I just had a bit of a mental breakdown, and whilst I was sat there crying hysterically I realised that the monologue in my head* might actually make me feel a little better if I actually SAID it to someone, or typed it at least.
Anyway, here's what happened: (Not the answer to the whole 'oh shit what's wrong?' question, but the answer to the 'what little thing happened that made you start crying which then made you think of all the other shitty things which perpetuated the crying and turned you into a hysterical sobbing mess?' question. Which is a far better question. Why does no-one ever ask THAT question? I don't care if it's wordy; I like wordy.)
I got up to go to the loo. There was a puppy downstairs, but she's always intrigued by the noise of people moving upstairs, even if it's only down the hall, and there was an open packet of cookies on my bedside table. It wasn't within easy reach and puppy KNOWS not to EVER take things off of tables/desks/etc, but the cookies were too tempting. I should have known this because she stole one earlier when I got up to go to the loo***. I come back, see her with her head in the pack of cookies, shout at her (which hurts my throat), grab her (which dislocates a shoulder and subluxes a wrist), she squirms, I keep hold of her (subluxing the other wrist and an elbow) and throw her out of the room (not quite literally, but still getting the other elbow). Then close the door and collapse sobbing against it because both of my arms are just huge masses of PAIN and WRONGNESS and I have no idea how to go about setting them to rights when both of them are so completely dead and I'm so weak and ill and crashing and I'm already in so much pain and the stupid fucking thing about putting joints back in the right place is that you have to put yourself in MORE pain in order to FIX the pain and it's all just so ridiculous and overwhelming and I don't know how to deal with it and I HATE putting myself in pain and WHY exactly haven't people prescribed me any working painkillers yet? Then the hyperventilating hysterical sobbing hurts my throat and my ribs and I tell myself to suck it up and I fix all my joints because I know damn well that the longer I leave them the worse they'll hurt and the more likely they are to cause some sort of permanent damage so now matter HOW bad I hurt I can't just sit there crying like a baby; I have to be all grown up about it and fix it.
I fucking hate that. I want to be able to break down and CRY dammit. Except I don't, really. Want to cry, that is. Crying sucks. It's given me a headache and made my throat worse. What I want is to not feel so goddamn helpless that I feel the need to break down and cry like a baby. I HATE being so broken and I HATE being so fucking dependent on someone else to take care of me. And I was HOPING to be able to look after myself for the rest of the night until I'm able to fall asleep but I'm fairly certain my chances of that just went out the window and now I'll have to wait on someone else's fucking convenience in order to get drinks to soothe my goddamned throat.
I have no idea how I'm going to manage getting up next time I need the loo, by the way. All that sitting against the door seems to have killed my back, which doesn't help me with walking, and the crying made the lightheadedness worse, which also doesn't help with walking.
Fuuuuuck.
EDIT: Yup. Depressing moment there. First ever 'I need someone to help me go to the loo' moment. The shoulder that dislocated is none too happy about it, despite being fixed now, and I can't reach down with that arm, nor could I bend forwards without hurting my back and shoulder blade, so I couldn't actually pull my pants down myself. FML. Although, less FML than all the carer-less disabled people out there, who I'm feeling extra sorry for and depressed about at the minute. Because if it wasn't for Rambo...I don't even want to think about that. It's a horrifying and disgusting thought, to be honest. I'm going to go back to crying for a little while.
*I do that all the time. A constant attempt at explaining myself to other people from the rational part of my brain. Except it never gets said to said other people** and then I forget about it. And it's not explained and they don't understand and I don't feel any better for it.
**I'm sorry if I occasionally write confusing sentences like that. It's a poetic thing that creeps into my prose which I've always enjoyed because I have a thing for word-play, but other people like to shout at me about. Fuck off, I like it.
***My throat is on fire, so I've drunk about 10 cups of water today, and 4 or 5 cups of hot blackcurrant/lemon/throat-soothy-mediciny stuff. I have a weak bladder. I've been running back and forth from the loo all day, despite the nearly-fainting-ness that accompanies standing up when you a fever and POTS. I've not fainted. Yet****. Fingers crossed.
****Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I've fainted once since we worked out what was making me faint. I still FEEL like I'm going to all the time, but I know what causes it now and I'm so much better at recognising the signs and forcing myself to collapse on the floor if I need to in order to stop me fainting. I mean, I end up on the floor either way but the first is by far the better option.
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Monday 27 December 2010
Christmas
Yay Christmas:
I love Christmas. Seriously, I'm like a little kid. I get sooo freaking excited counting down the days and hours and minutes until Christmas, and on Christmas Eve I was curled up in bed in my new pyjamas (family tradition, new pyjamas on Christmas Eve) before midnight because midnight is when Santa comes and he wouldn't come if I was asleep. Then I woke up at eight in the morning all bouncy and excited and woke Rambo up shouting 'MERRY CHRISTMAAS' at him until he got up to open stockings with me. Then I had to literally drag him round to my dad's house whilst he was still half-asleep and insisting that Christmas doesn't start until noon (SO wrong). But my little baby cousins are visiting from Spain so everyone around there was also woken up early by excited children and everyone was happy and excited and shouting MERRY CHRISTMAS over and over while we started on the drinking and drugs super-early in the day and handed out presents.
I love my family. My Dad's side of it, anyhow. Other people are always telling me how much Christmas sucks because they have to get all the family together and there's lots of tension and arguments and stress about the whole thing. Screw all of that. We have the happiest Christmases ever. Christmas is MAGICAL in my family. I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I'm actually depressed that I have to wait a whole 'nother year until next Christmas. I want to do it all again NOW.
Except I can't, really. Christmas is a spoon-sucker. I do the whole thing fueled entirely by my child-like wonder and excitement of Christmas and shove everything else aside for the day so I can be happy, and then I crash pretty hard on boxing day and I've been in bed since early yesterday evening and don't plan on moving until tomorrow.
Oh well. So freaking worth it. :)
Awesome things I got:
My sister knitted me some purple armwarmers. Just the right size to hide my tubigrips. I LOVE them. I know it's only been two days, but I've not had a single 'what did you do to your wrist?'/'OMG what happened?' comment in those two days. Loving it.
80k got me a moonkin hatchling on WoW. She is so cutes. Extra-cutes with mommy boomkin and baby boomkin flapping her wings trying to fly. <3
Rambo tells me there are books in the mail. I'm counting that as an awesome thing even though they're not here yet because otherwise this list is depressingly short.
Depressing things I shoved to the side for the day but kept attempting to intrude on my Christmas-happiness anyhow:
Rambo's aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks ago, it's spread to her bones and she's starting chemo on Thursday. He's pretty upset about it. I don't know her all that well but I'm suddenly feeling a spoonie-bond towards her that I'm not really sure I can act on as his family doesn't really understand my spoonieness and would just be offended that I would try and compare what I have with cancer. Which isn't what I want to do at all, I just...I can relate to her, is all. And I want to put some kind of spoonie-care-package together. I'm just really not sure how his family will take that. They're already pretty judgemental of me. But it's not about me, it's about making her feel better, so I should just suck it up. Right. I'll get right on that.
Friend of mine left her husband on Christmas Eve as he was gambling and drinking etc and she confronted him about it and he tried to blame it all on her. Said that caring for a disabled person made him do it. Fucker. She deserves so much better than that. But she can't care for herself and what a horrible time to be alone and I'm so mad at him and so upset that I can't help her, even though she's not that far away, because I can't care for MYSELF let alone anyone else and I couldn't possibly ask Rambo to do that for me. I just hope her Christmas wasn't as horribly depressing as I'm imagining.
Whining:
Dad's side of the family is awesome. My Dad himself is awesome. His choice in girlfriends not-so. She's one of those people who obviously doesn't like you and is quite judgemental of you, but won't ever say anything to your face. I hate that. I just get nasty looks from her constantly, and then my sister telling me later on what she's been saying about me behind my back. Ugh. She's also one of those people who thinks that looks and clothes and make-up are everything. And spends ridiculous amounts of money on those things, then whines when she can't afford bills. Anyway, the whining here is the fact that she's in charge of the Christmas shopping for her and my Dad, so he doesn't really get a say in it. So my presents from the both of them consisted of make-up (not even make-up that I might occasionally wear, like eyeliner or mascara, but lipstick which I absolutely abhorr), a PINK coat (seriously. Pink. Wtf?), a stack of pretty notebooks which are sort of an okay present in that she's put slightly more thought into it than the others and realised that I like to write, but is just depressing because I can't physically write with pen and paper, my wrists haven't been up to that for years, and insulting because she KNOWS that, but she thinks I'm faking. Oh, and some ten year old video games that I already have. Woo. She also got Rambo some xbox live points. He doesn't have xbox live.
I hate to whine about presents, because it's the thought that counts, not what you actually get, but she's so obviously not put any thought into them and it pisses me off because I put so much thought into hers and got her awesome things that she loves and has been playing with pretty much since she opened them. I also talked to other people about presents to make sure I wasn't duplicating anything, like those old games. Also pisses me off that for the last few months she (along with other people) have been shouting at me not to buy myself anything because Christmas is coming up and I should just put it on my wishlist so that it can be bought for me. I made a wishlist and the only thing that got bought off it was for my Dad because he saw one of the games on my list and went 'oh that looks cool'. Great. I wasn't expecting anything big or expensive or anything. I put tons of little cheap things on there that people could buy me and that I would have been really happy with. Things that I needed, like a new laptop mouse because mine broke. And they were all so fucking insistent that I couldn't buy myself a new one, so I waited a month without, with the touchpad driving me crazy, and now I have to go buy my own anyway.
I love Christmas. Seriously, I'm like a little kid. I get sooo freaking excited counting down the days and hours and minutes until Christmas, and on Christmas Eve I was curled up in bed in my new pyjamas (family tradition, new pyjamas on Christmas Eve) before midnight because midnight is when Santa comes and he wouldn't come if I was asleep. Then I woke up at eight in the morning all bouncy and excited and woke Rambo up shouting 'MERRY CHRISTMAAS' at him until he got up to open stockings with me. Then I had to literally drag him round to my dad's house whilst he was still half-asleep and insisting that Christmas doesn't start until noon (SO wrong). But my little baby cousins are visiting from Spain so everyone around there was also woken up early by excited children and everyone was happy and excited and shouting MERRY CHRISTMAS over and over while we started on the drinking and drugs super-early in the day and handed out presents.
I love my family. My Dad's side of it, anyhow. Other people are always telling me how much Christmas sucks because they have to get all the family together and there's lots of tension and arguments and stress about the whole thing. Screw all of that. We have the happiest Christmases ever. Christmas is MAGICAL in my family. I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I'm actually depressed that I have to wait a whole 'nother year until next Christmas. I want to do it all again NOW.
Except I can't, really. Christmas is a spoon-sucker. I do the whole thing fueled entirely by my child-like wonder and excitement of Christmas and shove everything else aside for the day so I can be happy, and then I crash pretty hard on boxing day and I've been in bed since early yesterday evening and don't plan on moving until tomorrow.
Oh well. So freaking worth it. :)
Awesome things I got:
My sister knitted me some purple armwarmers. Just the right size to hide my tubigrips. I LOVE them. I know it's only been two days, but I've not had a single 'what did you do to your wrist?'/'OMG what happened?' comment in those two days. Loving it.
80k got me a moonkin hatchling on WoW. She is so cutes. Extra-cutes with mommy boomkin and baby boomkin flapping her wings trying to fly. <3
Rambo tells me there are books in the mail. I'm counting that as an awesome thing even though they're not here yet because otherwise this list is depressingly short.
Depressing things I shoved to the side for the day but kept attempting to intrude on my Christmas-happiness anyhow:
Rambo's aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks ago, it's spread to her bones and she's starting chemo on Thursday. He's pretty upset about it. I don't know her all that well but I'm suddenly feeling a spoonie-bond towards her that I'm not really sure I can act on as his family doesn't really understand my spoonieness and would just be offended that I would try and compare what I have with cancer. Which isn't what I want to do at all, I just...I can relate to her, is all. And I want to put some kind of spoonie-care-package together. I'm just really not sure how his family will take that. They're already pretty judgemental of me. But it's not about me, it's about making her feel better, so I should just suck it up. Right. I'll get right on that.
Friend of mine left her husband on Christmas Eve as he was gambling and drinking etc and she confronted him about it and he tried to blame it all on her. Said that caring for a disabled person made him do it. Fucker. She deserves so much better than that. But she can't care for herself and what a horrible time to be alone and I'm so mad at him and so upset that I can't help her, even though she's not that far away, because I can't care for MYSELF let alone anyone else and I couldn't possibly ask Rambo to do that for me. I just hope her Christmas wasn't as horribly depressing as I'm imagining.
Whining:
Dad's side of the family is awesome. My Dad himself is awesome. His choice in girlfriends not-so. She's one of those people who obviously doesn't like you and is quite judgemental of you, but won't ever say anything to your face. I hate that. I just get nasty looks from her constantly, and then my sister telling me later on what she's been saying about me behind my back. Ugh. She's also one of those people who thinks that looks and clothes and make-up are everything. And spends ridiculous amounts of money on those things, then whines when she can't afford bills. Anyway, the whining here is the fact that she's in charge of the Christmas shopping for her and my Dad, so he doesn't really get a say in it. So my presents from the both of them consisted of make-up (not even make-up that I might occasionally wear, like eyeliner or mascara, but lipstick which I absolutely abhorr), a PINK coat (seriously. Pink. Wtf?), a stack of pretty notebooks which are sort of an okay present in that she's put slightly more thought into it than the others and realised that I like to write, but is just depressing because I can't physically write with pen and paper, my wrists haven't been up to that for years, and insulting because she KNOWS that, but she thinks I'm faking. Oh, and some ten year old video games that I already have. Woo. She also got Rambo some xbox live points. He doesn't have xbox live.
I hate to whine about presents, because it's the thought that counts, not what you actually get, but she's so obviously not put any thought into them and it pisses me off because I put so much thought into hers and got her awesome things that she loves and has been playing with pretty much since she opened them. I also talked to other people about presents to make sure I wasn't duplicating anything, like those old games. Also pisses me off that for the last few months she (along with other people) have been shouting at me not to buy myself anything because Christmas is coming up and I should just put it on my wishlist so that it can be bought for me. I made a wishlist and the only thing that got bought off it was for my Dad because he saw one of the games on my list and went 'oh that looks cool'. Great. I wasn't expecting anything big or expensive or anything. I put tons of little cheap things on there that people could buy me and that I would have been really happy with. Things that I needed, like a new laptop mouse because mine broke. And they were all so fucking insistent that I couldn't buy myself a new one, so I waited a month without, with the touchpad driving me crazy, and now I have to go buy my own anyway.
Thursday 9 December 2010
WoW Idiots, part 2
Exhibit B:
I'm not sure whether to call these guys idiots or not. They're fucktards, for sure, but it was some quite genius trolling. Or griefing, rather.
I joined a dungeon queue as dps, took a while to find a group, as usual, then got in with two other dps from random servers and a tank and healer from the same server, who obviously know each other.
Nothing unusual so far. Everyone says hello and picks up the quests at the start of the instance, then the tank pulls a hell of a lot of mobs and we start pwning the crap out of them. Awesome. We got a rhythm going; we don't stop for nothing. Pull pull pull pull pull pull. Getting the next group before the first's dead. A patrol walks into us, I start shooting it to get it off my healer and we beat the crap out of it as we have done everything else so far.
Here's where things start to go wrong. As soon as we're done killing that pack the healer and tank both immediately start screaming 'OMG FUCKING HUNTER' 'WHY U PULL NOOB HUNTER?' 'LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL'. Interesting. I 'o.O' at them and assume(hope) they're joking. The false sense of security they've lulled me into is enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Next pack. Another two-mob patrol. The kitty druid picks it up before the tank. The tank and healer start screaming 'OMG FUCKING NOOB DRUID' 'LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL' but don't actually help out at all. I help the druid out but with everyone else just standing around watching us we both die. Then they kill it. Whilst shouting 'ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!'
Only a couple of packs before the boss. Tank pulls them both, then just stands there doing nothing whilst we dps. Aggro everywhere. Mage dead, druid dead, I feign death but my raptor dies. Tank and healer still shouting 'ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!' and 'LOLOLOLOLOLOL' every time someone dies. Wonderful.
The two of them kill those packs by themselves as we run back.
Enter boss room. Tank pulls by body aggro and nothing else. Stands there and waits for us to dps and get aggro. We're not that stupid but I don't want to be here forever so I send the pet in and wait for him to get a bit of aggro before we start up. He's not a tanking pet but he does alright. I keep getting aggro and having to feign and the druid and mage both get themselves killed (to choruses of another one bites the dust, naturally). Raptor eventually dies when the boss enrages as he can't take the beats with just my heals anymore. Now when I feign it goes onto the tank, who still only has the tiniest margin of aggro. Just a couple of sword swings to make sure it stays off his healer. Tank takes the boss over to where I'm feigned so I start taking aoe damage. Fucker. I move off and start ressing my pet but the tank keeps following me. I manage to get the res off though, healing potion, get the pet back to tanking so the tank can't follow me around with the boss, bandage myself, and proceed to beat the crap out of the boss.
I kill him, woo. I should also probably mention that both tank and healer have been needing on every drop this run, and the awesome hunter loot the boss drops is no exception. Priest wins it. Fucker.
I leave the group, and immediately jump back in the dungeon queue to find the same tank and healer, with two random dps. I feel sorry for those poor dpsers but I'm not surprised when they don't listen to my warning. I leave the group as I can't deal with ANOTHER of those runs, and use my cooldown time to write this up.
UPDATE:
Ran into them AGAIN. Decided not to say anything in hopes that they wouldn't recognise me and we could all just play nice for this instance. First few packs go alright, as before. Then there's some aoe damage and the dpsers just bandage themselves for a while, but get sick of this pretty quickly as you can't really do all that much with bandaging, and the rogue decides to ask for a heal.
All hell breaks loose.
The chat is spammed with caps 'BLASPHEMY' 'FUCKING WORGEN' 'FUCK OFF NOOB' 'NO HEALS FOR U' etc etc, whilst the tank pulls the next pack and just stands there while the dps get beat up and not healed by the healer. Fortunately, us dps kick ass and didn't need their help. It just would have been nice.
Anyway, rather than just going 'wtf?!' at all this, the rogue decides to ask why he can't get a heal. Turns out, these guys are from an RP server and are RPing as racist dicks. Near as I can make out. Apparently they hate worgens.
That's some epic troll/griefing right there.
I'm not sure whether to call these guys idiots or not. They're fucktards, for sure, but it was some quite genius trolling. Or griefing, rather.
I joined a dungeon queue as dps, took a while to find a group, as usual, then got in with two other dps from random servers and a tank and healer from the same server, who obviously know each other.
Nothing unusual so far. Everyone says hello and picks up the quests at the start of the instance, then the tank pulls a hell of a lot of mobs and we start pwning the crap out of them. Awesome. We got a rhythm going; we don't stop for nothing. Pull pull pull pull pull pull. Getting the next group before the first's dead. A patrol walks into us, I start shooting it to get it off my healer and we beat the crap out of it as we have done everything else so far.
Here's where things start to go wrong. As soon as we're done killing that pack the healer and tank both immediately start screaming 'OMG FUCKING HUNTER' 'WHY U PULL NOOB HUNTER?' 'LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL'. Interesting. I 'o.O' at them and assume(hope) they're joking. The false sense of security they've lulled me into is enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Next pack. Another two-mob patrol. The kitty druid picks it up before the tank. The tank and healer start screaming 'OMG FUCKING NOOB DRUID' 'LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL' but don't actually help out at all. I help the druid out but with everyone else just standing around watching us we both die. Then they kill it. Whilst shouting 'ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!'
Only a couple of packs before the boss. Tank pulls them both, then just stands there doing nothing whilst we dps. Aggro everywhere. Mage dead, druid dead, I feign death but my raptor dies. Tank and healer still shouting 'ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!' and 'LOLOLOLOLOLOL' every time someone dies. Wonderful.
The two of them kill those packs by themselves as we run back.
Enter boss room. Tank pulls by body aggro and nothing else. Stands there and waits for us to dps and get aggro. We're not that stupid but I don't want to be here forever so I send the pet in and wait for him to get a bit of aggro before we start up. He's not a tanking pet but he does alright. I keep getting aggro and having to feign and the druid and mage both get themselves killed (to choruses of another one bites the dust, naturally). Raptor eventually dies when the boss enrages as he can't take the beats with just my heals anymore. Now when I feign it goes onto the tank, who still only has the tiniest margin of aggro. Just a couple of sword swings to make sure it stays off his healer. Tank takes the boss over to where I'm feigned so I start taking aoe damage. Fucker. I move off and start ressing my pet but the tank keeps following me. I manage to get the res off though, healing potion, get the pet back to tanking so the tank can't follow me around with the boss, bandage myself, and proceed to beat the crap out of the boss.
I kill him, woo. I should also probably mention that both tank and healer have been needing on every drop this run, and the awesome hunter loot the boss drops is no exception. Priest wins it. Fucker.
I leave the group, and immediately jump back in the dungeon queue to find the same tank and healer, with two random dps. I feel sorry for those poor dpsers but I'm not surprised when they don't listen to my warning. I leave the group as I can't deal with ANOTHER of those runs, and use my cooldown time to write this up.
UPDATE:
Ran into them AGAIN. Decided not to say anything in hopes that they wouldn't recognise me and we could all just play nice for this instance. First few packs go alright, as before. Then there's some aoe damage and the dpsers just bandage themselves for a while, but get sick of this pretty quickly as you can't really do all that much with bandaging, and the rogue decides to ask for a heal.
All hell breaks loose.
The chat is spammed with caps 'BLASPHEMY' 'FUCKING WORGEN' 'FUCK OFF NOOB' 'NO HEALS FOR U' etc etc, whilst the tank pulls the next pack and just stands there while the dps get beat up and not healed by the healer. Fortunately, us dps kick ass and didn't need their help. It just would have been nice.
Anyway, rather than just going 'wtf?!' at all this, the rogue decides to ask why he can't get a heal. Turns out, these guys are from an RP server and are RPing as racist dicks. Near as I can make out. Apparently they hate worgens.
That's some epic troll/griefing right there.
Saturday 4 December 2010
Rambo Sucks Sometimes
I was trying to be organised on Thursday and get some things sorted out. There are a LOT of things that need sorting out and I have a craptastic memory, so I made a list and then showed it to Rambo saying 'We need to do these. Preferably today.'
He thought I said 'YOU need to do these' and was quite happy about that, saying it was no problem and he could do everything on the list today. I was a bit miffed - I'm not THAT demanding and it's a bit bitchy to give him a huge list and expect him to do it all. I didn't, but the fact that he's so unfazed thinking that I did that upsets me in a 'how could he think that of me?' kind of way. I explain that I said 'WE' need to do them and he goes 'oh okay' and we start discussing what I can and can't do on the list.
One of the points involves a phone. Specifically, calling the bank about getting a new bank card as Rambo lost ours (it's a joint account, but he lost his card, then repeatedly stole mine because he couldn't be bothered to get a new one, then lost mine). I, due to social anxiety and brain foggy cock-ups with conversation and asperger-like problems, really really hate phones. Really. I'm sure I've mentioned before that just the act of picking up the phone and trying to dial a number often sends me into panic attacks and tears. I can't deal with phones.
This always pisses Rambo off, because while he's quite understanding about my physical problems, he's not so good with the mental. His entire family is of the 'mental illness is a sign of weakness, anybody can overcome it just with willpower' way of thinking. He tells me at times, when I'm upset, that it's my fault for choosing to feel that way and nobody can force me to be upset, it's all down to me.
So when I try to get out of doing that particular chore on the list, he gets quite mad about it. Despite being quite happy five minutes ago to do EVERYTHING on the list, he now thinks it's incredibly unfair for me to not want to phone people. I offer to do other things instead but this just makes him madder as the things I'm offering to do instead will hurt me physically and he thinks I'm choosing to hurt myself. I try to explain that the phone will hurt me mentally so I'm not choosing to hurt myself over not hurting myself, just choosing the hurt I find easier to cope with. He's still mad about it, and starts telling me that surely I'd recover from the mental hurt easier.
Then we started arguing over other points, one of which was writing a letter to certain benefits people. I explained that I have a lot of difficulty with writing and asked if he could do that one, and he explodes in an angry rant about how writing is what I DO for God's sake. I can't get a word in edgeways for a while but when he eventually shuts up I tell him that that's all well and good and if he got me a printer I could write as many fucking letters as he likes, but until then I still can't physically put pen to paper. He concedes and tries to write the letter, but fails so miserably at having legible handwriting that I have to take over. And end up in tears from the pain.
Anyway. I do all my chores. I (half-)write the damn letter and walk the dog and put some laundry on and put clean dishes away and collapse and can't do much else because I'm completely out of spoons. Rambo washes some dishes and ignores the rest of his chores to play video games.
He didn't even wash the things I needed to make dinner. Siiiiigh.
He thought I said 'YOU need to do these' and was quite happy about that, saying it was no problem and he could do everything on the list today. I was a bit miffed - I'm not THAT demanding and it's a bit bitchy to give him a huge list and expect him to do it all. I didn't, but the fact that he's so unfazed thinking that I did that upsets me in a 'how could he think that of me?' kind of way. I explain that I said 'WE' need to do them and he goes 'oh okay' and we start discussing what I can and can't do on the list.
One of the points involves a phone. Specifically, calling the bank about getting a new bank card as Rambo lost ours (it's a joint account, but he lost his card, then repeatedly stole mine because he couldn't be bothered to get a new one, then lost mine). I, due to social anxiety and brain foggy cock-ups with conversation and asperger-like problems, really really hate phones. Really. I'm sure I've mentioned before that just the act of picking up the phone and trying to dial a number often sends me into panic attacks and tears. I can't deal with phones.
This always pisses Rambo off, because while he's quite understanding about my physical problems, he's not so good with the mental. His entire family is of the 'mental illness is a sign of weakness, anybody can overcome it just with willpower' way of thinking. He tells me at times, when I'm upset, that it's my fault for choosing to feel that way and nobody can force me to be upset, it's all down to me.
So when I try to get out of doing that particular chore on the list, he gets quite mad about it. Despite being quite happy five minutes ago to do EVERYTHING on the list, he now thinks it's incredibly unfair for me to not want to phone people. I offer to do other things instead but this just makes him madder as the things I'm offering to do instead will hurt me physically and he thinks I'm choosing to hurt myself. I try to explain that the phone will hurt me mentally so I'm not choosing to hurt myself over not hurting myself, just choosing the hurt I find easier to cope with. He's still mad about it, and starts telling me that surely I'd recover from the mental hurt easier.
Then we started arguing over other points, one of which was writing a letter to certain benefits people. I explained that I have a lot of difficulty with writing and asked if he could do that one, and he explodes in an angry rant about how writing is what I DO for God's sake. I can't get a word in edgeways for a while but when he eventually shuts up I tell him that that's all well and good and if he got me a printer I could write as many fucking letters as he likes, but until then I still can't physically put pen to paper. He concedes and tries to write the letter, but fails so miserably at having legible handwriting that I have to take over. And end up in tears from the pain.
Anyway. I do all my chores. I (half-)write the damn letter and walk the dog and put some laundry on and put clean dishes away and collapse and can't do much else because I'm completely out of spoons. Rambo washes some dishes and ignores the rest of his chores to play video games.
He didn't even wash the things I needed to make dinner. Siiiiigh.
Friday 3 December 2010
Idiots
The problem with playing WoW again is that it reminds just how full of idiots the world is. I mean, I know it's full of idiots, but WoW likes to shove that fact in my face. Some of them even manage to subtly hide the fact so that you give them second chances and the benefit of the doubt. Those ones are the worst.
Exhibit A:
Warrior joins our party as a tank. As soon as he joins, he says 'I'm not a tank by the way. We don't need a tank.' (grammar fixed by yours truly, of course). Now, to me, that statement could mean one of two things. One - he actually knows what he's talking about and is used to iron-manning instances. I approve of this scenario. It signals fun times. Or two - he's a fucking idiot.
My gut instinct says number two. Especially as this is a PuG and you don't just jump into iron-manning with people you don't know as there's bound to be idiots. Like this guy. Ahem.
First few trash mobs go okay. Then we jump down to the next part (Gnomeregan, by the way) as the warrior's all 'OMGZ I NOES A SHORTCUT' (grammar messed up by yours truly, to emphasise stupidity). Fair enough, we usually jump down here anyway. Except the warrior misses the giant cog thing you're meant to land on, and instead lands on a mob. Okay, it's just one mob. The rest of us jump down to deal with it. More patrol into us. Tank not being a tank, he ignores 'em. Other people ignore 'em too. They all gang up on the healer. That's me. Ow. Fine, I heal myself AND the warrior for a while figuring he can take these guys off me once the one he's fighting dies. No dice, because when that one dies he decides to pull the boss. I'm still fending off two mobs and trying to heal him as well. I'm failing quite badly. I don't have very many panic spells at my little level and the only one I have will make things worse in this room (fear) so I just try to heal us both until we all fall over and die.
Then the warrior screams 'OMGS Y NO HEALZ U NOOB'. I explain that I can't heal whilst being beat in the face, and a tank would have been quite helpful in that situation. He laughs at me.
I leave the party. Now I have a deserter debuff thanks to that idiot.
More exhibits will come as they happen. My memory sucks too badly to give you a good account of any of the other hundreds of millions that have happened already, unfortunately.
Exhibit A:
Warrior joins our party as a tank. As soon as he joins, he says 'I'm not a tank by the way. We don't need a tank.' (grammar fixed by yours truly, of course). Now, to me, that statement could mean one of two things. One - he actually knows what he's talking about and is used to iron-manning instances. I approve of this scenario. It signals fun times. Or two - he's a fucking idiot.
My gut instinct says number two. Especially as this is a PuG and you don't just jump into iron-manning with people you don't know as there's bound to be idiots. Like this guy. Ahem.
First few trash mobs go okay. Then we jump down to the next part (Gnomeregan, by the way) as the warrior's all 'OMGZ I NOES A SHORTCUT' (grammar messed up by yours truly, to emphasise stupidity). Fair enough, we usually jump down here anyway. Except the warrior misses the giant cog thing you're meant to land on, and instead lands on a mob. Okay, it's just one mob. The rest of us jump down to deal with it. More patrol into us. Tank not being a tank, he ignores 'em. Other people ignore 'em too. They all gang up on the healer. That's me. Ow. Fine, I heal myself AND the warrior for a while figuring he can take these guys off me once the one he's fighting dies. No dice, because when that one dies he decides to pull the boss. I'm still fending off two mobs and trying to heal him as well. I'm failing quite badly. I don't have very many panic spells at my little level and the only one I have will make things worse in this room (fear) so I just try to heal us both until we all fall over and die.
Then the warrior screams 'OMGS Y NO HEALZ U NOOB'. I explain that I can't heal whilst being beat in the face, and a tank would have been quite helpful in that situation. He laughs at me.
I leave the party. Now I have a deserter debuff thanks to that idiot.
More exhibits will come as they happen. My memory sucks too badly to give you a good account of any of the other hundreds of millions that have happened already, unfortunately.
Wednesday 1 December 2010
Rheumy
Woke up bright and early at 8am* as I had an appointment with new Rheumy at 10 and there was no way in hell I was missing this one.
In keeping with the no way in hell I'm missing this one plan, we arranged hospital transport weeks in advance, as we had the last three times, but we'd also called up every single day for the past week just to make extra extra certain. They probably got quite annoyed with us, but missing appointments has been driving us crazy. Seriously batshit crazy.
Dressed and ready to go by half 8. Wheelchair bag packed with snacks and books and laptops etc in case we have to wait around for hours - we may not have done a Rheumy appointment before but I've had appointments with specialists in hospitals. I know damn well that I need to bring a book.
Start to get worried about transport again at 9. Call up. Again. They insist that the transport is on its way to us. Okay.
Getting bored of waiting. Go to check the mail, see if there's anything interesting. Doubt there will be. Oh wait, what's this? A note from the hospital's ambulance service. Remarkably similar to the Royal Mail 'you weren't in' card. With a ticked box saying I refused transport at 8:41am this morning.
I'm very confused by this. I certainly did not refuse any transport. I assume they mean I didn't answer the door. But in order to answer the door, they have to make some sort of noise to let me know they're here. I've been sat waiting and ready to go since half 8. In the living room. Mere feet from the door. It's half 8 in the morning, there's no noise going on that could possibly cover the sound of the door knocking. The doorbell's broken, but has a piece of paper taped over it to point this out to people.
Obviously, ringing doorbells through taped bits of paper and not knocking at all is the best way to go about things. I'm not that surprised; Royal Mail seem to think along the same lines**.
Fortunately, in the spirit of 'I AM NOT FUCKING MISSING THIS ONE' we are prepared for this eventuality and have money and the number of a taxi close at hand and ready to go. We can't exactly afford a taxi but fuck it, someone can miss out on a Christmas present for the sake of me not fucking missing this one.
Taxi gets us there with ten minutes to spare - despite the icy snow-covered roads that nobody in England is either prepared for or capable of dealing with***.
Finally at a hospital on time for an appointment with a Rheumatologist. Fucks yeah! Head to reception, check in, she starts going over things and asking me questions (GP's name, next of kin, ethnicity, religion, confirm my address etc etc) that were on the form I just handed her. The form that was sent with my appointment letter which stated very clearly in big bold letters that I absolutely MUST fill it in. Which I did, painstakingly (I don't think I've ever seen that word used quite so literally before). Little upset that I hurt my wrist so badly for no reason but oh well.
Wait around for an hour before my appointment. That's alright, we came prepared. I have a book and a bag of crisps and we have change to get hot chocolate with. Yay hot chocolate! Rambo gets a newspaper too, as he forgot to bring a book. He gets so engrossed in this paper that when my Rheumatologist comes and calls my name he doesn't hear it. I do. I wave at the doctor, and try to get Rambo's attention so that he can wheel me over, because we came in the wheelchair today to minimise my breakage and my wrists are too screwed up already this morning for me to even attempt pushing it myself. Eventually get his attention, but am very embarrassed by this point because he's waiting for me and I can't move to go to my own appointment! Oh dear.
Rheumatologist (totally needs a blog name, by the way. I'm thinking Snowdon. It is the tallest mountain in Wales. That has nothing to do with how he got the name. In case you were wondering.) tells me he doesn't really have any of my files or history, just a little note from my GP stating 'probably has Ehlers-Danlos'. Great. That's fine. I'm prepared for ANYTHING today. I'm like a fucking boy scout. I pull out my laptop, open up the symptom log I've been writing in for a while that just happens to have a list of my family medical history and all my medications and previous diagnoses. Snowdon is all 'wow this is super helpful' (except not as sarcastically as that comes across in writing) and sits there reading for a bit. And then asks me to email it him and gives me his address. I do it as soon as I get home, because there's no wifi at the hospital. But anyway, back to appointment. He reads all my symptoms and history and meds and goes 'It's pretty damn clear that you have hypermobility problems. And you seem to know that anyway.' and asks me to come into the other room for examinationess (so not the word he used. I forget what exact words were used.)
In the other room, he asks me to show off my hypermobility. I quickly run through the beighton scale, getting an 8/9 as always, and explaining that my sister can't do the 9th of touching the floor either. Apparently it's because she has short hamstrings. I'm fairly certain that's the reason I can't either as it hurts my hamstrings like hell to try. He then asks me to show off my other hypermobile joints. I look at him confusedly. He rephrases and tells me to show off bendy party tricks. Aha. Now I know what to do. I do the weird twisty finger things. I stand with one foot facing forward and one facing backwards. He asks about shoulders and ankles. I've never done party tricks with these. I just start twisting in random ways, arms up behind my back to bend my shoulders, wondering whether this is actually past normal range or not. He laughs and tells me I'm most definitely hypermobile in all my joints and I can stop it now. Then he pokes at my fibro tender points a bit. Fucking OW, dude. Seriously. Tender points are TENDER.
Then we go back and sit down and we talk about my diagnosis and treatment etc and he starts trying to tell me that there's a thin line between Joint Hypermobility Syndrome and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and no genetic test for either but he thinks I fall on the Joint Hypermobility side rather than the EDS side. I try to explain that specialists have been arguing that these two are one and the same for years and it was actually officially decided earlier this year at the HMSA conference that they are in the fact the same diagnosis. He ignores me and carries on faffing over which one, then contradicts himself by saying that it doesn't really matter anyway as treatment is pretty much the same for both. THEN tells me that just in case it is Ehlers-Danlos (ORLY?!) we need to check for vascular symptoms. Books me an echocardiogram. And some blood tests, just as a 'background check'. I dunno what that means. All it brings to mind is background anti-virus scans. I am not a computer. I do not need background checks. But whatever. My GP and I go through this twice a year just to check I've not gone and developed Hypothyroidism while she wasn't looking anyway. I'm not afraid of blood tests. Just slightly annoyed by them because, being an EDSer (with an actual diagnosis now!), it's damnably hard to take blood from me.
Bad side-track. He was booking me for tests and discussing diagnosis. Right. He also talked about secondary diagnoses and started explaining that they were all caused by the EDS and the pain, even the mental problems, and I'm just staring at him blankly because...DUH. That's what secondary fucking MEANS. But let's carry on with the pretending I know nothing, because all doctors like to think that, and it's just easier to not rock the boat. I kind of want to chase a POTS diagnosis so that I can get some pills to attempt to control it, but as soon as I mention my Postural Hypotension diagnosis**** he again starts telling me that this is just something that naturally occurs in patients who have muscle and joint problems and therefore aren't very active. All very well, I say, but I've had these problems since I was a little kid and was much more active at the time. Plus, you know, there are medications I can take that will help this! He ignores me.
We start talking about pain management. I ask about a pain clinic. He explains that there are two kinds - the kind that throw drugs at the problem, and the kind that try to help you manage your pain. There aren't very many of the latter, so he doesn't want to refer me to one. He doesn't like the idea of throwing drugs at me. Neither do I, really, as drugs don't seem to help. But I don't particularly like writing off the whole idea of pain clinics just like that. Plus, maybe there ARE some drugs that will help me. I know a lot of bendies with painkillers that actually work, they just had to try five million different kinds before they found those. I can do that! I don't mind! But the only drug he will discuss is Amitryptiline, which I've tried and it a) didn't help at all and b) had terrible fucking side effects. He insists that the side effects will wear off eventually and I should try it. I tried it for a month. I cannot stand those side effects. And even if they do wear off eventually, what the fuck is the point when their MAIN effect doesn't work? Whatever. I explain that my sister had the same problems as me on Amitryptiline but was moved onto Nortryptiline and seems to be finding that one a lot better. He says 'ok, we'll try you on that' but doesn't actually write me a 'scrip for it.
Then he tells me I'll get appointment details for an echocardiogram through the mail. As well as the results of the blood test, and sends me on my way. Okay. Fair enough. I'm not sure I can take any more pandering to doctors today anyway.
Go see the nurse instead to get blood taken. I warn her I'm going to be very awkward to take blood from and she's going to need to use a small needle. She laughs and thinks I'm exaggerating. Haha. No. Takes her fifteen minutes to find a vein with us joking about my lack of them the whole while. She does get the blood first time though when she eventually finds it. Good on her. Last time I tried to get blood taken at a hospital it took four hours of three nurses and one doctor poking blindly into both my arms and both my hands before they eventually gave up and sent me back to my GP. Who got it first try. Now I have two nurses I trust to take my blood. :)
Anyway, she does manage to take FOUR VIALS of blood. Which takes a long time, because even if you manage to find a vein my body just starts laughing at you when you try to take more than two vials. The blood's literally spluttering out of my vein with its laughter. I'm sorry if that image was gruesome. But that's what it looked like.
Then we go home. And I'm broken all over by now from all the poking and prodding and showing off and the low blood sugar/pressure. And I need food and I can't make food because I'm not so good with the standing up and Rambo has to go back to work. And I try to write but my wrists are too broken. And it's now seven hours after I got home and I'm just about finishing. In a rambling rush that makes no sense because I just want to be DONE so I can hit post and go rest. You probably recognise this from the few other long posts I've done - they peter out into nonsense and blah blah blahs by the end.
Oh, and then just now the postman delivered a big huge box from Waterstones and even though they're meant to be Christmas presents I can't help grinning with glee at the huge pile of books next to me. It's amazing how much better a pile of books makes me feel. Especially as I'm not really allowed to read them. That's just odd.
*I say bright and early, but it wasn't really. That is a very sort of chirpy happy phrase that implies I was awake awake. I was not. There was much stumbling, fumbling, bumbling and confusion.
**Much hatred to Royal Mail over that fiasco. Had a parcel sent via next day delivery on the Monday. Waited in all day Tuesday for it. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. No card, no nothing. Waited in all day Wednesday for it. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. 'You were out' card. NO I BLOODY WELL WAS NOT OUT. Arrange a redelivery for the Friday. Wait around all day on Friday. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. No nothing, no card. Wait around all day Monday. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. 'You were out' card. Dated for SUNDAY with a 'please collect' written in the notes section. Try to call someone about it. All the 'customer service' lines have robotic menus and nothing else. Menus basically allow for you to arrange a redelivery and nothing else. Eventually send Rambo down to post office to collect. Nearest post office being a bus ride and £4 away. I had 3 other Royal Mail deliveries during this time and no problem with any of them. Why did they hate on that one parcel so much? :|
***Seriously. We have about a third of a foot of snow at the minute. That is NOTHING. Any other country would be laughing at us if they realised just how little snow it takes to make the entirety of England BREAK DOWN. The British do not understand snow!
****Yes, I actually have that diagnosis already. Just fairly certain that in itself is a symptoms of the POTS but the doctor who diagnosed me with it didn't check for that. Or tell me anything about it. Or offer me any pills or management options. Just said 'This is what you have. You are going to faint when your body temperature's slightly above normal and you have the audacity to try and stand upright. Deal with it, bitch'. Except not in those words, obviously.
In keeping with the no way in hell I'm missing this one plan, we arranged hospital transport weeks in advance, as we had the last three times, but we'd also called up every single day for the past week just to make extra extra certain. They probably got quite annoyed with us, but missing appointments has been driving us crazy. Seriously batshit crazy.
Dressed and ready to go by half 8. Wheelchair bag packed with snacks and books and laptops etc in case we have to wait around for hours - we may not have done a Rheumy appointment before but I've had appointments with specialists in hospitals. I know damn well that I need to bring a book.
Start to get worried about transport again at 9. Call up. Again. They insist that the transport is on its way to us. Okay.
Getting bored of waiting. Go to check the mail, see if there's anything interesting. Doubt there will be. Oh wait, what's this? A note from the hospital's ambulance service. Remarkably similar to the Royal Mail 'you weren't in' card. With a ticked box saying I refused transport at 8:41am this morning.
I'm very confused by this. I certainly did not refuse any transport. I assume they mean I didn't answer the door. But in order to answer the door, they have to make some sort of noise to let me know they're here. I've been sat waiting and ready to go since half 8. In the living room. Mere feet from the door. It's half 8 in the morning, there's no noise going on that could possibly cover the sound of the door knocking. The doorbell's broken, but has a piece of paper taped over it to point this out to people.
Obviously, ringing doorbells through taped bits of paper and not knocking at all is the best way to go about things. I'm not that surprised; Royal Mail seem to think along the same lines**.
Fortunately, in the spirit of 'I AM NOT FUCKING MISSING THIS ONE' we are prepared for this eventuality and have money and the number of a taxi close at hand and ready to go. We can't exactly afford a taxi but fuck it, someone can miss out on a Christmas present for the sake of me not fucking missing this one.
Taxi gets us there with ten minutes to spare - despite the icy snow-covered roads that nobody in England is either prepared for or capable of dealing with***.
Finally at a hospital on time for an appointment with a Rheumatologist. Fucks yeah! Head to reception, check in, she starts going over things and asking me questions (GP's name, next of kin, ethnicity, religion, confirm my address etc etc) that were on the form I just handed her. The form that was sent with my appointment letter which stated very clearly in big bold letters that I absolutely MUST fill it in. Which I did, painstakingly (I don't think I've ever seen that word used quite so literally before). Little upset that I hurt my wrist so badly for no reason but oh well.
Wait around for an hour before my appointment. That's alright, we came prepared. I have a book and a bag of crisps and we have change to get hot chocolate with. Yay hot chocolate! Rambo gets a newspaper too, as he forgot to bring a book. He gets so engrossed in this paper that when my Rheumatologist comes and calls my name he doesn't hear it. I do. I wave at the doctor, and try to get Rambo's attention so that he can wheel me over, because we came in the wheelchair today to minimise my breakage and my wrists are too screwed up already this morning for me to even attempt pushing it myself. Eventually get his attention, but am very embarrassed by this point because he's waiting for me and I can't move to go to my own appointment! Oh dear.
Rheumatologist (totally needs a blog name, by the way. I'm thinking Snowdon. It is the tallest mountain in Wales. That has nothing to do with how he got the name. In case you were wondering.) tells me he doesn't really have any of my files or history, just a little note from my GP stating 'probably has Ehlers-Danlos'. Great. That's fine. I'm prepared for ANYTHING today. I'm like a fucking boy scout. I pull out my laptop, open up the symptom log I've been writing in for a while that just happens to have a list of my family medical history and all my medications and previous diagnoses. Snowdon is all 'wow this is super helpful' (except not as sarcastically as that comes across in writing) and sits there reading for a bit. And then asks me to email it him and gives me his address. I do it as soon as I get home, because there's no wifi at the hospital. But anyway, back to appointment. He reads all my symptoms and history and meds and goes 'It's pretty damn clear that you have hypermobility problems. And you seem to know that anyway.' and asks me to come into the other room for examinationess (so not the word he used. I forget what exact words were used.)
In the other room, he asks me to show off my hypermobility. I quickly run through the beighton scale, getting an 8/9 as always, and explaining that my sister can't do the 9th of touching the floor either. Apparently it's because she has short hamstrings. I'm fairly certain that's the reason I can't either as it hurts my hamstrings like hell to try. He then asks me to show off my other hypermobile joints. I look at him confusedly. He rephrases and tells me to show off bendy party tricks. Aha. Now I know what to do. I do the weird twisty finger things. I stand with one foot facing forward and one facing backwards. He asks about shoulders and ankles. I've never done party tricks with these. I just start twisting in random ways, arms up behind my back to bend my shoulders, wondering whether this is actually past normal range or not. He laughs and tells me I'm most definitely hypermobile in all my joints and I can stop it now. Then he pokes at my fibro tender points a bit. Fucking OW, dude. Seriously. Tender points are TENDER.
Then we go back and sit down and we talk about my diagnosis and treatment etc and he starts trying to tell me that there's a thin line between Joint Hypermobility Syndrome and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and no genetic test for either but he thinks I fall on the Joint Hypermobility side rather than the EDS side. I try to explain that specialists have been arguing that these two are one and the same for years and it was actually officially decided earlier this year at the HMSA conference that they are in the fact the same diagnosis. He ignores me and carries on faffing over which one, then contradicts himself by saying that it doesn't really matter anyway as treatment is pretty much the same for both. THEN tells me that just in case it is Ehlers-Danlos (ORLY?!) we need to check for vascular symptoms. Books me an echocardiogram. And some blood tests, just as a 'background check'. I dunno what that means. All it brings to mind is background anti-virus scans. I am not a computer. I do not need background checks. But whatever. My GP and I go through this twice a year just to check I've not gone and developed Hypothyroidism while she wasn't looking anyway. I'm not afraid of blood tests. Just slightly annoyed by them because, being an EDSer (with an actual diagnosis now!), it's damnably hard to take blood from me.
Bad side-track. He was booking me for tests and discussing diagnosis. Right. He also talked about secondary diagnoses and started explaining that they were all caused by the EDS and the pain, even the mental problems, and I'm just staring at him blankly because...DUH. That's what secondary fucking MEANS. But let's carry on with the pretending I know nothing, because all doctors like to think that, and it's just easier to not rock the boat. I kind of want to chase a POTS diagnosis so that I can get some pills to attempt to control it, but as soon as I mention my Postural Hypotension diagnosis**** he again starts telling me that this is just something that naturally occurs in patients who have muscle and joint problems and therefore aren't very active. All very well, I say, but I've had these problems since I was a little kid and was much more active at the time. Plus, you know, there are medications I can take that will help this! He ignores me.
We start talking about pain management. I ask about a pain clinic. He explains that there are two kinds - the kind that throw drugs at the problem, and the kind that try to help you manage your pain. There aren't very many of the latter, so he doesn't want to refer me to one. He doesn't like the idea of throwing drugs at me. Neither do I, really, as drugs don't seem to help. But I don't particularly like writing off the whole idea of pain clinics just like that. Plus, maybe there ARE some drugs that will help me. I know a lot of bendies with painkillers that actually work, they just had to try five million different kinds before they found those. I can do that! I don't mind! But the only drug he will discuss is Amitryptiline, which I've tried and it a) didn't help at all and b) had terrible fucking side effects. He insists that the side effects will wear off eventually and I should try it. I tried it for a month. I cannot stand those side effects. And even if they do wear off eventually, what the fuck is the point when their MAIN effect doesn't work? Whatever. I explain that my sister had the same problems as me on Amitryptiline but was moved onto Nortryptiline and seems to be finding that one a lot better. He says 'ok, we'll try you on that' but doesn't actually write me a 'scrip for it.
Then he tells me I'll get appointment details for an echocardiogram through the mail. As well as the results of the blood test, and sends me on my way. Okay. Fair enough. I'm not sure I can take any more pandering to doctors today anyway.
Go see the nurse instead to get blood taken. I warn her I'm going to be very awkward to take blood from and she's going to need to use a small needle. She laughs and thinks I'm exaggerating. Haha. No. Takes her fifteen minutes to find a vein with us joking about my lack of them the whole while. She does get the blood first time though when she eventually finds it. Good on her. Last time I tried to get blood taken at a hospital it took four hours of three nurses and one doctor poking blindly into both my arms and both my hands before they eventually gave up and sent me back to my GP. Who got it first try. Now I have two nurses I trust to take my blood. :)
Anyway, she does manage to take FOUR VIALS of blood. Which takes a long time, because even if you manage to find a vein my body just starts laughing at you when you try to take more than two vials. The blood's literally spluttering out of my vein with its laughter. I'm sorry if that image was gruesome. But that's what it looked like.
Then we go home. And I'm broken all over by now from all the poking and prodding and showing off and the low blood sugar/pressure. And I need food and I can't make food because I'm not so good with the standing up and Rambo has to go back to work. And I try to write but my wrists are too broken. And it's now seven hours after I got home and I'm just about finishing. In a rambling rush that makes no sense because I just want to be DONE so I can hit post and go rest. You probably recognise this from the few other long posts I've done - they peter out into nonsense and blah blah blahs by the end.
Oh, and then just now the postman delivered a big huge box from Waterstones and even though they're meant to be Christmas presents I can't help grinning with glee at the huge pile of books next to me. It's amazing how much better a pile of books makes me feel. Especially as I'm not really allowed to read them. That's just odd.
*I say bright and early, but it wasn't really. That is a very sort of chirpy happy phrase that implies I was awake awake. I was not. There was much stumbling, fumbling, bumbling and confusion.
**Much hatred to Royal Mail over that fiasco. Had a parcel sent via next day delivery on the Monday. Waited in all day Tuesday for it. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. No card, no nothing. Waited in all day Wednesday for it. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. 'You were out' card. NO I BLOODY WELL WAS NOT OUT. Arrange a redelivery for the Friday. Wait around all day on Friday. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. No nothing, no card. Wait around all day Monday. A few feet from the door, taped-over doorbell, no noise. 'You were out' card. Dated for SUNDAY with a 'please collect' written in the notes section. Try to call someone about it. All the 'customer service' lines have robotic menus and nothing else. Menus basically allow for you to arrange a redelivery and nothing else. Eventually send Rambo down to post office to collect. Nearest post office being a bus ride and £4 away. I had 3 other Royal Mail deliveries during this time and no problem with any of them. Why did they hate on that one parcel so much? :|
***Seriously. We have about a third of a foot of snow at the minute. That is NOTHING. Any other country would be laughing at us if they realised just how little snow it takes to make the entirety of England BREAK DOWN. The British do not understand snow!
****Yes, I actually have that diagnosis already. Just fairly certain that in itself is a symptoms of the POTS but the doctor who diagnosed me with it didn't check for that. Or tell me anything about it. Or offer me any pills or management options. Just said 'This is what you have. You are going to faint when your body temperature's slightly above normal and you have the audacity to try and stand upright. Deal with it, bitch'. Except not in those words, obviously.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)