She’s cooking on gas this week.

It seems like forever that Karen has been really low (probably only 3 weeks). But, we turned the corner this week.

On Sunday (24th) night, Karen was really low again and couldn’t find any good in life. It was time to move up a notch on my part. We had asked the neuropsychologist (np) to come last week, but she hadn’t even phoned. We couldn’t afford another week like that.

So, first thing Monday morning, I rang her again
………….Answering Machine……………

I left a short message nearly begging for her help. I have no doubt that she would be able to hear desperation in my voice. That same night, she came to see Karen at 5pm. She was still there when I got back at 6.30pm. There had been lots of tears and lots of talking, but Karen felt “something had clicked”. Music to my ears. Whilst I was there the np explained to me how me going back to work had affected Karen and how she felt trapped at times etc etc……She obviously went through a lot more than this, but my memory is awful and I can’t remember what she said.

While I remember, Karen has been trying to explain her bad memory to me. She can’t remember as much as she used to be able to. When I hear this, I simply tell her that “my memory is sh1te”, but this really annoy Karen as she can tell her memory and other mental functions aren’t as good as they were pre-accident.

Back to the NP session, the important thing was that she had gone through things in such a way that Karen felt better. The other thing that came up was Karen’s sleep talking. This came out just “in passing”, but turns out to be quite important. Since Karen came home from hospital, she has been talking a great deal in her sleep. She also moves her hands a lot whilst asleep, i.e. scratching her head, holding her other hand etc…The conversations she has are quite lengthy and quite strange. I am so used to them now, I try and make a mental note about what the conversation was about and then fall back to sleep. By the morning, I have invariably forgotten the subject matter. I do remember last night’s one vividly. It was a single word, shouted out. It was either…..

kp:- “Bitch !”

or

kp:- “Fetch !”

Anyway, the NP is referring Karen to a sleep clinic in Middlesbrough so this can be looked into in more detail. She may have to spend the night there. Watch this space.

After the NP left, we had a good talk and were both very relieved that a corner had been turned.

The next day I emailed Pip (on Karen’s behest) to find out what magic she had done to get Karen to turn that corner…..Here is her reply…..It took me a few attempts to grasp….

“….All I did in the meeting with Karen was to contextualise the change in her perception about the problem, comparing her perceptions before she took on this information with after. I did this taking some of the physical elements of her condition as an example – walking/vision and arm movement. When looked at on balance her ‘real’ underlying feelings about possible recovery were not all that different before and after. Infact, because of the possibility of occlusion of one eye to prevent double vision – she actually thinks things could improve on balance a little more than she had expected.

The other general area we discussed, I think when you came into the room was the tendancy she has to think in black and white and the fears she had about the effect of her illness/your return to work on your relationship. This was resulting in a tendancy for her to withdraw into a shell and not talk properly to you and increasingly build up a sense of isolation/loss and concerns that you might overwork yourself – but at the same time really wanting to be independent and manage without you needing to be around all the time. – As you get back on with your normal life she feels that she is becoming an onlooker, rather than really living as she used to (perhaps the reason for the ‘dead inside’ feeling).

I think these were the key elements I remember. If you give this to Karen this may be sufficient to jog her memory so that she can think whether it was this or something else that helped her.”

The following days saw further improvement as Karen reverted back to her old self again.

Wednesday was physio. Karen went by herself as Marie was on holiday. She struggled with her bra again, and asked the dog walker (another Marie) to put it on. I think Marie was quite shocked at the request but she helped her anyway. Karen isn’t phased at all by other women putting her bra on. Probably as a result of the long hospital stay. The physio went well, although the following few days saw Karen paying the price for her physio session in the form of stiffness and pain.

Another thing I forgot to recall from last week is that we tried to reduce the pain patches from 125ug to 112.5ug. Unfortunately, kp could feel the difference and with her mood being so low, it wasn’t worth persisting with the pain as this would only aggravate her low mood.

On thursday, I was busy at work talking to Julie my work colleague when a text came through from Karen. There were no words just this picture…..

Karen was so proud she had been able to get the duvet cover on the washing line, she had texted me a photo of it. I couldn’t help but laugh. Nice one kp !!

Friday we had arranged an appointment to see the Doctor. Karen wanted some stronger sleeping tablets and we needed a new sick note. She is now on 20mg Tamazepam a night.

Saturday saw us make a trip to Lancashire to see my mum (and family) after her hip replacement. She was doing really well walking around the house (with her crutch). Dad cooked lunch. Amazingly good considering the chef !!

It was great to see all my family again and we all had a good time….

Here is Jamie with his special camera smile….

Sophie took over the camera and took ALL of these photos…..