I am in severe pain while eating from my left side. I can’t eat, sleep or speak properly now.
The dentist checked me and said my teeth were in good condition, but I need to go for a CBCT scan and see an Oral Surgeon ! My wisdom tooth, or other teeth might be pressing down on a major nerve.
The earliest I can see someone is in 2 weeks. Heaven help me.
What is going on???
I got a GH joint fluoro-guided cortisone injection in my shoulder. It was so painful that I was sobbing in the operation theatre and for a good hour afterwards when the nurse was pulling at my arm to get me into my clothes. I am a crier when I see kindness, love, happy weddings and when I’m relieved a bad thing is over. But I am not a crier during injury or medical procedures. So when I say it was painful. It was.
Would I do it again? Hell yes! One month on, my frozen shoulder is pain free when not pushing out of the frozen boundaries. Yes, I have limited range of motion, but it’s not in the incessant agony it was in before the injection.
I’ve had frozen shoulder before. 5 years ago on my left shoulder. This time it’s on my right side and I’m doing it differently.
What I did in 2018:
Went in for physio first..lots of it. My frozen shoulder started with a minor pain, escalated to severe pain, went into the freezing stage but still had pain, three years later the freezing subsided but the niggling pain went on. In 2021, I went for the GH joint fluoro-guided injection from the back of the shoulder. Within a month I was fine. Somewhere towards 2020, the minor niggle on my right shoulder had begun, maybe some freezing had set in and it resolved to acceptable levels over time.
Then in early 2023 I remember throwing a towel over my head, up to The Husband at the top of the steps. I remember a short, scary twinge and it all started. Around May - June 2023 the pain was noticeable and annoying. I remember being on a plane in August 2023 and struggling to use my right arm with the over head locker. The agony started around September 2023 and was full blown in October 2023. I finally fainted with the pain on two occasions, falling on furniture and injuring myself with bruises. I remembered the futility of the early physio the previous time, so went in for the injection in December 2023.
It was the best decision I made, at least in terms of my sanity and the freedom from the pain. I am doing only one or two very simple exercises whenever I remember : finger walking up the wall and pendulum stretch. My arm is still frozen but the range has improved. Anytime I do a bit beyond my capacity it starts with the ominous ache again, but icing and paracetamol along with complete rest sorts it out in a day or so.
I am not able to do everything I used to. At peak pain level in October 2023 I was also struck down by a viral infection. Lying down in a crumpled pile with pain and illness I realised that neither The Husband nor Tara checked on me, came to sit by me to talk or dare I say made a little bit of bit of fuss over me. Isn’t that what a loving family is supposed to do? I was alone and didn’t even get offered one cup of tea. In that condition, something broke inside me. I still can’t put a finger on it, but I think something was gone. Of course when I mentioned this to my sister, she instantly said, I should have asked if I wanted anything. I regret saying anything to her.
Whenever Tara was unwell, be it a pesky bug, a scraped knee, a stomach pain I was making meal plans, sitting by her, giving her a hug and lots of kisses, googling all night to find something to ease her discomfort. When it was something more serious, I battled the entire hospital, the Husband and the GPs to not dismiss Tara and to treat her. It turned out she had sepsis setting in on one occasion and a blocked bowel on another. I remember literally carrying her on my frozen shoulder to seek help at the Emergency department and refusing to back off till someone helped her. I have apology letters from the hospital to prove I didn’t over react. I understand that any Mum…any loving parent would have done what I did, she didn’t have to ask.
Then when I was sinking after covid with a heart rate in the 200s, disoriented and gasping, why was The Husband barking at my face? When I was doing all the housework and cooking and driving with my frozen shoulder how come no one offered to help? Did I need to ask? Can no one see me?
Now Tara doesn’t even talk to me other than asking for dinner or telling me the time to drop her off at school. Her communication to me is now via The Husband. What happened? Deer in the headlights is how I feel. I did ask her directly, has anything happened? She just stared blankly, not a word from her lips. The last 16 years Tara was my job, my first thought in the morning, my last thought at night. I am genuinely without a job or purpose, and it happened suddenly. It wasn’t the organic drift of a teenage child. It was sudden. No explanation.
The only coherent thing I got from The Husband when I made a millionth attempt to talk to him about Tara was - Don’t blame me. I didn’t prevent anything but I didn’t do anything . That was enough for me. It was true. He had never done anything. Literally nothing, and he didn’t prevent anything either. When in 2018 after a heated discussion he told me to back off and that he would manage Tara. Since then his idea of management was to do absolutely nothing. Tara’s bedtime fell away, she’s still up after midnight. Her eating habits are out of control it’s either McDonald’s or shop bought microwave meals. He won’t cook. She’s unfailingly late for everything, time has no value, her mobile phone is in her room all night etc. Zero structure, but The Husband is now the popular parent.
Whatever this abandonment from Tara is, whatever this shift in my heart and mind is, I hope that I am led to my purpose. They say that when your heart and mind don’t agree, you should just wait. When they align, the answers will come.
I’m waiting.
What have I gone and done?
I've just booked 2 nights in a hotel down the road from my house, for my birthday.
By myself.
I just need to find the courage to actually do it.
I’m terrified .
But the moment I pressed “Book now”, a lot of the grief I'd felt over the last few days seeped away.
I feel I need to make a list…
What’s happening?
I have a booked appointment tomorrow at a private hospital for my shoulder. I was told in advance that I can’t drive or lift any weights after this for a couple of days. It wasn’t a surprise appointment. The Husband knew about it and so did Tara. Yet just yesterday it seemed that my treatment got in the way of Tara’s life.
She mumbled yesterday, “If you WON'T take me to school what should I do? I’ll just walk.” This from a 16 year old girl who has firmly resisted doing anything around the house and who hasn’t even gone down to the local shops to buy a toothpick! Not for lack of effort on my part. I was determined that during the summer holidays I would like her to learn how to take the bus, go to the local shops and maybe start by tidying her room. Given the events of 2018, I told The Husband to get it sorted . Nothing happened.
So I told her that her father would sort it out as I would be resting after my shoulder procedure. She said she’d spoken to him and he said he couldn’t take her as he starts early. It’s as if I had the spotlight for a day, even if was in unpleasant circumstances, and these two can’t handle it.
I can’t deal with the drama so I will just cancel my appointment. The agony of my shoulder at least reminds me that I'm human. Otherwise the constant dehumanisation that Ive experienced in my life with people who are supposed to love me should have pushed me over the edge already. Yet here I am, typing away in my blog that no one sees. Why do I do it? I don’t know. Maybe I'm placing on record a first hand account of my life, that is not edited or controlled by others agenda or narrative. Maybe I need a place to disgorge my reality when what is presented outside to others has been hijacked by people cleverer than me who have solidly entrenched a completely false version of my life with such expertise, that even if I open my mouth to say something, I am shut down as a "neurotic, psychotic fantasist” (my sister’s words when I made a feeble attempt at reaching out to her) even before the words leave my lips.
I am played very well by very clever people. I am that person who gets regularly shot by others, with the bullet lodged firmly in my heart, yet somehow am always found with the gun in my hands and no clue how it got there as I bleed away. Duh !
2023 has been one of the worst years of recent times.
It started with the exhaustion of a full blown covid recovery. This time it was the full 10 days of text book symptoms and thankfully no repeat of the long covid.
In January came the news of my father’s blocked arteries and the next few months of terror as he went from one course of treatment to the next. My sister was with him from January shuttling between his treatments and her own home where her son was facing his A level exams, and her in-laws were facing their own failing health with the help of my brother in law.
Several scans and a failed attempt at inserting stents in my father’s heart , was followed by a new crisis of severe internal bleeding . It all culminated in open heart bypass surgery in April or May. My sister returned in June to deal with the chaos at her in-laws place. I promised to go to my father to help him get back on his feet as soon as Tara's GCSEs were done.
As my sister was helping her husband look after his parents, they had a series of bombshells in the way of her father in law having a heart operation, followed by a deadly diagnosis of mouth cancer. This was followed by dismal A level results for my nephew and the ultimate shock of a breast cancer diagnosis for my sister. She had a mastectomy a few weeks ago and we are hopeful that she got rid of the cancer.
It continued with a month long viral illness for The Husband, Tara and I, and my new frozen right shoulder. We remain estranged but functional and I still feel unloved and alone. I made another plea to Tara to communicate with me and attempt to fix things but she’s not interested. I spoke to The Husband that he was wrong in allowing this to go on, but he walked away. They are a team. There are no meals eaten together, no bedtime, no control of mobile phone usage. More importantly, there is no conversation, no hugs, no shared plans of dreams. Just an awkward , quiet co-existence and the deafening shattering of my breaking heart that no one can hear.
I am fundamentally a tutor, driver, cook, cleaner, and do-er of all jobs who is also fundamentally unloveable. Years ago I was forced out of my parents home after resisting attempts of an arranged marriage since my late teens. Mind you, we were not raised to be self sufficient or independent. Quite the opposite. We were raised with clipped wings, with no teaching of life skills or how to deal with the outside world. Never allowed to go out or meet people unless it was with the family, nor allowed on public transport. I still get bewildered and panic using public transport. For the first few years, our very large family home was all I saw. Within those walls there was physical and mental abuse, and somehow the thought process that if I raised my voice it would be bad for my parents. I grew up with a very firm belief that I had to protect my parents, never the other way round. I don’t remember ever asking for anything.
As I got older, I rebelled and got educated, was a national level sportsperson and started a promising corporate career. All the while tip-tying around really scary people, operating within an atmosphere of terror and working with the invariable psychological damage over my formative years that presented itself with a multitude of fears and phobias. I was also oddly a very affectionate and eager to please child.
I had (and still have) tremendous anxiety going outside alone, socialising, taking public transport alone, meeting people, trying to relax outside the home and a few more. But you would never know it! My own idea of therapy was to tuck all these under my belt and embark on the most people centric career there was. I was the top communicator, presenter and people’s person throughout my college and work life. No one knew the underlying terror and pain I experienced then, and still experience while being absolutely brilliant at what I did. (I have certificates and prizes to prove it!)
The one curious thing however was that I was totally relaxed and happy when I worked with other people-whether with one person or a group. It was as if just having one other person with me brought out the best in me, but took away the fear.
But it counted for nothing. Now labelled the disobedient one who caused nothing but sadness and stress to the family, I was constantly pressured to get married to a stranger, The Husband appeared gallantly and took me off their hands. He was my close friend and when I was with him, I felt safe and happy, and spoke to him about all my fears, my weaknesses and my life in general. We enjoyed meeting friends and just hanging out after I finished work. It changed overnight when we got married. He left me alone to get on with everything, from the littlest to the biggest aspects of life, I was alone and back to my constant fear. I never understood it and he never explained.
I think all predators can smell an injured animal. From the frying pan into the fire I went. Years later, I thought devoting myself to Tara and making sure she was happy, educated and free would be my purpose, but after the events of 2018 I understood that no matter what I do, if my Tara could reject me, I must be fundamentally unloveable.
Once she’s on her feet and off to university, I will attempt to rebuild my life, go back to work, whether voluntary or paid. I want to immerse myself in service, while full aware that I am unloveable and will never expect it from anyone.
Strange then for someone as unloveable as I to the humans I try to please, all the neighbourhood dogs strain at their leads as they trip their owners over to cuddle up to me with pure love in their smiling eyes.
