Saturday 31 March 2007

Rhinos and rain

Well the Tinnitus has now diminished to a gentle hum..I can cope with that....I've managed to get a lot of sleep!!
The weather is holding out so far...if it continues I may be able to get out in the garden in the next few days. My 17 year old offered to cut the grass for me this morning....but not very enthusiastically...think I prefer to do it myself. I am a bit of a perfectionist, which is not good when you have a condition which makes even some of the more mundane tasks daunting.
Dr Who returns tonight....am now an addict.
Well after watching that I don't think I'll ever look at rhinos in the same light, neither will I complain when the rain pours DOWN!!

Thursday 29 March 2007

I need sleep!!


I'm feeling confused today. Probably through lack of sleep.
The last few days have been glorious weather -wise.....I felt that this fact ought to lift my spirits. I wanted to have my spirits lifted.... instead I've felt muggy and in pain....like I've been slammed into a brick wall. To make matters worse the council have been out cutting the grass verges. This has only compounded my frustration in not being able to get out into my garden. I love gardening....I used to spend hours out there. I'm no expert...I don't know the names of a lot of the plants.....I don't know what sort of soil I have. I just put things in where I think they ought to go and trust to good luck. Most of the time things work out OK. Now it seems as if it is becoming a chore, and I don't want that to happen. I want to continue to enjoy it. I've gone over and over in my mind how I could make my garden easier to manage. The solution evades me at the moment. Whatever solution I think of will probably mean spending money that I just don't have. Perhaps I need to let this one go for the moment. I'm just going round and round in circles trying to think about it.
Exhaustion is getting to me now. I want to sleep, but the continuous buzzing in my ears is driving me crazy. Mild tinnitus is something I've always had but it has increased over the last 2 years. It's not so noticeable during the day when I can mask it slightly with the radio or TV, but at night when everything is quiet it fills the whole room, denying me of the precious sleep I need. 4 nights now have been spent tossing and turning...eventually getting up and putting music on low trying to lull myself to a least a few hours. It's not working.

Wednesday 28 March 2007

Where it started


Well I've managed to get this far.....but let's go back a bit to where it started.

October 2004 was when I first fell ill. Nothing too dramatic..just a chest infection, which led to 3 weeks off work. I went back to work telling myself that everything was OK, even though everyone was telling me that I wasn't well enough....but did I listen?..of course not! I'm an independent person who knows her own mind and is never ill...and anyway it's coming up to Christmas.....a busy time at work. Ha ha...2 weeks on and I collapsed at work and had to be sent home...still had the infection...another couple of weeks off.
I got through Christmas not feeling brilliant...put that down to being rushed off our feet. My last shift of the year....hooray!...new Years Eve. Got home looking forward to to 3 days off.....those 3 days stretched into 6 weeks...then 3 months. My GP said I had a bout of the flu. I wasn't getting any better..in fact I was feeling steadily worse as the time went on. My GP said that I should consider trying to go back to work..I should be getting over it now. I began to think that the way I was feeling was all in my head, and all I needed to do was pull myself together and get back into the swing of things. Well that's what I did.....5 months into the year I convinced myself that I was ready to go back..albeit on reduced hours. I knew it wouldn't be all plain sailing..I expected that. What I didn't expect was to be on the verge of collapse after only 2 days. That was the last time I worked......and it was then that my GP diagnosed PVFS. Since that time I have not been able to work, and last May (2006) my employers terminated my contract.