Carpe Diem. Or is it ‘strike while the iron is hot?'

Only just recovering from Tara's shock hospitalisation, I barely had a few days to regain my composure. Tara was on a very strictly monitored diet and had to have routine scans to make sure she suffered no internal damage. It was tense times, but I was Tara’s Warrior Mum all over again. Tara was also incredibly obedient and probably scared to death by her experience. Suddenly I had to be cooking a lot more and be more creative as well, to be able to produce the diet required by Tara's doctor. With two poorly functioning painful shoulders.

I saw a doctor in November 2019 to seek relief for my shoulder pain. He said I was depressed and needed anti depressants which he would be happy to prescribe. I was crying in his office because I was in acute long term pain, and I mistakenly thought I had a safe space to share my pain. As soon as tears rolled down my face, he labelled me depressed.  I left his office in disgust, but not before telling the receptionist what I thought. 

December 2019 went downhill as I was very unwell with a strange illness. But as the year was plummeting, something inside me was saying, It’s time, Seize the day! When I called the doctor’s office for an appointment in December, the receptionist booked me in to see this new lady doctor who took genuine interest in my suffering and went about systematically ordering blood tests and scans. She helped me, as I recovered from whatever nasty bug I had, and then went on to discuss my frozen shoulder with me on a very human level. 

Both my shoulders were not as bad as before, but the left side had flared up again. The doctor felt that a cortisone injection was the best way forward. I agreed immediately and in early 2020 went to the hospital and got one injection on my left bicep. I was a bit confused about the location of the shot as the main area of pain was the top of the shoulder. Still, they could stick me with injections anywhere and I would be grateful. The pain of the dreaded cortisone shot was nothing. 

The doctor administering the cortisone had a very hysterical and anxious trainee with her, who I suspect made the doctor a bit uncomfortable too. I on the other hand, was so battered by my life in general, that a hysterical side kick was mildly entertaining and did nothing to upset my mental balance. I lay there calmly while the doctor explained she would inject only one area today. The trainee was writhing in what seemed to be extreme anxiety,

The second injection was to be scheduled if I responded well to the first. As luck might have it, I responded very well to the first injection, and was almost eagerly looking forward to my second one which was more complicated as it had to be injected into the shoulder cavity via ultrasound guidance in an operation theatre. But Luck wasn’t done yet. The pandemic and lockdown started in March 2020. The cortisone shot would have to wait for another whole year.

I made gains that year. With some loss of pain, came great clarity of thought.  Covid19 came, and with it came opportunity. Carpe Diem had a new friend called Strike-while-the- iron- is-hot. I did. 

All workplaces and Schools were on lockdown. The Home was my domain. Over the next few months, The Husband and Tara were officially residents in my domain 24X7. Which way would this go? I was a wounded lioness with a renewed sense of power and self, zero hopes and expectations from anyone, and one cortisone shot. Let the games begin.

Am I imagining this?

It was November 2018 when life as I knew ended. The last one year saw me become the living dead. I approached The Husband one last time and said, if he wants to talk, with or without a counseller, if he wants to make a start at some resolution to our situation, if he was willing to come clean and deal with whatever it was this is. If he loved Tara and much as I did, now was the time to sort things out.

He put on his headphones and walked away. That was last year. I waited for either or both of them to come to me that whole, never-ending year

I have cried every night of the last one year. I have infected sinuses to show for it. When neither The Husband nor Tara came to me, I made up my mind. I will survive this. I will give myself one year to grieve over what I lost, I will pick myself up, learn something new and unlikely as it felt, I will be happy again-with or without anyone. Loving Tara is a biological fact. I will not expect it back, but I will be there for her till she stands on her own feet and leaves home. After that I will travel my own road. Enough.

I made it clear to The Husband that if this is how he wanted it, so be it. From now on, I will take care of Tara’s every need, and do all the work I did for the house but that was about it. I would do nothing else. No more holidays, no more going out and after one particularly humiliating day when he threw out food before I had eaten, I made a vow not to eat or use anything he bought again. Made no difference to them, they were okay with it. If he went out he would have to take Tara. Im not available for all these things I had previously acommodated.

November 2019 arrived, and it did so in a hugely dramatic fashion. Tara and The Husband were carrying on with their respective lives, while I waited for November 2019 as a date of closure and new beginnings. November 8th Tara was rushed to A&E, and what followed is a nightmare of epic proportions..the tail end of which is still ongoing, though mercifully the worst is behind us.

Every resolution of moving on, carrying on, new beginnings evaporated in one second while I was Tara’s warrior Mummy all over again. Nothing mattered as she shivered and convulsed in pain, shunning her father and clinging to me while I half-carried, half-dragged her into the hospital, trying to ignore the agonising pain in my shoulders being weighed down by Tara. Nothing was relevant as I held her hand in the Acute Assessment Unit. I looked in her eyes and said, don’t worry..Mummy’s got you. It will be fine. A few days later when I brought her home and tucked her in bed, I broke down in tears at the foot of my bed. I reached out to The Husband, I looked deep into his eyes and said, I can’t bear this anymore. You’ve got to step up. You’ve got to do something. He just stood there, looked at me and walked away.

I am a proud person. I had backed off just as Tara and The Husband had wanted all of last year. November 2019 was supposed to be a milestone in my recovery. I had never backed down to anyone in the face of injustice or when it came to my dignity. In a second I surrendered it all for Tara - pride, self respect, ego-everything. I looked after her 24 hours a day for the last month or so. I hugged and cuddled her every night. Like I didn’t have time. Like I wouldn’t have tomorrow. It didnt matter whether she approached me, apologised or not, I was her Warrior Mummy. My job is to love and protect her no matter what. The Husband uses Tara like a shield that he knows I will never attack. I got that.

In the last one year after separating me from my Tara, I expected that he would love her and look after her just like I did…and hoped he could be better at it than I. I was wrong. He spiralled into an vortex of selfishness and I watched utterly devastated as Tara was neglected. They both chose to live like that, rather than approach me to work out a way forward. I must have been a nasty piece of work, but I still couldn’t see how…or why.

Fast forward to today. After sorting Tara out, finishing dinner, I sat down to watch the news with a cup of coffee. The Husband knocks on the door. The first time in the last year. He says-The new Star Wars movie is out and I really want to see it. Can I go? I blinked a few times and recovered quickly enough to say he didn't need my permission, he and Tara could go wherever they wanted. He mumbled that Tara wouldn't want to see this movie. I was stunned. After one year what made him approach me was not a desire to resolve this seriously dysfunctional life, but a movie he wanted to see so badly, and he wanted me to look after her.

Did I just imagine this? I got up and quietly walked out of the room and started typing this. I will come back tomorrow and check if it was real or one of those absurd dreams.

Be Strong !

What if being strong is not so much a character trait, but a survival instinct?

What if being strong is not an option?

What if you’re tired of being strong?

Whenever someone tells me, “You’re the strongest person I know…,” there is an instant reflex action to stop sharing what I was saying. It’s as if vulnerability should not be demonstrated, or that being strong disallows a person a comforting hug or a 'soft place' to fall on.

I’m going to practice not saying “you’re the strongest person I know” to another person who has given me the privilege of listening to their difficulties. There must be a reason a “strong” person is letting their guard down and talking to you. Does it make them less strong? Absolutely not. A “strong" person is as human as anyone else. It is dehumanising to block them, even if our intention is to be supportive.

Frozen Shoulder - Part 2

 I researched a lot of places to find out the cause of the Frozen Shoulder. There is no scientific reason that is conclusive. It's just one of those things. For something so excruciating, it is astonishing that so little is known.

A friend told me cynically that Frozen Shoulder is experienced more by women than men, so there is less funding for finding out more about the condition. Among all the cancers, she predicts, prostate cancer will be the first to have a breakthrough treatment, because it is a man’s disease. 

What we do know about Frozen shoulder is that usually :

More women get it than men

There may be a genetic component, i.e. it runs in the family

It is very rare to get it twice

It is also very rare to get it in both shoulders.

So with that knowledge I was navigating my life, keeping my eye out for a ray of hope as my left shoulder started improving. Then I woke up a few days later, with a twinge on my right shoulder. No way, i thought. Surely not.

I went sliding downhill rapidly after that. The Right shoulder was officially frozen. Hell was back and I have to once again figure out what I was going to do for the next few years. 

Living with anxiety

Spare a moment and ponder over this. Imagine you live your life every single day, with the same levels of anxiety you feel perched on the edge, ready for a bungee jump; or at the doorway of a plane,  several feet up in the air ready to tumble out for a sky dive.

Now imagine doing nothing like that, but feeling all those emotions when you wake up and remember, that after school you have to take your child for their weekly swimming lesson in the local gym - five minutes away.

Keep imagining feeling like that every morning before the school run, every afternoon after the school run, going to the corner shop to pick up some milk, picking up the phone to make/cancel a routine appointment, going unexpectedly to the library or a shop.

How exhausting to go through life feeling like that - and keep up appearances for your family, co-workers and the world in general.

Is it any wonder that so many people opt for numbing medication fully aware of the risks and side effects, because they cannot deal with life any other way? The only feeling directed at anxious people should be compassion and affection. At the risk of simplifying things, I will say that personally, it works better than anything else.

I go through life, with no medication. I am functional, and very “normal”. Ever since I was little, I tried to handle everything my life threw at me, and managed (a very debatable) reasonable life. What made this management possible was having someone with me. Family, friends, anyone loving and friendly, an arm around me, a warm hug, all made this anxiety temporarily subside. Today I have none of that support. So I struggle along. But I'm still saying no to medication. I don’t want to be numb, especially when I know that my anxiety can be disarmed when I have some support.

Today I have no support, so my options are :

Carry on
Take medication
Try and find some support

I ruled out option 2
I would love option 3
But option 1 is where I’m currently at