Good week !

Last hydro sessions on Monday and Thursday. I think kp is generally relieved at the fact they are ending. They have been much more demanding since the previous physio left.

She has been referred on to the neuro physio, but we haven’t heard from her yet.

kp has been feeling really positive recently – which is great !

I have been trying to ge the work-home balance more in check and not doing so bad. Unfortunately, friday night saw one of our major customers have a mission-critical problem requiring me to work until 7.30pm on friday night and then carrying on working on Saturday from 8.30am to 11am. Karen was “ok” about this, which was good. Unfortunately the odd call kept coming through on Saturday, but kp seemed to be ok.

We had a great Saturday, we went for a LONG walk (about 3/4 mile). kp did great – mounting a style along the way. Obviously, she needed my help, but she was keen to walk up the hill once past the style. I know kp’s limits better than her, so cut it short a 1/4 of the way up the hill.

Generally a great weekend. Strange last night last night. I was deep in a dream, and in my dream I asked Karen something (can’t remember what), let’s say “Where do you want to go shopping tomorrow ?”. Immediately after I had asked the question in my dream, Karen replied (strong voice, sleep talking) “We’ll go to Tescos if Sainsbury’s is shut.”

MAJOR TWILIGHT ZONE feeling. It was so weird. It was as if our minds were connected. Generally a good week. kp is very positive at the moment, which helps me feel good about life.

Hopefully another good week this week

Forgot to say.

The guy who hit Karen’s car was up in court last month appealing against his sentence. I am pleased to report that his appeal was quashed !!! He has to serve his original sentence.

Another good week.

A week off from any form of rehab this week for kp. Hydro had finished the previous week, and physio doesn’t start until next week. Adele and Marie have both been up this week to help kp get the house ship-shape. Nothing seems to be where it was a week ago. I have been going to get a glass and ending up with a cup, a sharp knife has become a loaf of bread ?! I am sure there is some logic somewhere in kp’s mind (she chose the new locations), but I think she has even foxed herself a bit, as neither of us could find the dustpan and brush.

Another thing kp achieved with the help of Adele was a complete tidy/reoorg of the utility room. I am a great believer in “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. And the utility room was fine before (imho). Anyway, we have a nice tidy utility room now, but unfortunately, in the tidying efforts the freezer switch was flicked off on Friday. This wasn’t discovered until Sunday when I opened the door and floods of water came out. Adele felt dead guilty when kp told her. We didn’t lose that much food and it needed a defrost/clean anyway !

Saturday saw kp and I go over to Middlesbrough to see Chris’ new house and to give Ethan his birthday present. All the family were there and it was a nice afternoon. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any photos. Louisa sat on my knee for ages stealing my sandwiches, which was nice. After 5 minutes on my lap, Adele dropped in the fact that she might have “nits”. Of course, after that, I was constantly scratching my head, when there was probably nothing to worry about.

So, overall another cracking week. kp’s pain seems generally in check. She has bad moments towards the end of the patch cycles, but doesn’t moan about them. Psychologically, she is doing great at the moment, and we are having some great evenings.

kp is starting to get frustrated at our solicitor. Her case seems to not be progressing at the speed of Angela’s so we dropped him a suitably word email on Sunday. I can’t think of anything else.

Action packed week.

kp in good form generally.

Monday saw kp go herself (by taxi) to physio. It was her last physio and was in the form of a review meeting. It finished with a referral back to the neurophysio at Chester-le-Street. She had been referred there a few weeks ago and not heard anything, and still hasn’t heard anything ?! Fingers crossed they get in touch as kp wants to progress her physio. If needs be, we have a pool of physio to call upon that the insurance company have paid for, but it would be better to go back to the same physio that saw kp last time.

Tuesday, I met kp (from work) at the RVI (Hospital in Newcastle). This was for the fitting of the special contact lens. With kp not being able to use both hands, the “optician lady” fitted the lens. This was really funny to watch. kp is normally good with things around her eye. I am hopeless and would need a general anaesthetic to get a contact lens fitted. So, with kp being “ok”, we thought it would be a walk in the park. Wrong ! As the optician held kp’s right eye open and the contact lens got nearer and nearer, her eye would frantically start blinking. It took about 6 attempts before it had to be aborted. It was funny at the time. A new plan was needed. The lady optician had the idea for kp to hold her left eye open, while the optician held her right eye wide open and plonked it in. It worked after a couple of attempts. She had 2 lenses to try on, the first was the smaller pupil version. Basically it is a normal contact lens (that can be left in for a month without taking it out) but with a black pupil painted on. The idea being that it blocks all the vision in the right eye, leaving kp with good vision, instead of vision that is blurred because of the crap right eye.

Here is the lens on a piece of tissue….

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

Here is the first lens in situ …..

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

The optician asked Karen how it felt, and she said it feels ok, but like she had a lump on her eye. This was normal apparently. She spent about 10 minutes with this in just to get used to the feeling. Unfortunately, although this looks really natural, it let some vision in, and was still a little blurry, so it was time to get it out and try the second, larger pupil version. After a few more failed attempts getting the b+stard thing in, here she is with the larger version…….

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

This was great, vision-wise, but it was irritating her eye. We (optician included) were unsure if this was just kp getting used to it, or some adverse reaction. It was decided to give it a try, and if it got worse and she needed it taking out, she would need to come back in the following day and they would whip it out.

We headed home, with kp’s eye constantly weeping, but thinking she would get used to it. Half-way home in the car, I got a gut feeling that it wasn’t right and suggested to kp that we go back to the hospital for them to take it out. She wasn’t having any of it. She really wanted this to work and wanted to persevere. She spent the whole journey home with her eye closed as that was the most comfortable.

When we got home, it was still irritating her eye, and it was starting to look a little bloodshot, and her eyelids were becoming redder and redder. Sue Brady (one of kp’s old work chums) came over for tea (bringing bread and salad) and we had a good natter and a lovely meal, kp’s eye getting redder and redder and more sore as the night went on.

After tea, kp looked like this…..

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

Enough is enough ! It had to come out. Well, what a fart on !!!! With kp only able to use one hand, she couldn’t hold her eye open and remove the contact lens at the same time. Sue kindly washed up, while kp and I attempting to remove the blasted thing. kp’s got more and more frustrated with the attempts to remove it. I stood the mandatory 3 feet distance necessary at times like this.

However she tried she couldn’t get it out and invariably after her efforts the contact lens would be in such a position that it looked like she had 2 pupils. I stepped into the danger zone and together we cracked it. I held kp’s eye wide open as she rummaged around for it, and finally plucked it out.

The following morning, kp’s eye wouldn’t open. The gunk oozing out had stuck her eyelids together, but STILL she wanted to give it another try. She is desperate for it to work. We booked another appointment for the RVI for Thursday.

Wednesday was a quiet day, more than made up for by Thursday. I met up with kp again at the RVI (Royal Victory Infirmary) on Thursday and kp got her eye examined. She had a large scratch on her eye caused, the optician thought, by some spec of dust or a bit of grit getting underneath the contact lens and irritating her eye. This was good news as it meant that the problems she had had weren’t down to an allergy to contact lenses. The eye would take a week to heal, and the new contact lenses would take a couple of weeks to come so that worked out well.

From here, kp and I went to see the Occupational Health Doctor for the Blood Service. Coincidentally, the doctor works for the same company (Norwich Union) that is contracted to do the Blood Service’s Occupational Health. He was a lovely bloke with a German accent, and had been doing this for 14 years, so he knew his stuff. We sat with the Occupational Health nurse for 30-45 mins while we waited for the Doctor to be free. kp was her usual self asking millions of questions of the chap. One of the questions she asked left the poor chap with no answer to give bt the truth……

kp:- “So, will he give me some idea when I will be able to return to work ?”

OH chap :- “To be totally honest about the situation, I think it is probable that you won’t be going back to work with the Blood Service “

He continued talking for a while, further explaining the situation, and I could tell kp was getting upset, her eyes welling up more and more. I moved seats so I could comfort her. The OH chap was great and explained that this wasn’t the end of things, but the start of a new life. I think, deep down, kp thought there was a chance she wouldn’t be going back to work, but it’s the hearing of it from someone official that always hits her hard. In the middle of the upset, the Doctor was ready to see her and we went through with him.

We probably spent about an hour with him, and it took the form of lots of questioning, whilst the Doctor wrote a report. In the end, he said that his report would be saying something along the lines of…..

Karen would not be able to go back to ANY form of work for the foreseeable future.

He said they used to say “permanently”, but they now say “for the foreseeable future” to cover themselves.

This hit kp hard and we had more tears !! So sad ! Thankfully this Doctor had worked in this role for a long time, and shared some experiences with us. He explained that in some of his past cases similar to Karen’s, he had been asked to go back 6 months after such a meeting to see how the patient was progressing. In nearly all of the cases, the patients felt great. They had closure on one part of their life, and the doors to other things had opened up. This quelled the tears a little.
It looks like she will get ill-health retirement, but financially, we have no idea what this means. The OH chap reassured us that the fact she only has 4 years service wouldn’t mean any less money.

A quiet Thursday night followed with an early night.

Friday was another quiet day for kp.

Saturday, we had planned to go and see the new James Bond movie “Casino Royale”. It was a great movie, not the best Bond, but good nonetheless. I’d like to share Karen’s thoughts on the movie, but she was asleep for half of it !!! One funny moment I should share, there was a big action sequence in the middle of the film with the usual James Bond music playing and then all of a sudden a big car crash and absolutely silence in the cinema, that is until an almighty SNORT! came out of Karen. She had woken herself up with her snoring.

kp:- “Was that me ?”

LOL ! Thankfully, I could hide behind the big popcorn box we had bought.

That’s pretty much it for the week. We have had a good week overall.

Good week this week overall despite big pain issues (see later)

I was at work Monday / Tuesday but Karen and I spent the rest of the week down South. Marie came up on Tuesday night as she was kindly looking after the dogs during our absence.

Wednesday
We were up at the 8am (crack of dawn for Karen) and took the plane from Newcastle to Heathrow. It was the first plane trip we had decided not to take our wheelchair but instead we were going to use the airport wheelchairs. All went swimmingly, picking up a wheelchair in Newcastle to take us from checkout to the plane. When we got to Heathrow, we waited for 20 minutes for our bag to come out of the single carousel that was at the end of the corridor, until we realised that we were waiting at the wrong carousel Our poor bag had been going around and around all on its own ! PLUS a porter had been waiting with a wheelchair for 40 minutes for kp ! You live and learn.

kp was keen to partake of some “fresh” air, and got a bit agitated when we passed a “smoking” room, and I said we couldn’t stop, because the porter pushing the chair would have to wait. Her mood continued downwards when she realised that she wouldn’t be able to have a smoke until the Heathrow Express got us to Paddington station. Tempers frayed a little and there were quite a few tuts and dirty looks coming in my direction. At Paddington station, the start of the long walks began ! Half of a mile from the train carriage to the taxis (no wheelchair) – kp was flagging. Taxi to the hotel. The Thistle Marble Arch is supposed to be a 4 star hotel, but the customer service was more like a poor 2 star. After being ignored at reception for 5 minutes we checked in. We got the key and headed to the room (Room 834). Room 834 was the furthest room possible from the lift. And the corridors were HUGE !!!! They went on and on and on and then we turned a corner and they went on for twice as far. Poor kp.

Here she is halfway down one of the corridors.

I am not exaggerating when I say it was probably a quarter of a mile’s walk to the room from the lift. That was no good for Karen, so I went down to change rooms and we got one right next to the lift – yay ! You’d think they would have noticed Karen’s stick and had a bit of thought in room allocation, but I doubt they even saw her slow walking speed approaching reception.

kp was out for the count as soon as we entered the room. Knackered.

We slept until 5pm and headed off to the first show “Mamma Mia”. It was raining when we left the hotel, and there wasn’t a taxi in sight. kp didn’t want to do the tubes, because of the steps involved. But we didn’t have much choice as there were simply no taxis around. I reassured her that there wouldn’t be many steps, as they are all escalators. DOH ! It turned into a right fart on, with steps after steps after steps. It didn’t help when we changed tubes to get on to the Bakerloo line, and had to go up more steps. Unfortunately, in me attending to karen, I hadn’t spotted that the steps we had gone up were “Steps to Street Level Only”. So, we had to go BACK DOWN them. It was now rush hour, and the trains were heaving. We missed one, thinking the next one would be better, but it was worse, so we had to get on it. I had to push kp on, and I only just got in. kp doesn’t stand well at the best of times, and on a moving train heaving with passengers and rocking from side to side, it was an awful experience for her. She couldn’t keep herself upright, so I had to hold the overhead hand rail, putting my other arm around her and wrapping my leg around her other side so I kind of had her in a grip. It knacked me, so I know kp must have been a lot worse. We made it in the end and had a gorgeous meal at TJI Fridays right next to the theatre.

“Mamma Mia” was excellent and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Good story and of course the excellent Abba music !

Thursday
Got up just in time for breakfast. Went back for a snooze that took us nicely to Ronnie’s visit. She had took the afternoon off work. It was nice to see her. We had some drinks/chat in the bar. Here are Ronnie and kp….

We then went out to Covent Garden (taxis all the way from hereon in) for some dinner and some entertainment. It was lovely. Great meal. Nice to see you Ronnie ! Thursday night was the big one and the one we had been waiting for – Connie Fisher as Maria Rainer in “The Sound of Music”. The tickets were £70 each and worth EVERY penny. It was a truly awesome spectacle. Connie was note perfect and there wasn’t a poor performance in sight. Captain Von Trapp was superb, as was the Mother Abbess (not Leslie Garrett, as she doesn’t work Thursdays). The kids were wonderful. This show can only be described in superlatives and the end was truly magnificent. Standing Ovation all round. Marvellous ! Karen and I detest London as a place to visit, but this show made it all worthwhile. Would thoroughly recommend it to anyone.

I tried to persuade Karen to ride in one of the bicycle taxis that hovers around the theatres at “kick out” time, but she wasn’t having it. After 10-15 minutes and a bit of a walk, we managed to get a taxi.

Friday
Breakfast and Checkout. Here is Karen looking forward to leaving the hotel in a few moments time….

Receptionist :- Did you enjoy your stay ?
dp :- No, not really

Not a word wondering why we hadn’t enjoyed the stay !

dp:- Please can I see an itemised bill ?
Receptionist :- I need to take payment first before I can print out the itemised billing ?

That about sums up our Thistle Marble Arch experience.

We took the train from Waterloo to Southampton where Tracy picked us up. We were dead excited to see Megan (Tracy/Mark’s daughter). kp was too tired to walk to her school to pick her up, so I went with Tracey and the other mothers to pick up their bairns. I felt a bit awkward swinging Megan’s pink Barbie brolly, but by carrying by the sharp end, I felt I retained a modicum of masculinity. Perhaps not…

It was great to see Megan in class, and she was dead pleased to see me when I caught her eye in class. It was story time, and I think it was frowned upon for them to be distracted when they should be listening to the story, so Tracey and I stood out of the line of sight.

Hugs all round when she came out.

Roast Pork for tea and it was gorgeous.

Saturday
Lazy morning, followed by the swimming baths in the afternoon. The ladies watched on as Mark, Megan and I went for a swim in the kids paddling pool. It was lovely and warm. Megan had a whale of a time. I was like a prune after 30 minutes and made my excuses to join the ladies in the spectator area.

For tea, it was Roast Pork (it was a big pig !) and X Factor. Megan was really tired by this stage, and I was chuffed to bits that she came to lie in my arms and fall asleep I love that. Dad took her upto bed and we all watched Celebrity and then chatted for a few hours. It was a lovely time. Mark has a fart machine (not his mother-in-law, Margaret). It runs on batteries and was situated besides Karen. It works by remote control and whenever Karen would get up from her chair or get down into the chair, he would let it rip. It does a very realistic farting noise (different one each time you push it). It was absolutely hilarious. It sounds corny, but with the timing just perfect accompanying Karen’s slow descent/ascent from the chair, it was funny as hell. I think the only person who tired of the joke was Karen, but she was laughing at the fact we all found it so funny. Here is kp going out for some “fresh air” with 2 coats on as she was so cold !

Sunday
Mad rush Sunday morning. Megan had promised to come and wake us up. By 9am (flight took off at 11.05am), she hadn’t been up. I rang down to get the “terror sent up”. Within minutes we were both wide awake. Megan assisted on getting Karen ready. She helped her onto the loo, into the shower and helped dry her down.

kp:- Can you dry my bottom please ?
Megan :- Yes. Oh, it’s a big bottom isn’t it ?!

We were in stitches !!! From the mouthes of babes……..

That’s our long weekend. We loved every minute (apart from the non-show bits of London). Thanks to Ronnie for meeting up with us and to Tracy and Mark and Marge and Megan for putting us up for the weekend. Tracy and Mark slept on their sofa so we could sleep in their bed in the penthouse.

Back to work and reality tomorrow. Bring it on !

Not the best of weeks this week.

Karen’s mood was on the turn at the beginning of the week, and has seen a downward spiral since.

She did have a really good Wednesday however. Marie came up and spent the day with Karen. Knowing how much I detest women’s clothes shopping, kp had arranged with Marie to go to Next and Tesco (in Durham) to spend hours and hours shopping for this and that. kp REALLY enjoyed it. They had lots of laughs along the way.

Karen had bought some big items in Matalan and the walk to Tesco was a canny distance away. Karen told Marie to take the trolley (Matalan’s trolley) from Matalan to Tesco instead of carrying all the big items. As Karen inhaled on her fag, Marie explained that it wasn’t right for the trolley to leave the Matalan part of the car park.

kp:- Oh, you’re a right scaredy cat you !

Amusing at the time ! Marie is known for obeying all the rules that noone else gives a thought to.

They started shopping about 2pm, and I picked them up from Tesco at 7pm – although they had stopped for refreshments, kp was absolutely exhausted !

The rest of the week was quiet. kp is in a funny place at the moment. She is really appreciating her own time, but left alone, she has time to ponder life and its meaning and Thursday saw kp take a turn for the worse mentally. She has really low self esteem at the moment. She doesn’t feel she adds value to any group gathering, she doesn’t feel that we have the relationship we used to have and that “all she ever does is whinge”. When kp is down, I am down, so it’s really hard to pick things up again. I will be calling the neuropsychologist tomorrow and asking her to pay a visit and work her magic.

Friday night saw me go out with Nigel (fellow workmate) to a gathering in Sunderland of our ex work mates for a couple of staff’s leaving doos (Caroline and Gregg). kp was keen for me to still go and was looking forward to a night “in charge” as she put it. We all met in a pub in Sunderland and had a few drinks before heading to an Indian for a meal. It was an absolutely cracking night ! It was so much fun to catch up with the MTC crew. I drunk far too much and was paralytic by 9pm. Vague memories of the night after that include…..

• Picking up a dropped fag from the floor, then
• falling down and looking up at the ceiling, then
• Being thrown out of the pub by 2 bouncers (I could have had them, but I didn’t want to cause a scene).
• Dancing with Monique around the pub

and allegedly…..

• Feeling her bum as we danced. Yikes !

Sorry to the MTC crew if I embarassed you. Big thanks to Craig who looked after me when I got chucked out. And of course, big thanks to Nige, for getting me home.

On the way home in the taxi, I remember phoning Karen from my mobile and that it took me about 5 minutes to type the number in. I don’t recall the conversation, but Karen tells me it went something like this….
dp:- I am a little bit tipsy love.

kp:- You sound drunk

dp:- Nah, I am just titsssy.

Cracking night as far as I can remember.

Saturday, I remained tipsy most of the day, and was much worse for wear. kp was knackered after being up most of the night worrying if I got home ok. Sorry love ! So we spent a good portion of the day asleep.

Sunday has been a bad day. Saturday night was full of tears, and these carried on through a lot of Sunday. kp’s heading for rock bottom. She sees herself as having no value to society, family or friends. She doesn’t feel the same in group situations and can’t find purpose in life. I feel much the same re “purpose in life”, but told her how valuable work is to me now as a deterrent from thinking about things too far. I suggested she come in to work with me for a few hours per day for the banter. It would need “ok”ing, but I think it would do her a lot of good and I know there are things she could do that would help us. I have planted the seed. We will see what comes of it.

Fingers crossed, for a better week this week.

I’ll end this entry with a couple of photos. Here is one of Friday night. I was semi-drunk when I took this, so apologies to Gary for me blocking him out with my finger. To be fair, it is probably for the best.

Also, here is a nice letter we received from the Intensive Care Unit thanking me for a letter I wrote to them a couple of months thanking them for everything they did.

Not a good week.

We went to the RVI on Tuesday to have another bash with the contact lens. We stayed around for 30 minutes afterwards to make sure there were no issues, which there weren’t. The evening generally went ok, but towards the end of the evening, it was starting to irritate kp. She had been told to sleep with it in, and kp was keen to try as hard as she could to keep it in. At 4am, her eye was red, but she went back to sleep eager to keep it in. At 6am, it was too much and we took it out. Here is a picture of her eye (not a good picture sorry)…

With the awful weekend last week, I was straight on the phone to the Neuropsychologist lady. She came out on Wednesday. She started by scoring how low Karen felt on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being suicidal, 10 being top banana). Karen was a 2.

She was asked if she had considered ending it all, to which kp answered she had thought about taking an overdose of tablets, but more on the lines of “what would it be like ?” rather than “when she would do it”.

This lady has an incredible ability to turn kp’s mood around. She didn’t quite pull it off today (no fault on her), but left kp on a 4.

We returned to the RVI on Wednesday to get kp’s eye examined and they could only put it down to an allergic reaction to the lens. kp is desperate to get her eyes sorted and she got this across well to the opthamologist lady who suggested they try a lens made out of a different material. Sounds good ! So, we will be back in due course to try this all over again. My work are being great about all the time off now so no worries from that score.

kp is such a trooper – I am so proud of her !

One of the things left over from the neuropsychologists visit was that kp needs to occupy her time more. She enjoys being on her own, but it’s obviously no good for her. Unfortunately, this week has seen our internet connection go down and according to TalkTalk (spits) it won’t be fixed for 5-7 days !!!! You don’t half miss it when it’s gone ! I have had to do this blog at work !

But kp really enjoys emailing friends etc, so that’s a big loss ! The other thing we have done to keep kp occupied is to get Sky switched back on. We had gone to Freesky (no monthly subscription) to save some pennies, but I think keeping kp occupied is more important, so I ordered the full Sky Package (minus Sports (sorry Dad)). We also bought a new TV, an XBOX360 and a Sky HD box. I am sure 2 of these 3 will keep kp amused no end !!

We were both gagging for the weekend by the time it came. I had had an awful week at work, kp was keen to spend some time with me, so we were glad when it arrived. Unfortunately we both got some bug and were coughing, sniffing, sore throating and sleeping most of the weekend.   With the internet being down, we couldn’t do our normal Tesco Online shop and so had to go shopping the old fashioned way. With me taking numerous calls from work, the whole thing took 3 hours, as I had to keep going to the car to take the calls (I couldn’t concentrate). Nightmare. We were well relieved to get home.
We both still feel a bit worse for wear but have got over the worst of it. kp accuses me of having “man flu”, which is her way of saying I make a mountain out of a molehill ! Oh, how we laughed !

She has a fairly busy week this week, so I think things will improve. On Wednesday, I have got the call up to give blood, which as well as getting me out of a company customer night out, allows kp to come with me and see all her chums. So all good !

Adele is coming up on Tuesday (I think), and thursday/friday sees Marge Baggot (that is her real name) coming to stay for a night or two. No doubt we will be 5 Shepherds Pies and 5 Lasagnes better off by the time she leaves.

Not a good week, but the only way is up, ……….. baby.

Forgot to mention Karen’s trip to the Metro Centre. I think it was Monday.
Adele, Abbie and Louisa came to our house and Karen had booked a taxi to the Metro for some Xmas shopping. They thoroughly enjoyed it, but I think Abbie was nonplussed by it. The trip was timed so I could bring them home (my work being close to the Metro). Karen had told me she was at a certain place in the Metro, but she definately wasn’t despite me looking for ages. In my searching, someone shouted “David !”.

It was one of the physios that used to work on Karen at the hospital. It was lovely to see hear. I told her Karen was around here somewhere if she’d like to say hello, which she was keen to do.

This physio knew another place that could meet Karen’s description and we headed off to kp. As we gained on them, I hid behind a pillar so the kids wouldn’t shout “There he is !”. This allowed the physio to surprise Karen. She was well shocked and pleased to see her. The physio remarked on how well she looked which was nice.

Things not good in the Pollard household at the moment

I was due to give blood last Wednesday. Great, an opportunity for kp to see her workmates and buck her up a bit, but when I arrived home early from work, she didn’t want to go

Karen’s mood is rock bottom. She has a preoccupation with death at the moment. She sees herself with no purpose, having no value amongst family/friends. She can’t understand why I am still with her.  This morning, after her being up since 12am (unbeknownst to me), she said she had awful thoughts. Suicide was considered, but not followed through because of she would be leaving me on my own.
I feel so powerless, so helpless. I feel like I have exhausted everything to help her. I have tried to encourage her to set herself aims for each day, to go and see her family (by taxi), to go shopping with Adele, but she hasn’t the motiviation. I have told her that it is only 2 days, before I am off with her for the whole of Xmas. That seemed to help a little.
We saw the doctor this week and got her state of mind at that time across to him, and he is going to refer her to a psychiatrist, which is good. I am ringing the Neuropsychologist today for some emergency help. Fingers crossed, she can come out today or tomorrow.

We still have no internet access at home thanks to TalkTalk’s ineptitude. Karen used to regularly go on the internet to email people and browse the web. I know she is missing this. I have set her up with modem access, but it’s painfully slow and she gets frustrated with it.

Karen’s physical wellbeing isn’t helping. She feels her body doesn’t go at the speed she wants it to and that it feels very stiff, probably because she has lapsed on the physio she was supposed to be doing (lack of motivation).

Really not good at the moment. She has already been hinting that if she “doesn’t want to go anywhere over Xmas”, will that be ok. Of course it will. So, mum/dad, heads up that there is a chance we may not be down for Xmas lunch, we’ll have to see how she feels on the day. Also, we are due to go to my work’s doo on Saturday. I am keen for her to meet some of the faces behind the work stories I tell, but this also may be at risk. We will see.

From my perspective, it is an utterly heartbreaking situation to be in. Wanting to fix her, but not having the tools to do it, and not seeing a way out of it. Very glad Xmas is here and that we will have a week off together.

Well, things are heading in the right direction again. I contacted the neuropsychologist yesterday and she phoned Karen and spent about 45 minutes with her (over the phone). When she first spoke to Karen, she rated herself on the mood scale as 0/10. By the time the neuropsychologist hung up, kp rated herself as 1/10. I’ll take that 1 over the 0/10 anyday. Whereas the past few days have seen Karen hardly say a word on the evenings, she was more talkative, managing a laugh at a “Mr Mainwaring” impression this morning

Both my mum and sister phoned kp yesterday, and I think that helped distract kp a bit, so thanks for that !

I know she will be better when I am around, so it should be a good Xmas. We have to ensure we do 1 interesting thing everyday over the New Year period. Shouldn’t be a problem !

She had a good night’s sleep for the first time in a long time last night. Normally, she gets up about 12am/2pm ish and doesn’t come back to bed until 5/6am.

Roll on Xmas !

kp’s mood continues to be low, but me being off has definately helped her enjoy the odd moment. I have been regularly asking for her mood score (0-10). The most she has been has been a 4, and it has been between 1 to 4 since the last blog. Plenty to tell in this blog….just hope I can remember it all.

Saturday 23rd December saw my work’s xmas doo. Marie and Glenn kindly came over to stay the night and dogsit as we were stopping at the hotel. kp went to get her hair done plus a facial. She really enjoys being pampered and she came out looking great. We picked a work colleague of mine up in Durham (Helen) and headed to the Gateshead Marriot. The staff were very welcoming and the bedroom was gorgeous. London could learn a thing or two about hospitality from the North East.

Here is kp and I at the Xmas Doo.

kp had a good night, I had an excellent night. She was flagging by about 9.30pm and so retired. I helped her into bed and then returned back down for the rest of the night. Cracking night. ITPS are very good – the meal was paid for, as were the first £200 worth of drinks per table. That lasted the whole night for our table.

After a lovely breakfast at the hotel with Nigel and Terry, we headed home.

It was Xmas Eve and we did our usual presents run to Middlesbrough. First stop was to pick Michelle and Freddy up and go to Emma and ethan’s. Ethan was annoyed he couldn’t “play out” with his mates and that he had to come in to see “family”. But the opening of presents cheered him up. Then on to Adele, Abbie and Louisa’s. They were all in their pyjamas and in a very good Xmas mood. We had bought louisa a replica kids Dyson vacuum cleaner. She absolutely loved it and never stopped hoovering ! Her favourite bits were to tell us to “lift our feet up” and to push down on the front part with her foot to start it going. She has obviously watched her mam loads of times and it was comical to see her go round the room 10x.

Another funny came when they got the fishes game out. It was a strange contraption that blew little fishes out the top of an inflated chimney and the idea is Louisa had to catch them. She was hopeless and it made for lots of laughs. She didn’t watch the fishes at all, and instead focussed on the chimney. Was a good laugh.

Here is Louisa looking anywhere but at the fishes.

We then retired to Michelle and Freddy’s for some adult time before returning home. Xmas Day the following day and we had to be up early to get to mum and dad’s (in Lancashire) in good time.

We ended up getting up early (7.30am) and had time to walk the dogs, and open our presents before heading down South. I had got kp a handbag, and she had got me a fart machine (remote controlled).

2 hours 15 minutes worth of travel to Lancashire saw us arrive early. We were made feel very welcome and enjoyed a lovely roast Turkey, with Roasties cooked in Goose fat. (Lose the goose fat next time mum please, yeuch!). Here is a picture of us at the table. kp is on the end on the right (but you can only just see her hair).

Here is Jamie in the dog’s basket after the meal with his Bob the Builder hat on.

We left about 3.30pm and headed home through some awful fog where I had to crawl along at 20 mph on a 70 mph road. But still made it in 2 hours 30 mins. An early night followed ! Thanks to Eileen who let the dogs out twice for us during the day.

We had planned to go shopping on Boxing day, but thought better of it. Instead we went for a long dog walk ( 1/2 a mile, long for kp ). She does like getting out of the house. I think a lot of her problems stem from the feeling of being housebound. Watching films, programmes and eating sweets was the order of the day.

Wednesday 27th saw us go over to Middlesbrough for a big family get together. But, first, we went shopping in Middlesbrough, a first for me. Middlesbrough is an awesome shopping experience and coming from me (who hates shopping) that is a big compliment. The shops are well laid out, joined in a good way. Clothes shops next to gadget shops, marvellous. We shopped for about 3 hours and it flew past. I was able to gadget shop, while kp shopped for clothes. She was keen to get something that was like a swimming costume, but with a bra built in. She still can’t do bras, despite trying everything under the sun. She found what she was looking for (don’t know if they are called bodices ?), but imagine a woman’s swimming costume, but where the gusset is, it has popits to allow for toilet breaks. It also has a built-in bra. Anyway, it didn’t work (when we got it home). The tension the gusset was under meant she couldn’t hold it with her left while doing the popits with her right. It was worth a try though !

After the shopping we went on to Marie’s. Marie had done a lovely buffet, and we played games (like Family Fortunes, etc…). It was a cracking night. It’s good to get the family together once a year. Twice would be too much Here is Louisa giving kp a great hug.

We also went to the Doctors re kp’s depression. I had rung the psychiatry hospital to see if we could get an earlier appointment, the psychiatrist recommended seeing the doctor to rush things along which we did. The following morning the psychiatrist rang up and said he would get us in the week after next (home visit). He has also immediately changed kp’s anti-depressant from Citalopram, to Cyprolex, which is supposed to be more effective – fingers crossed.

Thursday saw us go to Homebase for 2 bulbs, but we ended up buying £10,000 worth of new kitchen and £1000 worth of dining room furniture. Jesus tonight ! To say I was a little dry in the throat would be an understatement. But, kp needs something to get her teeth into, and I think this will help her mood a great deal. To be fair, we do need a new kitchen. I have never liked our current one, but the oven being on the floor is a nightmare for karen. She can’t pick heavy things up from the floor-level oven, and the new kitchen will see a waist height oven, which will be much better for her. Similar improvements have been done with the fridge and freezer. So, it should be much more manageable for kp.

The chap came out to our house on the Thursday night and measure up for the new kitchen.

I can’t remember what we did on Friday, but we did something. I have made sure we have done something every day as the neuropsychologist suggested. I think we went to the tip. Hey, it might not sound like fun, but there is a certain pleasure in sitting in a mile-long queue of cars all getting rid of their xmas rubbish. We saw the queue, and thought bugger that. We ended up going to the pound shop for a rummage around and by the time we came out, the queue had gone down somewhat. We also got the car washed. Excitement all round !

Saturday (yesterday) saw us return to Homebase to see the new design kitchen and put the deposit down.

We watched loads of films this week – The Interpreter (very good), The Clearing (weirdly dull), Bewitched (only watched half, not brilliant), Shrek 2 (brilliant), Collateral (very good) and many others. One a night at least. kp enjoyed them too.

Today, Sunday, we have nothing planned, but given it is 1.30pm and kp is still fast asleep, I don’t think she will be bothered about that.

A good Xmas overall. kp’s mood has fluctuated peaking at 4. Guy had suggested getting a new dog to better kp’s mood. It is something I had already considered and attempted to sell to kp, but she wasn’t having it. Too much work, she can barely cope with 2 etc…. Well, I tried again Guy. Got a bit further, but its still a “no” for now. She says if she feels physically more able to cope with the work involved, we may go down that route.

I would love another pup, but it would be kp doing most of the toilet training and clearing up, and I don’t think she is quite up for that at the moment.

It’s the start of the New Year tomorrow, so fingers crossed, it is a better year than 2006. Here’s hoping !! Merry Xmas everyone and a Happy New Year to all blog readers !

From bad to worse.

A truly awful couple of days. Karen’s mood took a big turn for the worse and she has suffered a mental breakdown

I don’t know if it was the thought of me going back to work or just the final phase of a continually downward trend, but she has really took a turn for the worse. The last couple of days are a bit of a blur. Lots and lots of tears. kp was inconsolable. At one point, I had encouraged her to have a hot bath, and she was crying her heart out in the bath with me trying to comfort her, getting soaked in the process. She fell asleep last night crying her heart out, so sad ! So very very heartbreaking. We had watched a film earlier in the day (“Hostage” (a Bruce Willis film about kidnapping) (very good)), but kp was anxious all the way through it. I noticed things were really wrong when she asked if this was real or a film ?!?!?!? We were up most of the night and at one point, I had left the bedroom to get a drink and kp noticed I wasn’t there. When she got up, she was distraught, as she thought I had been kidnapped. This morning 5am (ish), she couldn’t remember the name of our dogwalker Marie. She thought she was called Sandra. She was convinced “Sandra” would walk the dogs and not bring them back. She thought I worked for MTC (a company I used to work at a few years ago). She wanted to know what her shifts were (for the Blood Service). Very upsetting to hear !

She was convinced she was going mad. She wanted someone to come and give her an injection that would put her to sleep for a few days.

kp:- Will they do that David ? Will they put me to sleep for a few days ?

dp:- i don’t think so love

We already had a psychiatrist coming round next week to see kp (he was away this week). He had already changed her medication from Citalopram (anti-depressant) to Cyprolex (another more effective anti-depressant), but that takes upto 6 weeks to kick in. We couldn’t wait a week to see someone, so I was straight on the phone at 8.30am this morning seeking help for kp. I phoned the doctors, the neuropsychologist and the County Hospital (Psychiatry division).  We would have gone private, money was no object, she had to be seen !! I took the day off work, there was no way I could leave her in this state.

In the end, the County Hospital agreed to send someone round. It was 2 lovely people, a Doctor and a CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse). They arrived at 2.15pm and spent about 90 minutes talking to kp. 85 minutes of that was investigation, 5 minutes was prognosis. There were lots of tears along the way, but overall, I think it helped kp seeing them and having a way forward for the future.

At one point, kp asked….

kp:- Am I going mad ?

There was an uneasy pause which I felt was too long, and their reply should have been a bit more speedy, but it came eventually….

CPN :- No, we don’t think you are going mad. This blur between what is real and what is not a real is probably a part of your depression/low mood. When that lifts, and your sleeping patterns get better, and you have more structure to your day, you should find these incidents don’t recur.

Anyway, the way forward is

• The change of anti-depressant
• A change in daytime structure. kp needs to get up at a set time, go to bed at a set time and set herself objectives (no matter how small) for the day
• A series of visits from the local CPN who will talk to kp about the accident, and her feelings of frustration, lack of self esteem etc… it has left her with.

They left moments ago, and although kp isn’t making too much sense at the moment, I do feel she has benefitted from the visit. Initially, it was like getting blood from a stone for the visitors as they tried to get kp to speak, but towards the end, answers were more easy coming.

I’ll take the next few days off work to ensure she is ok. I know she feels better when I am around. Work have been great and say they will help in anyway they can. They have ok’ed me to work from home. I was really concerned for my work that I may be off weeks, but feel that a return to work could be in the offing next week all being well !

So, awful few days, but fingers crossed (YET AGAIN !) that another corner has been turned.

Things are looking up. They couldn’t get any worse that is for sure.

The gibberish has stopped. And she is a bit perkier today. We got up and kp stuck to her routine. She said she wouldn’t sleep at all today, but needed an hour in the afternoon.

We went to Tesco and the Doctors. She enjoyed the trip out.

I feel things are heading in the right direction.

We have physio tomorrow and I think Jane and Ronnie are coming at the weekend so that will perk her up even further

Thanks for all the support we have received from everyone – it is much appreciated !!

Karen is on the up and up !!! On a scale of 0/10, she has rated herself a 4 (maybe 5). Wahey !! This might not be a 10, but it’s much improved over the 0 of last week. Today, it was just the usual gibberish that all women come out with today and not the gibberish of the “kidnapping” variety i.e.

kp:- Don’t be opening my mail ! (when I tried to open her mail to make it easier for her to read it)

dp:- Sorry

kp:- It would be easier if you opened it.

Grrrr ?!?!?!

She has worked really hard today at the new routine. She got up at 9.30am (good for kp). She didn’t take the usual 10 minutes coaxing either ! Today she has

• done her exercises
• went into Sainsburys and picked my suit up from the dry cleaners (while I waited outside in the car)
• walked the dogs (I didn’t do anything apart from hurrying her along as we came back when she was crossing the road and a car was coming). She was fine and would have made it no probs, but Elsa was 3 feet behind her !
• Fastened her own bra (this is a first). I got it round her, but she fastened it (front fastener). Next challenge is the whole thing.
• Went to Physio

Physio consisted of the lady loosening kp’s left hand. As she doesn’t have full use of it, it gets stiffer than her right.

She then worked on getting kp to try and move her thumb in, and then clench a fist. I wasn’t keen on kp being able to make a fist, but apparently it is good therapy.

It finished with a machine that tested Karen’s strength in her hands. When she did it with her right hand, it scored 0.4. When she did it with her left, initially, it didn’t move, but the physio has found with Karen, that repeated guidance gets the hand to learn the maneuvre and by the end, she had managed 0.1. So in a nutshell her left hand is 4x weaker than her right. The idea is than in a month’s time, this will be remeasured to gauge the improvement.

We walked the dogs when we got back or I should say Karen walked the dogs. I was there for backup only.

So a lot of hard work by kp today, and she feels absolutely knackered. I do hope she can last until bedtime without a snooze as she may get her first full night’s sleep. All in all, a cracking day !

Friday saw us go to Tesco shopping. It was a nightmare. Queues at the end so we went through the Express Checkout which is “where is you scan the items yourself”. We had half a trolley load. We couldn’t do it at all. The electronic woman’s voice kept saying “remove the item from the bag” and we hadn’t even put it in the bag ?!?!?! We both got really infuriated by it ! We had to ask for help twice and it probably took us 15 minutes to get through the sodding till. It turns out, you are only supposed to use this checkout if you have 10 items or less. Neither of us saw the sign, despite it being right in front of our noses.

Snooze followed. kp wasn’t supposed to, but relented to my persuasion.

Saturday saw Ronnie and Jane come up for the weekend. I am really pleased they came. We have had lots of laughs and kp has been in her element. Lots of talking. Chinese and Pizza on the night, culminating in the watching of Big Brother. We were laughing for hours when Jade’s mum (Jackie) farted. kp was still laughing this morning !

This morning, kp and I went to Homebase to pay for our kitchen. March install apparently. I allowed 15 minutes for it, it actually took 1 hour 15 mins because of computer issues. We had booked a table at the Pump House for lunch but had to rearrange it.

Here is kp patiently waiting…..

Here are kp, jb and vd before we set off for the Pump House.

Lovely meal (as always). The girls have chatted ALL afternoon, while I caught up on my beauty sleep. Quite a busy week lined up for kp. I am back to work tomorrow so it’s just as well. 2 physio sessions plus a visit from the Stroke Association. kp feels she needs something to focus on and so we have asked the Stroke Association to come out to discuss options for kp. She is thinking along the lines of charity work but needs some options presenting to her. I think that’s Tuesday.

So, vast improvement on the start of the week. I asked her in the car what her score was. She is getting wise to me asking and keeps asking the same question of me. Anyway, she is 5 out of 10, I am a 6. So, really pleased at that. I have told kp that I am whatever she is PLUS 1. That might sound like a joke, but I think it might actually be true. It certainly has been this last week.

Good week this week.

Summed up by Karen rating herself as a 7 out of 10 earlier today. We have turned a corner !!!

I can’t remember the first part of the week, but on Tuesday, Karen had a visit from the lady from the Stroke Association. Lovely lady who had come to see how she could help Karen with her future. She came at Karen’s behest. She had a long chat with karen finding out where she was etc and the upshot is that she is going to put Karen forward for some retraining courses in July 2007. She said she couldn’t fit her in before then, but Karen suspected that the Stroke lady didn’t feel kp would be ready before then.

Physio on Tuesday and Thursday this week. kp’s power in her left hand had DOUBLED since the same time last week !!! Very impressive ! Karen now has a series of exercises which I have typed up for her as it can be hard for her to remember. Here they are…..

1. Step Ups
2. Trampette
3. Abdominal (Bed stuff)
4. Back against Wall stuff
5. Fist Clenching with stuffed ball
6. Thumb retracting using right hand to help close thumb
7. Making a fist using right hand to close left fist
8. Kneeling with pillow against settee (trying to get her to be able to kneel down eventually)

Her left hand/arm has definately improved since she restarted this neurophysio which is marvellous.

More importantly, she is better in herself, and being very positive about the future. It could be the change of tablets, but we think it is down to other things…….

Firstly, her sleeping patterns are very much improved. Previously, she would get up 3 or 4 times in the night and be up for anywhere between 10 mins and 4 hours. This week, she has been forcing herself to stay up during the day (NOT EASY !!!) and going to bed at a reasonable time (8.30pm to 10pm) and getting up at a reasonable time (9am – 10.30am). No Snoozes during the day, or in emergencies an hour snooze !

For the past few nights when she HAS been getting up in the night, it has only been to change her nightshirt – she is suffering badly from night sweats, and wakes up ringing wet through. But the good thing is she is only awake for 5 mins.
So, sleeping properly has helped things.

Secondly, she has a plan for each day. She has a set routine of exercises (split up during the day), jobbing on around the house, more exercises, playing with the dogs. In her own words, she has no spare time each day

So, all good at the moment.

Saturday saw us walk the dogs together. There’s a few times on the walk where I have to help her either down a slope or up a steep slope. She has been able to get down the steep slope ok, but the up slope was still a problem, but she has found a way round the up slope by going around a tree and so has done the work completely unaided.

She also, this week, went to the shop herself. Here’s how she told me….
kp:- Look ! (holding a glass of orange juice in her hand)

(We didn’t have any OJ left in the morning)

dp:- Wahey !You’ve been to the shop ?! Nice one !!

Following the walk and breakfast, we went to Costco to get some Pig’s Ears. She also wanted a fleece for her Egypt holiday (next week with the girls). There were no mirrors, so I was asked to take a photo of her so she could see how she looked….

kp:- Don’t get my face in ! (probably knowing it would be on the blog !)

Here she is…..

Michelle, Freddy and Abby (9) were waiting for us on our return. We had a nice chat with them. Abby wanted to play on the xbox. She played a racing game with Freddy and then wanted to play me for money.

Abby :- If I win, you give me £10.

dp:- What if I win ?

Abby :- I’ll give you a £1.

dp:- That’s fair – why £10.

Abby :- I need some football cards !

dp:- NEED ?

Anyway with money on my mind I whooped her arse.

Abby:- Is there any jobs I can do to get some money ?

dp:- You can hoover.

Abby :- For £10 ?
dp :- Errrrr, no. How about a £1

Abby :- £5

dp :- Let’s make it £3

Here she is hoovering the hall. She was beetroot red by the time she finished. She got Freddy to finish off !

Today, we had an easy day, jobbing on around the house. It’s been a good weekend and a good week !!

Busy week for kp this week……

Tomorrow A.M. (Monday) – Orthopedic Consultant at Sunderland Royal (hopefully last one)

Tomorrow Afternoon – Visit from her employer. We think they are going to say she is “finished”

Tuesday A.M. – Visit from Community Psychiatric Nurse

Thursday P.M. – Psychiatric Consultant at the County Hospital

Friday P.M. – RVI Newcastle for next Contact Lens fitting.

Busy kp !!!

Very eventful day !

Karen decided to give our summer duvet a spin last night. It’s so thin, you can hardly call it a duvet. The idea being she is trying to resolve the night sweats situation.

Well, I had an awful night’s sleep because I was so cold, and I couldn’t snuggle up to kp as she doesn’t like me touching her left arm. kp also had a bad night’s sleep because of trips to the loo, so although she didn’t sweat at all, she didn’t really have a good run at sleep to be a good test.

Up at 8.15am this morning to get to the Sunderland Royal Hospital for 10am. It was the annual checkup of the pelvis/hip fractures. Here is kp on the x-ray bed….

The x-rays were very clear. Her right hip looks a bit rough (compared to the left), and the humerus ball that fits into the hip joint is well knacked. (that’s obviously my take on it). One of the pins that kept her pelvis together has broke, but apparently this doesn’t matter now as it has served its purpose in getting the pelvis to heal.

What was also very visible was all the loose bone she has around the hip. At least 2 big chunks, and lots of little bits too.

Karen asked Mr Cross (the top notch orthopod) why was she still in pain. Apparently, this is not down to all the bone issues, but rather because of all the scar tissue that is there as a result of her pelvis/hip being shattered. It won’t get any better, so she will be on the pain patches indefinately.

Karen had a list of questions written down, but Mr Cross did some very good explanations leaving kp only asking a couple of the 6 questions she had written down.

Will she need a hip replacement ? They will know next year (2008). If the hip dies (through lack of bloodflow), which happens in the first 3 years apparently, then “yes”.

Will she get back to normal ? Definately not.

We have to go back same time next year for another set of x-rays. Not the best news in the world, but kp took it very positively. Now, that could be a sign of her new positive mental attitude, or it could be a typical kp delayed reaction that could come over the next week or month ?! We’ll have to wait and see.

With that over, we went to Sainsburys on the way home and then went home for the visit from her employers.

kp’s direct boss and the lady from Personnel came. They were lovely. The Personnel lady started by telling kp that this is going to be a difficult conversation. To cut an hour’s conversation short……..

kp is being “dismissed” because of her inability to do the job for health reasons. I was looking at kp when the news broke, expecting floods of tears, but there were none ?! Now, we were both half expecting that news, but with kp, hearing it officially normally sparks reaction, but there was none. In fact, she even managed a joke…..

kp:- Eeeeee, I have never been “dismissed” before !

I think her attitude took us all aback. They went into the rigmarole of what happens next, namely, a dismissal meeting with Karen’s bosses boss, Karen’s boss and the lady from Personnel all present. She could then file a claim for ill health retirement and Permanent Injury benefit. It’s all going to take months. But if it all works out well, she may not be too financially worse off than before.

It took a few passes for all the info to sink into kp, but I think she got it all.

So, all in all, not the best day of information, but all REALLY well took by kp !!! Go KP Go !!!

I think kp may be thinking well at least I know the way forward for the future. It’s brought some hard facts to the table which she can now “get on with”. Time will tell….

Well, a corker of a week with a saddening twist.

Marie could see it, I could see it. kp has flicked a switch this week and is truly back to her old self. She scored herself a high 8 during the week, which is great !!

With Karen, sometimes it takes her a while for things to sink in. So the Monday when she was told she would never get “back to normal” and she was being “dismissed” from work, I thought would bite her later in the week, but it didn’t.

kp:- For the first time, I am looking forward to my life.

Music to my ears.

Tuesday saw her have a visit from the Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN). It was only an introductory meeting, and because kp was feeling so positive, he was soon on his way.

Thursday saw me and her go to the County Hospital (Durham) to see her psychiatrist. Present were the consultant psychiatrist and the psychiatric female doctor who visited the house when things were so bad a couple of weeks ago. The female psychiatrist could really see a difference.

kp:- I feel a bit of a fraud for coming here today. I feel great.

We were there about an hour and they still gave her the 20 questions treatment. They put her recovery down to both the new anti-depressants and her positive mental attitude.

Psychiatrist :- I would be a bit concerned if you got too happy.

We both laughed. That’s never been a problem for the past 2 years !

Friday saw us go to the RVI to try a new contact lens. It’s made out of a different material. I really wanted this to go good as I didn’t want any downers affecting kp’s mood. It went great. She can put it in herself and take it out herself !! AND WITH ONE HAND !

Also, there was no bad reaction like to the last 3 or 4 attempts.

Saturday saw the downer come. For a change, it was nothing to do with Karen. I was in the middle of building some new furniture when the dogs caught a glimpse of the postlady. To say they don’t like the postlady would be an understatement. I know the postlady is frightened of the dogs so rather than let them jump up at the patio window, I put them out the back. Unfortunately, both gates that stand between the front and the back of the house were open. One had been blown open by the wind and the other had been blown off its hinge by the recent high winds.

The next thing I knew there were screams from the front of the house. The dogs were out the front. Two German Shepherds running for you must be a very frightening ordeal, but to make it worse, Bonnie had bit the postlady on her hand. I went out and boomed for them to get in, which they promptly did, but the postlady was very upset. I went straight back in and got the dogs in the Utility Room, and got kp up. When I told kp, her first words (straight from sleep) were :-

kp:- Oh F***ing hell !

kp NEVER swears !

I went back out to comfort the postlady (I’ll call her “June”). She was really upset and in shock. Despite us pleading for her to come inside out of the cold, she understandably didn’t feel comfortable entering the house even though the dogs were locked away. kp made her a sugary cup of tea, while June phoned colleagues to come and pick her up.

Bonnie had bit her hand and June had teeth marks on both sides of her hand, but one of Bonnie’s long teeth had pierced the palm of her hand and gone quite deep

I offered to take her to the hospital, but she wanted to wait for her colleague.

kp phoned June later in the day, but she didn’t want to speak to us The police are being involved Yikes – we just hope we don’t have to get her put down. I’d rather do some bird ! All the best to June, hope you’re feeling better soon !
Sunday (today), we went for a birthday lunch with most of the family at Joe Rigatoni’s in Middlesbrough. We were celebrating Abby, Michelle and Glenn’s birthday. It was a lovely meal, and here are some pretty crap photos (because of the light I think).

The 4 sisters ……..

This week, we have NO hospital appointments !!! But that’s only ‘cos kp is going to Taba, Egypt for the week !!!! She is going on a girls’ holiday (with Jane and Ronnie). 2 weeks ago, she wasn’t going ‘cos she was so down, but NOW she is really looking forward to it !

And that’s despite her finding out that over the last 3 years, that 34 people have been killed and 159 injured by terrorists attack in the very place she is going to !!! If you broaden that to the Sharm Al’Sheik area, the total killed expands to 97 killed, 223 injured !!! Yikes !!!

I am sure she will be fine. It’ll be our first week apart since the accident, and I think we will be both be feeling pretty weird. I know I will miss he and I know she will miss me. Only a week !

Have a great time kp !  Get well soon June !

Well, it sounds like Karen is having a great time with Ronnie and Jane in Egypt.

They spent the night on Monday at my parents. Mum and Dad took them out for a meal and they had a real good laugh of a night.

Taba, Egypt is giving the girls a peak temperature of 20′C during the day, but beautiful weather with it – clear skies ! Yesterday, the girls treat themselves to 3 hours of pampering (massage, steam room, sauna etc).

Karen trumped the day. She was having her massage, when the male masseur must have massage the wrong part of Karen’s back, and she let out an almighty fart. She was very embarassed. Karen then needed to turn onto her back, so Ronnie came in to help kp turn around on the table, and she started doing her “farting in time to her laughter” trick. The girls were in stitches as was the masseur.

You can take Karen anywhere and she does England proud !

Here is a photo Jane sent that she took of the hotel. It looks lovely !

Had a visit this morning (8am) from the Post Manager. Not much to report from this, basically post is going to be delivered to our next door neighbours from now on. That’s fine by us. kp can go round for it from time to time. Thanks Tommy and Eileen

Spoke to the Police today. The police want to come out and assess the dogs to see if they are suitably behaved pets. He said he had no doubt that had I been in yesterday when he called and had I let them out, they would have had a go at him.

I explained that visitors to the house do get a loud welcome, but once in the house, accepted by kp and I, the dogs are fine. So he is coming to put that to the test ! He said it would be in our favour if we have a 5ft fence erected by the time he comes (sometime week after next). It would help him go back to the postlady and tell us how committed we are to ensuring the dogs are kept safe etc….

Nice copper. I just hope my nerves when he comes put the dogs on edge !!!

kp continues in top form.

She had a great holiday in Egypt – lots of laughs. Ronnie, if you want to write up the tales of Egypt and email it to me, I will put it up on the blog !! Ronnie stayed the night when the girls got back and recounted all the stories – sounds like they had a Fun-Filled time (with Capital “F”s).

It was great to have kp back – I was very pleased to see her and vice-versa.

She has been using her contact lens a lot since she got back and has now managed a full 6 hours. She still hasn’t got the “contact lens knack”. It takes her a bit of twiddling to get it in and out, but I would need sedating to even get it in, so she does very well by my standards.

The fence people came on Friday and did the main part of the fence. It looks good and there is no way will be able to jump its 6 ft height. Mum has kindly offered to pay for it – thanks Mum ! You didn’t have to.

Whilst kp was away, I had the time to do the Spain DVD. We had been away with family to Spain last summer, but I had never seemed to be able to find the time to get the DVD done. So, on Saturday, we went over to Marie’s to “show” it. It was great to see the family enjoy it. Abby (10) was in stitches/tears watching herself snore when she stayed over at our hotel room. Ethan enjoyed watching himself to the Rocky music as he jumped into the pool in slow motion. Great to see !

Sunday, we jobbed on. We had a mass of paperwork to get through – new bank to sort out, Tesco shopping to order, wheelchair forms to fill in, etc etc… It took about 5 hours to get it all done.

All in all, a good few days since kp’s return.

Here are some photos from Egypt that Ronnie brought back….

Here is a crocodile made by the bloke who cleaned their room, made entirely out of towels !! He put Ronnie’s hairclip in its mouth and kp’s frosted glasses on its head.

Jane and kp….

Jane and Ronnie. kp took this. Interesting how it is missing some of Jane’s left side – I think a sign of kp’s inattention on her left side….

kp and Jane on a boat trip…..

Busy week ahead. There is talk in the Pollard household of us going to the gym 3 nights a week in an effort to get fit – yikes. Hope you can smoke on the treadmills ! We have dentist on Friday morning and are going to the flicks Thursday night – busy old week.

Well, we never went to the flicks in the end. kp wanted to see “Deja Vu”, but it wasn’t on at the cinema anymore.

We haven’t heard from the Police yet re their visit to check out the dogs. The fence is all done (thanks Mum). Here is one of the bits they did.

We visited Bannatyne’s gym in Durham on Monday night. It was very impressive. It’s spread over 3 floors and by the time we had done the guided tour, it felt like we had done a workout. By chance, we saw Sue (Karen’s friend and ex work boss) on the tour. She was doing some class or other. Hi Sue !

Karen didn’t want to sign up there and then, because she had already been referred to a more local gym (Deerness) from the physio. She went for a guided tour there on Friday morning and really liked the look of it, so she is going to give that a go.

We have had some pain issues this week. Karen is on Fentanyl patches that we change every 2.5 days. Despite not over exerting herself this week, she has still been in a lot of pain and we have had to change the patches every 2 days instead of 2.5 days She is starting to fear that things are going to get worse rather than get better. But she is still very positive in her head and feels that it could be down to the cold weather we have had recently.

Marie came over on Tuesday and Adele came over on Thursday. Lots of jobs were done and kp enjoyed their company.

Saturday saw me in an extremely positive mood, and kp felt so much better for that, which is great. We attempted a walk of the dogs Saturday lunchtime, but the snow was thawing and there was a patch of ice leading to our normal dog walking area so I had to take Karen back and then walk them on my own.

Sleeping-wise, Karen has not been too clever. Most nights she has been up a good part of the night. Last night, she went to bed with me at 11pm, but got up at 1am and didn’t come back to bed until 8.30am ! All down to pain.

We had the idea last night of keeping her old patches on for a while whilst the new ones were kicking in, but she felt a bit woozy on double dosage, but no pain !!

Friday we went to the dentists in the morning. Normally, it’s me who ends up having to go back for fillings, but I got the all clear, whereas Karen has to go back for a filling. Wahey. kp always rubs it in when I have to go back for a filling and she has perfect teeth blah blah blah. So, obviously, I made it very clear who had to return for the filling. kp wasn’t happy !

Busy week for the week ahead ……

Monday – Physio
Tuesday – Rehab UK (in the afternoon), with a view to getting kp back to some sort of work (maybe voluntary)
Wednesday – Free
Thursday – Angela (other car crash victim coming over)
Friday – RVI in the afternoon

Also, kp got a letter through from her employer saying they are coming in March to terminate her employment – yikes. Also, she got a letter from the DVLA to say that she is going to be retested (not a normal  driving test) with an adapted car in May.

Pain remains an issue. We are still doing patches every 2 days.

Tuesday saw us go to rehab uk for a tour and an assessment. But it seems Karen had an eventful day before she even got there. It was disaster after disaster. She got up, had a shower, but couldn’t turn the shower fully off. She has a bit of gip with her right thumb and can’t seem to grip things too well. So, whilst she was getting changed, the drip drip drip of the shower was getting on her nerves. She couldn’t get her socks on, frustration was building, she couldn’t get her bra on, frustration was continuing to build.

She was running out of time before the taxi came. She had to forget her bra and put it into her handbag so I could do it when she got to Rehab UK. She tried to get her orange jumper on, but just couldn’t work out how to get into it. If an arm is inside out, she can’t work out orientation and how to fix it. She thought she had cracked it, and tried to get it on, but got stuck. She tried and tried to get the jumper off to start again. She said she was nearly in tears with the frustration. In the end, she realised she was going to get out of the jumper and had to cut herself out with scissors

Here is the remnants of the jumper….

When I said “Marie will be able to sew that back together”, Karen was NOT impressed.

So, not a good start to the day.

She forgot the money for the taxi, but thankfully, I just had enough when I met her there.

She was gagging for a fag by this time, but because she was late, we had to go straight in. Poor kp.

Anyway, we had a guided tour of rehab uk. They offer 2 programmes …..

• Vocational
• Community

The Vocational (or VOX as it was referred to) programme was for people who were looking to get back to paid work.

The Community programme is for people who want to reintegrate back into society more.

Following the tour, we spent an hour with the Clinical Psychologist (CP) who assessed Karen. It was quite a deep assessment, covering everything from

• the accident
• her schooling
• her work career
• her aptitudes
• her likes/dislikes
• her skills
• etc…
• etc.

Karen really struggled to take in all the information from the tour, and I think the assessment was one step too far. The end result was that the CP didn’t believe that the VOX course was right for Karen. Karen kinda knew this anyway. The community programme does things like show you how to take public transport, work your washing machine, manage your finances and Karen doesn’t really need those services, so really, for now, there is nothing Rehab UK can offer Karen.

That may change of course. If Karen wanted to do some voluntary work, Rehab UK would go into the prospective workplace and educate the staff there on Karen’s difficulties before she went to the workplace, so they didn’t think she was being lazy or “sleeping on the job”.

That’s it for this week so far…..

Pain, pain and more pain.

But, first….

Thursday saw a visit from Angela (fellow car crashee). It had been a while since they had seen each other and they had a really good chat. Angela kindly brought lunch – thanks Ange ! Generally a nice afternoon for kp.

Thanks to Angela for keeping the cutting from the newspaper about the guilty chap’s appeal. Here it is….. Click on it if it is unreadable (to make it full size).

Friday saw kp go to the gym. Just having had new pain patches on, she did 20 minutes of exercise and that’s when the hell started !!   She did a combination of bike and treadmill. In her own words, it “knacked her in”. She could hardly walk And her mood changed for the worse I met up with her on Friday afternoon at the RVI Newcastle where she was having another session with the Optician/Opthamologist chappy re contact lenses. She was walking VERY slowly

Early night on Friday. We were due to go to a birthday party on Saturday night. Karen’s brother-in-law’s 50th. It didn’t look too clever on Saturday morning – I walked the dogs as kp wasn’t up for it. But in the end, we had to rule it out, not only was the pain too much, but her mood was heading downwards. We watched Pokeface and then retired early.

Although I perhaps shouldn’t, I became Dr Pollard and prescribed kp an extra 25ug Fentanyl patch (on top of the existing 125ug Fentanyl). That meant she was on 150ug . She was also on Codeine and Diclofenac – we were throwing everything at the pain. It did help and Sunday saw her waking up with bearable pain. The weather was gorgeous and she came on a short walk with me and the dogs.

Sunday has seen her in bed most of the day (bar the walk) – it’s where the pain is most bearable. We have learned a lot this week.

Gyms are NOT right for Karen. They are too much too early, her hip/pelvis can’t handle it.  So, in the future, she is going to concentrate on short walks and not go over the top as she has done this week.

A quieter week this week for kp. Thank (insert your deity here) !

Mixed Week and a busy one too.

Monday saw Debs (ex work colleague and pretend friend (private joke)) come over. kp had made her some soup, Debs brought the bread.

Tuesday – a bloke came to service the bath hoist. We don’t really use it any more at the expense of my back. One of the problems with it is that when you are lowered into the bath fully, you are still 2 to 3 inches higher than you normally would be, so kp doesn’t get a good soaking. So, we have this new routine now. I help kp climb into the bath. She stands at the tap end, facing the taps. I stand in the bath facing her back. I grab her under her pits and she then falls backward, trusting me to lower her in. Going down is easy (pardon the expression). It’s the lift up, which really knacks, but it is much more beneficial for kp if she can have a good soaking.

The afternoon saw Adele and the kids (Abbie (10), Louisa (3)) come over (it was half term). I had them believing that the garage door worked on voice commands and they really enjoyed shouting “Open” and “Close” at the garage. Of course, when I got sick of pushing the button, I had to shout “Stay closed until I speak” at the garage, but they still kept shouting ! Was a good laff.

Abbie stayed over and accompanied Karen to the shops the following day (taxi). Karen had her contact lens in. She is using it daily to get used to it for the driving assessment in May. But she loses some peripheral vision by having it in, and apparently Karen knocked a display over in a shop and Abbie had to rebuild it.

We took her back on Wednesday and we went over to Marge’s to see Tracey, Mark and Megan who had come up for the week (from Southampton). It was lovely to see them. Here is a foto of kp and megan.

It turned out to be a late night. I think it was about 10.30pm when we left – after midnight, by the time we retired.

I have started feeding some swans and ducks at work before I have a fag. One day this week, the strangest bird appeared with very weird feet. Anyone got a clue what this is ?

Bad night’s sleep on Thursday for kp. Don’t think  she came to bed at all until 5am. Up with me at 7am and then had some catch up sleep during the day.

We got some Wimbledon Tickets through which is good.

Saturday morning – I got all the tiles off in the kitchen ready for the kitchen work starting this week. Here’s the kitchen minus tiles.

In the afternoon, we went to Redworth Hall with Nigel and Terry and Julie and Paul. (Nigel and Julie being work colleagues). It was a treat from work because we were unable (all of us) to go to the yearly financial-end management bash last November.

Redworth Hall is a lovely building. We arrived at about 3.30pm, just in time for the massage that kp had booked. I went in the pool and sauna while kp had her treatment. It was £26 and not half as good as Diane’s massage (the lady who normally does kp). Diane only charges £8 !

kp joined me in the pool. There was a cracking chair hoist to get kp in the pool. The water was a little too cold for kp but it was fine for everyone else. I bounced her round the pool twice before she wanted to get out and go in the jacuzzi, which was gorgeous. We retired for a cream tea.

Here’s kp at Redworth Hall.

We met up with the others for drinks and chat. The meal was “ok”. The steaks were overcooked. The service was poor. We had tea/coffee in the bar area. Karen was the only one on tea. They sent a small pot (enough for 2 cups of tea). It had FIVE teabags in it !! Julie had to wait an age for her baileys coffee. Everything was overpriced and the quality of service really let them down. Our reservation wasn’t ready on time. The staff left dirty dishes and glasses on the table. But, it didn’t stop us having a good time.

Paul and Karen retired early. Nige, Terry, Julie and I stayed up until 1am. I was bladdered and retired at 1am leaving the hard core drunks (Nige, Terry and Julie) to stay up another hour.

Cracking night.

Breakfast was great. The service was top notch and everything was cooked to perfection.

That’s pretty much this week summed up.

Healthwise, kp is taking a big downer. She described her mindset as “realising that her body was not only NOT going to get any better, but was in fact going to get worse.” Her body has been a wreck this week, her hip seems to really be packing in. Her pain is up. Normally, that would cause a big mood change in kp, and she feels like she should be going on a downer, but she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t (mentally). We both think it could be the anti-depressants stopping the low mood swing.

Thankfully, we have a visit next week with an independent orthopedic consultant (as part of the claim for damages), so we might be able to gleam from him why it is getting worse.

That’s enough for now.

This week, Karen is seeing a doctor about her industrial injury benefit (Monday) and has a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday.

Just a quick note to those that have had problems posting on the blog. I have sussed out why. I had forgotten to approve the comments. A while ago I changed the blog so that all blog comments have to be approved. This was because the blog was being used for people advertising porn websites etc….

To give you an idea how bad it was. Of the 1072 comments left, I could only spot 5 to be approved. Sorry to Sue, Debs and whoever else was affected. I will remember to check more often !!

Well, a bit of a heartbreaking and eventful end to the weekend.

From the moment she got up this morning, she had been in pain. Nothing too unusual there, especially given that it was patch changeover time this morning. We figured it would get better, but sadly, it got worse, MUCH worse.

We had a snooze in the early afternoon, and kp got up out of bed really struggling to walk. As the afternoon wore on, she could no longer walk more than a couple of steps. Finally, she was midway across the hall, and she froze unable to move. The wheelchair was in the garage, so I had to resort to one of the study chairs (with wheels) to get her to her destination (front room). She was in so much pain, she couldn’t even get out of the wheely chair. An attempt to get out of the chair resulted in shrieks from kp. I could feel the pain her shrieks were so gutteral. At this point, she burst into tears.

kp:- What am I going to do ?

She didn’t mean “shall we go to hospital ?” or “should we have a cup of tea ?”. She meant “How could she go on in life like this ?”

I couldn’t help but cry with her. I was so upset, she was so upset – it was horrid.

dp :- We’ll have to go to A+E love.

Which we duly did. We set off at about 8pm. I got the wheelchair out of the garage, tore off the Easyjet tags (last time we used it) and brought it to her. She couldn’t stand on her own, and I had to resort to the old routine of getting her in and out of the chair. The turns that I had learnt back in 2005 were once again deployed, but this time, there were squeals of anguish pouring from Karen at every move I made on her. I have never seen her so racked with pain since the accident and that is saying something.

You can imagine how hard it must have been for her having to go from the wheelchair into the car, from the car to the wheelchair etc….

Once in the chair, she was ok. By ok, I mean she was still in pain, but not enough to warrant the screams that movements brought on.

We saw the triage nurse and were classified as “urgent”, which was good, it meant only waiting an hour !

When our ticket came up, we were took into an examination room, and we had to get kp onto a hospital bed. This bed didn’t go any lower that the setting it was on, which was higher than kp’s bum. How ridiculous !! I had to lift her onto the bed whilst she screamed in pain (heart breaking). The Doctor came and did loads of things that made her scream more. He put a venflon in and gave her 3mg Morphine (which is nowt), but it did help a little. It didn’t help make the moves painfree, but it did make it so that when she laid down she wasn’t in as much pain.

The Doctor was reluctant to give her any more than minimal amounts of Morphine because she is on 150ug worth of Fentanyl patches, and an overdose of opiates can cause the heart to stop apparently. A tricky balance for sure.

95% of the time was spent waiting around. Between our arrival and 3am here is what happened.

• Examination by Doctor
• Morphine
• X-Ray
• More Morphine (at Karen’s request)
• Loo Trip (nightmare)
• Fag Trip (nightmare)
• More morphine
• Arrival of Orthopod Doctor.

He told us that Karen had a fracture and did we know if it was a new fracture or an old fracture ?!?!?! The historical x-rays were at Sunderland, so they didn’t know the history. I described how I remember the old x-ray looking ie there was a bit of bone chipped off. He asked me to look at the x-ray and identify if what he was looking at was present on the old x-rays. I told him I thought it was there on the previous x-rays but couldn’t be sure. I told him there was a photo of the old x-rays on the blog. He went off to find it, but couldn’t find it because this website wasn’t a permitted website for the NHS and therefore couldn’t be browsed.

There were so many tears throughout the whole evening. She was dreading, absolutely DREADING, staying overnight in a hospital again. But, with the pain so bad, and being unable (without accompanying agony) to get in/out of the wheelchair, she knew deep down that it was the right thing to do.

At about 2.30am, she was told that she would be admitted and that the consultant would advise how best to proceed. She is Nil By Mouth, in case they have to operate in the morning.

I left her in a comfy position, eyes closed, absolutely knackered, so fingers crossed that they come up with a good action plan in the morning. Our worst fears are that they will say there is nothing they can do and pack her home with a bottle of Oramorph. I can’t see how they could as she can’t even stand, let alone walk or transfer from chair to bed.

It’s 9.15am. Just got off the phone from the hospital.  Karen has had a comfortable(ish) night. She is ok pain-wise as long as she doesn’t move. The consultant has done his rounds -  apparently he is sending her for an ultra-sound and an MRI scan today to work out what the best Plan of Action is. His options are to either …

1. Pin and plate the fracture or
2. Do a full hip replacement

We’ll know later today hopefully.

Am off to drop her bits and bobs in after I have had a shower etc…

Day 666 eh (yikes).

Well, kp had had a comfortable night’s sleep when I dropped off her bits and bobs at 10.30am. The pain was “uncomfortable” but if she moved, it was agony.

I spent 10 minutes with her, before I went on to work. Returning for visiting hours (2pm-3pm), she was asleep when I arrived. I think the previous night really took it out of her. Marie arrived shortly after I did. Here are Marie and Karen in full gas mode ….

She was due her scans in the afternoon. I left at 3.15pm and headed back to work, but at Chester-le-Street I had second thoughts. I was too tired (only had 3 hours sleep last night) and turned back. I went to bed after doing an hour’s work at home.

Up at 6.30pm, I went back in for evening visiting (7pm-8pm). I was greeted by this sight…..

What made me laugh even more is that when I got closer, she had chewing gum in her mouth. Bless !

Still knackered. She was asleep most of my visit, but I didn’t take it too personally. If anyone would like to visit kp, feel free during the visiting hours above. She’d love to see you. Or you can have a chat with her on her bedside phone (07040227581). It costs an arm and a leg per minute (be warned).

No scans at all. She is on a catheter now as the pain involved in getting on a bedpan is too much. Fingers crossed, they do scans tomorrow and we know when the op is going to be.

Just heard from kp. The doctor has been round and she definately has a new fracture since the x-ray in January 2007. What the doctor couldn’t believe is how she has managed to walk on it and that she was unaware of a moment when it could have happened ie a fall. She has had no falls, and the only thing we can think of is the bicycle exercises at the gym which she felt were a bit strange.

So, they will deffo be operating, but which operation we don’t know yet.

dp

kp in good form tonight. Starting to fret a bit about the pending op. We are still none the wiser about when and which op, but we suspect full hip replacement and tomorrow, but could be wrong on both counts.

Marie came over today and helped (with Margo and Joan) clear out the kitchen of everything ready for the kitchen fitters tomorrow. She also took delivery of over 150 boxes (the new kitchen).

Thanks to Margo, Joan and Marie for all their hard work.

Marie and I went over to visit for the evening. The time whizzed past. Sue (Brady) came to visit which was nice, bringing flowers and grapes. Thanks Sue. Whilst Sue was here, we were talking about what could have brought the fracture on. And kp thinks it was some exercise she did on a bike at the gym. Marie then piped up that she had reread the last few weeks blog and thats indeed when things started to deteriorate.

We think the final straw is when I was putting her in the bath on Sunday ( to ease the mounting pain) and she couldn’t get her right foot over the bath rim, so I helped it and she thinks that was the bit where it broke. In other words, I broke my wife’s hip.

I don’t think she is pressing charges, but you never know after the little spat we had at afternoon visiting. I couldn’t concentrate, I kept getting distracted by goings on around the ward. kp was none too happy. And I nearly stormed out, and she would have if she could have. anyway, we patched it up. I threatened to break her other hip and she soon towed the line.