dis-ease, plays havoc with my already erratic sleep pattern. I made an appointment with my G.P., although it was a locum I actually saw, for this afternoon. As the day went on, I found at times that the action of swallowing, and even moving in certain ways, renewed the pains intensity.

The first thing the doctor asked was whether I had any pain in my legs, I had to laugh as I explained that I'd not noticed any change to their regular discomfort. She felt around the calf muscle, checking for any hint of DVT and whether a clot had travelled to my lungs. She thoroughly examined me, checking blood pressure, listening to my heart and lungs and, quite expertly (albeit inadvertently) applying light pressure to the most tender area of the rib cage. When I tried to breathe deeply, as she listened to my lungs, the pain recurred with an excruciating sharpness. The diagnosis turned out to be something to do with the intercostal muscles and, I'd already begun to wonder whether my pondly exertions (at the weekend) had maybe put a strain on the muscle. I readily admit that lifting out the planters, from the pond's murky depths, wasn't one of the easiest gardening chores.

On the positive side, somewhat like the herniated disc last year, it makes a change to have a specific pain whose cause is definable, alongside those sundry aches and discomforts the flesh is so regularly heir to!

Not So Bad After All

Those halcyon days, when I was once again able to luxuriate in the habit of novel devouring, have swiftly fled. Faltering attempts to resume the third novel, that I'd begun to read, came to nought, in fact I seem to have tumbled back to square one. The suffiency of emotional stamina has once again bade me farewell; I'd like to think that it was quite simply a case of this latest book not being of sufficient character to proffer the necessary stimulation but, it's more likely related to my current state of discomforted exhaustion. Certainly my sleep patterns have become disruptively erratic and, the sleep that I do manage to grab seems to be of a curiously unrefreshing nature. An unsettling tenderness of areas under the chin and in my armpits ensures a constant need to shuffle my position and, that's not at all conducive to the reading habit.



I still seem to be recovering from the aftermath of events of 6 February. Although it felt great to have coped with a considerably extended (compared to my recent years norm) period of socializing, it definitely seems that there's a re-active price to be paid. A current inability to apply myself to the sustained pursuit of any task, major or minor, is to say the least frustrating. I feel rather like one of those people who persistently parade around the workplace armed only with a clipboard, in the pretence that they're being productive. Going through the motions, without any application, that just about sums it up.


To dispel any suggestion of self-pity, that the preceding paragraphs may have suggested, I have to say that I am blessed with the ability, periods of intense frustration notwithstanding, to wallow in the simple pleasure of "being". To observe the antics of the birds in the garden, to sit and hold hands with my beloved, to enjoy the imbibing of a glass or two of wine, and simply to be a minute part of an awesome universe; those are rewards in and of themselves.

ME and my body

Yesterday morning, right on time, received a 'phone call from my GP. "It's good news and bad news", he said, "first, the blood tests showed no abnormalities". A mixed blessing that, at least nothing sinister has been spotted but, I'm no wiser as to the cause of my current downturn in the health and stamina stakes. "The chest X-ray was clear", once again a sense of relief as I start wondering what the bad news is. "It seems as if the symptoms you're experiencing are part of your ongoing condition. If things don't improve or, get any worse, don't hesitate to contact me but, there's nothing I can offer you at the moment".

The problem, and indeed danger, when suffering with a chronic neurological codition such as M.E., is that one tends to assume any extremely discomfortingly exhausting ailment they experience is simply part and parcel of the overall condition. One becomes so used to living with pain that their pain threshold is increased and, excruciating symptoms that would have previously been a cause for alarm are accepted as "normality". (This was very much the case around this time last year when, for far too long, I assumed that the extreme pain emanating from a herniated disc was yet another manifestation of my underlying condition).

Periods of remission are by no means unusual and, when these occur, the greatest danger then is to push oneself and, as a (sometimes belated) result find themselves once more painfully out of it. These are the times when I find concentration diminishing, tetchiness increasing and, that old (sadly familiar) enemy, sensory overload, recurring. The most frustrating thing of all is the impossibility of knowing if one is "ill", beyond the parameters of the resident disabling condition.

Dis-ease and Pleasantries

Within an hour of my previous posting I was, once more, caught unawares in the health and wellness stakes. This time I was truly frightened. I was sat watching an entertaining DVD episode of Ally McBeal, with ma belle, when suddenly, my body seemed to be grasped in a vice, limbs and torso felt achingly crushed whilst my head felt like a bruise floating in a zero gravity chamber.

Eventually, having lifted myself from the chair, all I could manage was to stumble up the stairs and roll myself into bed. A triangular supporting pillow, on top of the other two pillows, was called for to find anything resembling a semi-comfortable posture. Even my familiar low energy reserve seemed to have drained away - an achingly nauseous void swapped places with my body. Had it not been for the frightening sense of dis-ease, I would have described the condition as numbness. Twelve hours later, I remove myself from the duvet lair and, to my surprise, I feel reasonably alert.

After a caffeine fix, chores to be done, I head off to the local post office and then to the bakery. As I walk along the road I meet up with a couple of acquaintances; to the first one, in response to the "how are you" question, I respond with the customary "fine", the expected pleasantry. The other enquirer receives a more honest response and, I then find myself wondering whether I'd correctly understood the nature and purpose of the enquiry!