Category Archives: Emotions

Nov 01 2012
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Emotions

Cast Adrift

This is not shaping up to be the best week. I called the office for some feedback for the work I had done from home and had emailed over to them. The telephone call lasted 53 seconds. Great.

I have two months grace from being dismissed from my job for having MS. I still need to be able to contact the office. I hate working from home. I liked getting up in the morning, having my coffee, getting ready for work. Leaving the house.

I have been cast adrift and I am not enjoying it. Routine has disappeared. Coffees, once gulped down at the same time as doing my mascara, now take far longer. I sit in my dressing gown watching the news. 8.30am passes me by, the time I would normally be in the office.

I am sinking into lethargy. I am stressed. All my MS symptoms are coming back. My feet buzz and tingle incessantly, my left arm doesn’t work properly and I am unbalanced on my feet. I just want to go back to bed and pull the duvet over my head. I drove past my old workplace today. and I was so close to stopping the car, pressing the buzzer and yelling at them. How can they treat me like this? Why are they doing this to me?

In desperation, I went to my sister’s kiddy Hallowe’en party, just to get out the house. It was great to be surrounded by miniature Frankensteins, witches and Harry Potter’s. There was nothing else on their minds except grabbing the largest slice of pizza or getting the highest score on the Wii.

I need to get back into the swing of things. I need to maintain a routine. I don’t want to sink, but a big part of me thinks it would be far easier to give into it.

So, if you’re passing, knock my door and take me out. Anywhere, just out.

 

 

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Oct 31 2012
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Emotions

Just Hook Me Up

I am living on coffee and stress so why am I putting on weight? I want to be one of these people who sheds pounds when they’re dashing around like a demented chicken, pumped up with stress and an unfair dismissal.

My mind is racing, but it seems my body isn’t. It’s just over a week since I was sacked for having MS. There is too much to do, apart from the everyday routine, the Christmas planning, the taxi service for The Teenager. Throw in all the ubiquitous health appointments, blood tests, a newly-diagnosed day and a fatigue management course and I’m up against it.

So the thought of launching a legal case is filling me with fear, and coffee. I (think) I am a nice person. I don’t like fighting. At school, I gave my lunch money to the bullies without a word. But this scenario, the one I am facing right now, is out of my league.

The bullying in work was horrendous enough. A year of loathing myself for not standing up to them, whilst battling to come to terms with my diagnosis and what it means for my future. Perhaps there is a tipping point. By dismissing me on the spot, expecting me to clear my desk and leave straight away has made me angry. I would hate myself more for walking away.

What have I got to lose? I have had incredible support. My healthcare professionals have risen up in outrage and anger, my friends have rallied round and my forum buddies have carried me along on a wave of advice and soothing words. One of them pointed out that I would only ever have to do this once. Excellent point.

I have to do this.

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Oct 29 2012
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Emotions

A Friend Comes to the Rescue

The Teenager was away for the weekend and after the week I had just been through, I would have been quite happy to have locked my front door, closed the curtains and set up a standing order with Domino’s.

One of my good friends had different ideas though. He scooped me up on Friday night and delivered me back on Sunday afternoon, rested, all talked out and ready to take on a fresh week. On Friday, he had booked tickets for a live comedy show. We turned up, got settled with wine to break my catatonia and waited for the crowd in the bar to pick up. It didn’t. We checked. There were over a hundred seats in the venue and only 29 tickets sold.

I just couldn’t watch a comedian die on stage, so we decided to go drinking instead. Excellent plan. On Saturday he bundled me into his car and took me back to his place where I lay sprawled on the sofa all evening, watching ‘One Day’ again and putting away chocolate at an alarming rate. Finally, on Sunday, he booked us in to see ‘Skyfall’ in the Gallery at the local Odeon, where we scoffed tortilla chips, Quality Street and popcorn before we even sat down to watch the film. Nothing like a Bond film to put things in perspective.

Friends are great, aren’t they? He listened while I ranted and raved and swore far too much. He calmly put some excellent points forward and gave me an A3 pad so I could write down everything that had happened, in proper, chronological order. So the weekend ended on a high. I kind of know where I am now, compared to the mess I was in on Friday. I don’t feel so alone.

As an added bonus, I don’t have to go to The Office of Doom any more, so I didn’t have that awful Sunday night feeling. Every cloud…

 

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Oct 23 2012
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Emotions

Pity Party for One

I had a pity party for one last night, so no proper post today and really don’t want to depress you all! With the The Smiths and The Cure playing in the background, I felt well and truly sorry for myself, but sometimes you just have to I guess. And the voodoo dolls I made really helped.

Normal service will resume tomorrow, I promise, and I will keep you all updated about work (or lack of it).

I’d really like to thank everyone for their lovely, encouraging comments, on here and on Shift-ms. It’s made a huge difference, knowing I’m not alone in this horrendous situation. You’ve all been amazing. See you tomorrow! X

 

 

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Oct 20 2012
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Emotions

My dad, his MS

My dad died in the 1970’s, aged 35, from complications arising from multiple sclerosis. I was four and a half. I don’t think I remember him, as I find it difficult to distinguish real memories from what I have been told.

Over the years, of course I missed my dad, but was it hard to miss what I had never had in my life? I pieced together his MS progression, picking up hints here and there. Back in the 1970’s, MS was often referred to as ‘creeping paralysis’ and was a deadly diagnosis. MRI scans were not actively used until at least the 1980’s, there were no disease modifying drugs and people like my dad were routinely written off and sent home to cope as best they could with what little they had.

I recently heard that my mum had invested her meagre savings into buying a serum from the Eastern-bloc, which would apparently halt, then reverse my dad’s symptoms. She paid a dubious middle man and her money, and the serum,  were never seen again.

Now I have MS, confirmed through two MRI’s, showing the progression of my illness in devastating detail. I have my pick of drugs. I have a whole MS team behind me and have been assigned a neurologist and MS nurse. There is physiotherapy, yoga, counselling and an incontinence nurse if I need her plus a whole raft of support groups and forums. Do I feel lucky?

Yes, of course I do. I was fortunate enough to be born into an era of medical expansion and discovery. Hopefully we will have a cure for MS within a decade. Whilst I was going through the diagnostic process – a tedious, frustrating, point-ticking process – I put a photo of my dad on my kitchen windowsill so I could see him every morning. ‘Thanks, dad’, I would say as I put the radio on. Of all the things you could leave me with, you had to pass on this. Cracking legacy. I was angry, furious.

In a strange way though, having MS made me feel much closer to my dad. With every new symptom – and there were many – I would align myself with him. Did he have this, did he have that? I felt as if we could have been kindred spirits. I may have his eyes, his mannerisms, his fearlessness, but that is only what I hear, what I have been told by other people. Now, I have something I know he experienced.

Is that odd? I hope that I can take every opportunity going, as my dad did not have the chance, or lifespan, to do so. If I can somehow honour his memory in this way, then I will do everything I can to do just that.

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