Well, much better week this week. kp was on fire yesterday (Saturday) and was picking ME up !!

Monday – NOWT ! kp had her first day off which she thoroughly enjoyed !

Tuesday – Marie, the dog walker, was on holiday this week (apart from monday), so we had arranged for Adele to come up every day so she could take the dogs with kp. It worked out well. In the afternoon, kp went to physio at the local recreation centre with Steve (the physio). I think she said she did treadmill and bike and enjoyed it as per usual.

Wednesday – We went to see Jane and Steve (our psychologists). One of my favourite sessions so far (for me) and loads of things slotted into place. Karen enjoyed hers too. I am quietly surprised at how helpful they have been to me and I KNOW kp finds them similarly helpful. Following that, we had to hot foot it to Ponteland for an appointment with Dr/Mr Yellowlees (an anaethetist who specialises in Pain Management). He was excellent. We told him all the meds kp was on and in a nutshell he agreed that it was the right stuff. He couldn’t comment on the anti-depressant and suggests we see a Psychiatrist for that. The interesting thing he said was (in response to something kp had said)…..

Mr Yellowlees – “You shouldn’t be taking pain medication (analgesics) to control pain ! You should only be taking them to ensure you can still function”
Well, we hadn’t heard that before so we were intrigued. What he meant was that kp will have SOME pain, but you need to throttle back on the pain meds until the pain is so much that you can’t function as much and then keep it a bit over that amount. He stressed that kp MUST still keep up the rehab and not reduce them so much that it affects that. So, in a nutshell, kp has to gradually (very) reduce the morphine patches (Fentanyl) and the Gabapentin. This has to be done gradually.

So, over the next couple of months, we are going to shave a little off both of them.

Thursday say kp take a taxi to the recreation centre to meet with one of Steve (the physio)’s assistants to do some arm-stretching and other Physio work.

Friday and kp went again to the recreation centre but this time for accupuncture with Steve. The accupuncture was to relax kp and to help the pain. She didn’t have that much faith in it, but was going to give anything a go, but she hasn’t half seemed better on the pain and mood front over the weekend, so maybe it has worked.

When I suggested this to kp, she said “It wouldn’t work so quick”

Saturday and I had a real down day. I can’t 100% put my finger on it, but I was rock bottom. You’ve heard the expression “Got out the wrong side of the bed”. That’s really how it felt. The moment I got out of bed, I felt rough (mentally). I think the thought of booking a holiday for the end of the month (which was the job for the day) was too daunting. I hate arranging holidays. It takes sooooooooooo long to find the right hotel etc etc…….

But even after that was over, I still felt rough and there was NOTHING to assign it to. Everything in our lives is looking up, kp’s feeling good at the moment and positive, so am I about the future, yet I couldn’t pick myself up. I just wanted to go back to sleep.

kp was absolutely brilliant. She was “ON FIRE !”. She was so positive and was making me laugh and everything, but nothing would pull me out.

Anyhow, I woke up this morning feeling 10x better and back to normal. Very strange. It literally is like I got up from the wrong side of the bed and I never have had that before !

kp had a bad sleep last night, not going to bed until about 6am. So she is having an afternoon snooze. She got up about 11am to walk the dogs with me. On the dog walk, which is normally very quiet, we were walking along and then all of a sudden about 100 people (all ages) came towards us (walking) along this narrow path. It was very weird. We were laughing, because none of them had seen our 2 dogs (as the people in front of them blocked the view) and when they saw them, most of them visibly shook at the sight of 2 German Shepherds. Quite a few put their hands down to stroke them then thought better of it. Comical.

So, very good week really. kp and I are both excited about the future.