“To Hell and back” pretty much sums up this week.

Extreme sides of emotions, but ending on a positive (and we like them).

Well, first of all, a bit of good news which I omitted from last week’s blog. Last friday, kp reduced her Fentanyl patches from 375 to 350 ! So, since she started the reduction, she has reduced 250, nearly half the morphine levels. Well done Karen Pollard !! She seems to be doing really well on it too. Half the pain relief, but not double the pain, so it’s looking like we can keep going !

Monday and Karen “had a word with herself” and things looked like promising. She hasn’t done a weekly shop for ages, and this week she went off with Nat to do just that. An afternoon in the sun followed and life was good again.

Tuesday, Syd (Case Manager) was coming at 2pm, so the girls went to the gym in the morning, with kp committed to “keeping busy”. She felt very flat in the morning, and the day was going to be a hard one to get through without tears. Syd arrived and all seemed fine at first, but within an hour she “lost the plot” (my words). What do I mean by that, well, she kinda lost control of herself and was emotionally rock bottom and shouting in anguish. All I could do was cuddle her, it was so sad. _I_ was pleased Syd was there, so he could see how bad things were, but Karen was anything but. She’s a very private person and later told me, she hated the fact she “lost it in front of them”. Syd did his best to calm her down by distracting her with wiffle waffle, but it didn’t work, and when he nipped to the loo, I asked Nat to get a diazepam. Within 30 minutes she was calmer. The only answer for things like this apparently, is distraction, ie keep busy. We want this magic bullet, but there ain’t one

Wednesday, things were much the same. The weather has been glorious this week, and kp and Nat went to walk the dogs. It needs a car trip now to do the walk Karen can do, so Nat’s car was a bit hairier on its return. Following the dog walk, we had lunch, and then kp and Nat went to South Shields to look at a potential dog walk site where the dogs can go in the sea. Syd had instructed Nat to keep her “out of the house” which is probably associated with all these negative feelings, but this had the adverse affect of making kp feel trapped, like she HAD to be out and COULDN’T come home, but she persevered and had a nice lunch by the sea.

Thursday saw her scheduled psychology session with Jane. But, the good news happened when she woke up. She felt “better”. Not better(fully recovered), but better(than the previous day). And I could tell, she was chatty, bordering on incessant chatter. But, it was great to have kp “back in the house” She was positive and looking forward to the rest of the week. My heart certainly felt lifted. We were due to have dinner on Friday with the Gibbs, but earlier in the week, I had texted my mate Nigel to say “It’s looking very unlikely, but not impossible”.  On Thursday, she was saying, “Yes, let’s go”. I couldn’t believe it. So, we booked a meal at the Gibbs’es for friday night.

The psychology session was tear free and very positive. A trip to the gym followed and she did 1.1 miles on the treadmill

Friday, she did some gardening (maximising the weather), and was knackered after that. To bed for a snooze in the afternoon, to be ready for the meal with at the Gibbs’ house. When she woke up, she said to me that she didn’t want to go Neither of us wanted to let the Gibbs’ down, but at the same time, we didn’t want Karen in a place that would make her worse. We both felt LOTS of guilt, but decided that it was best to “not go”. They were very understanding, but Karen’s guilt was tangible.

Saturday started good. Lovely dog walk, but towards the end of the afternoon, she felt a bit low. She remarked that anything could make her “cry”. We started watching more “fun” programmes and the Horne and Corden show on BBC3 had her in stitches, so that was a good tonic. Pizza Night with a film and Lost followed, which we both enjoyed.

And today has been “ok”. Neither good nor bad. The best way to describe life at the moment is…..

“Steady Away”

Give me another week of Karen like the last few days, and I will be a bit more certain, this dark period is behind us.

Here’s hoping !