Another depressing week overall.

Sunday night and an awful night’s sleep for kp.

Monday saw Karen and I go to the Dentist for some fillings in the morning. Lots of fun !

Laura arrived shortly after we got back, in time for Rachel (the OT) attending. Rachel went through some activities with Karen & Laura, and then in the afternoon, the girls (kp/Laura) planned the rest of the week. Karen was already not feeling too positive.

Monday night was a great night’s sleep for Karen – yay. But, unfortunately, it didn’t leave Karen feeling positive. Quite the opposite, she was rock bottom. There were lots of tears before Laura arrived and things were so bad, I decided to make an emergency appointment with Jane, the psychologist.

Karen was adamant she wanted to push ahead with “keeping busy”, so with Laura, she did her exercises and tried to plan some things to do on Wednesday (Karen’s no rehab day). Karen’s mood was so low, it was hard to come up with anything Karen wanted to do, but everyone (kp included) felt it was best to have something planned. So, they planned a trip to have a meal in a restaurant and a trip to Whickham Villa.

That afternoon, distraction came in the form of a physio session with Steve (at Seaham). There were some tears at physio, but once kp got going with the exercises her spirits lifted a little. After the physio, the girls ate in a local cafe.

Wednesday, we were hoping to see Karen’s mood lift, but it remained low. The plan to go and “fine dine” was scrapped, and instead the girls went to Costco to return some Galaxy Caramel bars (that had no caramel in) and then visit Whickham Villa. kp was desperate for a massage as she had lots of aches. I think she enjoyed this. Karen also had planned to take the dogs out when they got back from Whickham Villa, and despite it being wet, cold and dark, they still walked the dogs. This was a step too far in indsight, and Karen’s body was a wreck on her return in the pitch black.

Thursday and another trip to the physio, where Steve concentrated on Karen’s left shoulder and arm. It needed loosening. Thursday afternoon, we fortunately had a pre-arranged appointment with the psychiatrist which was a godsend and although at first it felt like we weren’t getting anywhere, by the end of the session, we both felt that certain things had fallen mentally into place. The decision was made to keep the medication the same.

In a nutshell, the revelation was that there is a balance between physical rehab and mental rehab and if we get the balance wrong in either direction, it affects Karen’s mental state.

She has to get the balance just right.

I tried to do a diagram to show this to Karen. Here’s what I did, but she couldn’t understand it…..

I was trying to show that the more physical rehab, the lower the mental state, the more mental rehab, the lower the mental state.

Anyway, she understands there is a balance to be struck.

So, we went away from the psychiatrist session understanding the situation a bit more, and with kp feeling slightly more positive.

The following day, we attended the psychologist (Jane) and had a good session with her, again, it all left kp heading in the right direction mentally.

We were due to have Ethan stay over (11 year old great nephew), but she wasn’t quite up to that, so we had to cancel Ethan

Some good news, Karen is now off Tamazepam – a MAJOR achievement that can NOT be underestimated as they are very addictive.

And she has further reduced her morphine patches (Fentanyl) by another 25, so she’s down to 450mg.

The weekend has been “ok”. kp’s mood is SO much better than earlier in the week. Sunday (today) has been better than yesterday, so it’s all heading in the right direction

Fingers crossed, we have a better week than last week. When Karen’s down, it brings me down, so I am gagging for a better week.