June 30, 2008 at 4:09 pm (PGP, SPD, rant)
Tags: benefits, bus pass, depression, disability living allowance, dla, dsp, DSP injection, DSP treatment, free bus pass, hospital, hospital tagged analgesics, hronic pain, meds, midwives, national health service, new medication, nhs, orthopaedic, orthopaedic surgeon, painkillers, pelvic girdle pain, pelvic pain relief, pelvic surgery, PGP, PGP injection, PGP treatment, physio, physiotherapy, pnd, post natal depression, post traumatic stress disorder, postnatal depression, ptsd, rant, referal, sacroiliac pain, SPD, SPD injection, SPD treatment, symphysis pubis dysfunction
Finally, some good news! Actually, not just good, but live-alteringly wonderful! I have fulfilled the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) criteria and will be awarded higher care and higher mobility awards! It’ll be paid every 4 weeks and will be backdated to the 8th May! This means a big lump sum at the beginning! It also means I’m eligible for a free bus travel pass from the lovely Welsh Assembley Government and I have telephoned asking for a form to that end.
I’m just blown away. I didn’t know I’d qualify for higher rates of both care and mobility, but I really feel that my condition has been validated by the fact that I’ll be receiving those. Does that sound stupid? I really expected to have to fight more as most people have no idea about the traumas of having a painful Symphysis Pubis and the strain that it brings to your daily life and relationships. Now, when old people verbally abuse me on buses for sitting on the “save for disabled people and those with children” seats (yes, even though I have Michael, Henry and the pushchair with me) I will be able to whip out my bus pass and explain that I am disabled! Instead of having to weakly explain about my pains and subsequent painkillers.
In other news, new painkillers are making me sleep more hours of the day than I am awake – it might sound like a life to be in awe of but believe me when I tell you that simply is not the case. I hate every moment of Henry’s life that I miss, I hate my time without Michael and I HATE that Michael has to do EVERYTHING. I’m surprised he hasn’t collapsed into a heap and refused to move ever again.
Or worse, walked away.
In fact, he’s finally managing to get some sleep as the good news has buoyed my excitement levels to a level above “blah” and I don’t think I’ll accidentally fall asleep and wake up in agony to find Henry jumping on my pelvis. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely ruling it out as an option of things to come, I’m merely hoping that it won’t happen today. Or in the next hour, at least!
Off to the GP I go when I get my bus form, and also then I will ask for a letter to be sent to my consultant as I’ve still not had an appointment letter through since my MRI scan and injections nearly 6 weeks ago in May!
I’m on the Occupational Therapy waiting list, awaiting a letter to see how many months wait I am likely to have; the lovely woman I spoke to said the current list is 5 months, but it’s based on how much you need the help to a certain extent so she might be able to slot me in sooner as I’m struggling so much.
Henry is a menace to sofas from here to Babylon as he can now climb up them. There truly is no stopping our little intrepid explorer; I think I must have been much like him at the same age. In most ways, it’s wonderful to see him so full of life and movement, but in others I just want to cry for all that he reminds me of myself and how I wish I still was. Only with ever so slightly less drool. And more hair. And less of a delight with plugs and sockets….
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June 15, 2008 at 6:09 pm (PGP, SPD, rant)
Tags: depression, dsp, DSP injection, DSP treatment, hospital, hospital tagged analgesics, hronic pain, meds, midwives, national health service, new medication, nhs, orthopaedic, orthopaedic surgeon, painkillers, pelvic girdle pain, pelvic pain relief, pelvic surgery, PGP, PGP injection, PGP treatment, physio, physiotherapy, pnd, post natal depression, post traumatic stress disorder, postnatal depression, ptsd, rant, referal, sacroiliac pain, SPD, SPD injection, SPD treatment, symphysis pubis dysfunction
Am starting to think that my previous idea of “just over doing things” this week was horribly mistaken. This will be short as my fingers aren’t working very well, let alone my wrists and hands in general.
Other than my normal pain, I am …intrigued… to report that I woke up yesterday, stood up and realised something had gone horribly wrong. Throughout the course of the day I got worse and ended up just a heap.
What’s wrong? My muscles appear to have stopped working.
The tops of my feet, my shins, the back of my thighs, my wrists and forearms, my upper arms, my neck and head all ache. I can’t lift my arms above my head. I can barely get to the loo as my feet and shins hurt so much when I put weight on them.
Not really sure what’s going on. When I woke up on Friday with throat feeling a bit iffy and legs aching a bit I thought it was because I’d been out two days in a row. But now that it’s Sunday and I’m no better, I fear something else may be wrong.
To the doctors I shall attempt to hobble tomorrow. I don’t really know yet how I’m going to get down the stairs as my hands don’t work well enough to grip a banister and my legs aren’t loving my weight… but still, maybe there will be some sort of miracle. It’s freakishly difficult to get a GP to come out of the cheerful confines of the surgery, so I doubt I’ll manage that.
Wish me luck.
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June 14, 2008 at 11:49 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Dad, Daddy, Father, Father's Day, Happy Father's Day, mahalo ukulele, ukulele, yellow ukulele
Happy Father’s Day to everyone that it concerns tomorrow! Michael’s present arrived today and Henry and I were nice enough to let him open it – he does seem thrilled with it, which is always nice! For those wondering why buy such a tiny guitar for a full-sized man – be confused no more! It’s a ukulele! This is the most wonderful photo I could find of the colour that I bought him, if you ignore the exotic fruits in the middle, you should get the idea!
You can find a lovely picture of Michael and Henry here if you type 5289 into the “Unique ID number” box. Go on – vote for my beautiful boys and maybe we’ll win a Tesco voucher! Even if we don’t – I just like the idea of people seeing my lovely boys and voting happily for them!
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June 13, 2008 at 7:16 pm (PGP, SPD, rant)
Tags: depression, dsp, DSP injection, DSP treatment, hospital, hospital tagged analgesics, hronic pain, meds, midwives, national health service, new medication, nhs, orthopaedic, orthopaedic surgeon, painkillers, pelvic girdle pain, pelvic pain relief, pelvic surgery, PGP, PGP injection, PGP treatment, physio, physiotherapy, pnd, post natal depression, post traumatic stress disorder, postnatal depression, ptsd, rant, referal, sacroiliac pain, SPD, SPD injection, SPD treatment, symphysis pubis dysfunction
What a couple of weeks these have been.
My recovery from the Symphysis Pubis injections was not quick. What a hell of a lot of pain with, so far, no good effects (like… say… pain relief!). Still, at least I tried, eh? I spent nearly two weeks in the kind of agony I had hoped was confined only to childbirth and crazy things like falling down stairs whilst having SPD. That fortnight proved to me how very wrong I was.
Mum’s visit was wonderful, though I was knackered and in mucho grande pain and we were all suffering from colds: things went speedily downhill from then on. Henry developed horrific nappy rash in the space of a weekend – on Monday I had to queue at the GP surgery and eventually got some Timodine which took until Wednesday to show any kind of effect but then worked wonders! Henry normally has the kind of nappy rash that clears up after one liberal smearing of Sudocrem so this whole experience was quite a shock.
Amidst this whir of lip-biting pain for both myself and my poor baby son, I found a Facebook group for SPD Sufferers to join. It seems to have some useful links to press coverage of SPD, worth keeping an eye on just for that!
Other than checking Facebook to see what’s going on in the world that I’m imprisoned from, I’ve not been online a lot as I keep failing to get my poor eyes re-tested. It has been a few years since my last eye examination and my eyes ache every moment even though I’m so tired nowadays I am always wearing my glasses so really I should make it a priority to get things sorted out. One can only carry on so long with Firefox giving a rather enormous text size!
Right: the pertinent news. My most recent letter from the DLA folks was on Saturday, I believe, asking me to confirm the Jobcentre I received the initial DLA form from and the date that I requested that form. I sent the form back with the relevant information on Monday and have heard nothing since. I am hoping that they were collecting this information to backdate my payments from but I daren’t get those hopes raised too high as I’m already in a fragile enough state of mind. I don’t really see that I can cope with many more disappointments.
My current state of agony is pretty self-inflicted. I quite simply have done too much this week. Going out more than once takes its toll mightily. But on the plus side, Michael is a happy man and Henry has had lots of fresh air and sunshine with people who love him. I think that a quiet weekend is called for. Michael’s Father’s Day gift is sorted and should be arriving any time in the next couple of days. Me and Henry both spent a lot of time choosing it so we hope that it is appreciated!
I hope those reading this are in a better place, pain-wise, than me!
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