Not the best of weeks.

Sleep and Pain remain the predominant issues and they are becoming bigger as each week passes.
First of all, pain.

Karen has been having about 350ug of Fentanyl an hour. We normally apply 250 patches on the 1st day, and then on the 3rd day, we give her a 100 patch top up. This is the cycle we have been doing for about 2 weeks. We went to see the doctor this week to reflect this upp’ed dosage, but unfortunately, the maximum Fentanyl is supposed to be 300

Obviously, this is a concern, as the patch dosage has been on the up for the past 2 years, and we are kind of at the limit

The prescription now allows us to apply 300-strength patches every 3 days. Karen has the morphine tablets for top-up pain relief and we will just have to see how we go, but we are both concerned about where we will be heading over the months/years ahead.

The biggest issue to Karen at the moment is sleep, or lack of it.

Last night for example, she didn’t come to bed AT ALL. She is knackered now, and will be going to snooze shortly (4pm when I write this), but then she won’t sleep tonight. She was supposed to be going to see family in Marske tomorrow, but she has had to knock that on the head, because she knows she will be knackered. With that comes a lot of guilt for Karen, ‘cos she had to miss the recent family gathering as well.
Today, we went to Tesco and TK-Maxx to look for some suitcases, but no sooner had we arrived than we had to come home because she was having cold sweats and felt out of sorts.

So, kp not in a good place at the moment.
On top of all that, she has been trying to sleep by taking 3 Zopiclone on a night. It leaves a metal taste in her mouth and she hates it, but it’s the only way she can get some zzzzz’s. On friday of this week, she woke up and rang me and she was talking gobbledygook for the first 5 minutes. I was very concerned. I was having to tell her (over the phone) what to do to get ready for the shopping trip with Marie.

dp:- So, here’s what you need to do. Get in the shower, put your clothes on, dry your hair, and then wait for Alan (taxi-driver) to pick you up).

kp:- Are you not drying my hair ?

dp:- No, I am at work love. Remember, I sellotaped the hair dryer onto the mirror for you. (kp left the hair dryer stand on her recent hols).

Very sad. The good news is it all went to plan and she met up with Marie to go shopping.

Saturday (yesterday) wasn’t the best of days. I am pretty sure it is the Zopiclone or the lack of sleep, but Karen is so irritable at the moment. I say Black, she says White. Quite hard to live with (to say the least).

But, she apologised this morning which was nice. Roll on the Egypt holiday.

Sleep and Pain remain the predominant issues. Karen has had some contact this week with a rehab consultant, who sent a letter to her advising her of the do’s and don’ts of sleep problems.

Drink lots of water during the day, no caffeine drinks close to bed time, no watching tv if she gets up in the night, and the most important one, don’t stay in bed if you can’t sleep, as you’ll associate not being able to sleep with bed. Hit a chord that one for both of us. She has tried all of the above this week, and although she had one good night (not good, by most people’s reckoning), it remains an issue.

She has been going for a short walk each day to try and tire her out as well.

Part of the new routine with Adele is to take the dogs out when she comes over (3x a week).

Karen did a Tesco (online) shop this week. First (and probably last) time doing it on her own. I think we totted up 6 items which she had ordered incorrectly….

Butter (Right type, 1/4 of the normal size !)
Orange Juice (No pulp, and half the normal size)
Crumpets (enough to supply Esh Winning for 2 weeks)
Bacon (wrong type, not enough)
A 5-pack of Fusion razors turned out to be 1 fusion razor pack (£10)
I can’t remember the 6th, but not a successful shop.

We had a good Saturday yesterday, lovely walk with the dogs, nice snooze in the afternoon.

Today, mum and dad made the trip up from Lancashire and we went to the Royal County for lunch. It was nice to see them.

kp is now knackered and snoozing. No doubt, she won’t get much sleep tonight.

Unfortunately, I have had to switch off the ability to post comments on the blog. Last week, there were 245 blog comments awaiting approval. I got through about 50 and they were all spam. Sorry if anyone has tried a legit blog comment. If you want to discuss the blog, please email Karen direct at kp at karen-pollard.com. Thanks

Little funny I forgot to record in last week’s blog.

Mum and Dad came up for Sunday lunch. Dad was telling us a story about mum discussing with their friends about a recent trip abroad. When asked which airline they flew with, she meant to say “Lufthansa”, but her reply was …..

Mum :- Luftwaffe

Sleep has been _marginally_ better this week for kp, and we have the pain nicely in check. So, that’s good. kp arranged for the carpets to be cleaned this week, and she went on a shopping trip with Adele to view some blinds. The weather wasn’t too good when she went, and the heavens opened. kp wanted a fag, and a nice lady said kp could have a fag in her shop entrance. kp ended up buying £50 worth of soap from the lady !!! Expensive fag !

Yesterday, kp slept a lot, but we had an “ok” day. Today has been better, and we went to the Metro Centre for a few errands. One of the errands was to get Karen an eternity ring, something I promised a while back, but we never got round to it…..Sorry about the blurred photo. kp was pleased.

Another errand was to get a couple of webcams for our neighbours Tommy and Eileen. Their son, Keith, and his family are emigrating to Australia on Tuesday, and we thought a webcam each would be a good pressy to allow them to keep in touch. It went down well.

So, good little outing.

kp is a bit knackered now.

She is starting to get a bit fidgety about her future (or as she sees it, a lack of it), so we are going to need to work on that.

More frustrations this week with the solicitor. Still not delivering on his promise to be upto date with communications. We told them weeks ago to get a Case Manager (for Karen) organised. No communications at all this week, until we prompted them.What is a Case Manager ? Well, it’s someone who handles all the parties to get the right care in place for Karen. We are led to believe he (Syd is our one, we haven’t meant him yet) will arrange house help, occupational therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, psychiatry, physiotherapy, etc etc etc….. It sounds great, and should get kp back on track so she feels more in control of her life. At the moment, she relies heavily on family and friends to get out and about. This may bring back a feeling of independance or that is the hope.

Anyhoo……..It turns out the Case Manager was waiting on formal direction from the solicitor. The solicitor hadn’t even sent a letter formally directing him. It makes me very angry and I have had to hold back on the expletives. We are paying them a f+cking fortune, and they show piss poor performance. This is holding back on the expletives !!

I am that close to going to some other solicitor.

kp’s sleep and pain issues remain, although not as bad as previous weeks. She loves her new eternity ring. She is looking forward to visiting Egypt with me next week and some hot weather, which eases her stiffness etc….

Marie and Glenn returned from their holiday this week and came through to see kp. That was a nice visit. We went to the doctors on wednesday or thursday to try and up the patches to 300 Fentanyl but every 2 days instead of 3. No joy. They wouldn’t go any higher She is doing 300 every 2 days anyway, and we will carry on with that until they cotton on that we are asking for quite a lot of repeat prescriptions. Instead, he has referred her to the Pain clinic. So, we are in the process of booking that appointment at the moment.

Nice weekend. Jobbed on today, and had a nice family day yesterday. Here are some fotos of the family members we saw…..

Abby and Louisa

Edna (joining us at the table for a chat)

Jake (at the table)

We slept in separate beds friday and saturday night to see if it would help kp’s sleep. It did on Friday, but not so much last night – so we’re back together now.

It’s been the longest gap in the blog, but with good reason, we have been on our hols. That accounts for 2 of the weeks, the third I have been mostly on the loo, feeling like death warmed up and the blog was the last thing on my mind.

So, let’s go back 3 weeks in time.

Sunday 7th October was the first day of our holiday. Flight from Newcastle to Sharm-Al-Sheikh (Egypt). The flight was awful. Crammed into our seats, we suffered 5+ hours with kids wailing in the seat behind and not being able to hit them of course adds to one’s frustration. Karen takes the ambulift to the plane, and we had noticed another couple (similar ages to ourselves) riding it as well. But there was much chance for chit chat as it was a short ride to the plane. When we landed, we saw this couple (David and Helen) again as the ambulift took us to the baggage reclaim and we got chatting. It turns out Helen was also involved in an accident. She had broken her back in a boating accident in Thailand. She suffers a lot of pain and within no time we were all comparing medications. Helen was on oramorph for her pain, Karen told Helen about the Fentanyl patches. Dave takes paracetamol for his headaches and I take Solpadeine

Anyway, we got on very well on the short ambulift ride, and then when it came to saying “goodbyes”, it turned out we were all staying at the same hotel. We travelled in a convoy of limousines (as they call them, cars to us) to the hotel together. The hotel and resort complex is huge, something like 8 sq km. Dave and Helen were staying in the Resort Complex somewhere, and we were in the hotel. Suffice to say, arriving at the “hotel” doesn’t mean the end of your journey. For Dave and Helen, it was a further 20 minutes while the HOTEL STAFF tried to find their villa !! It was a short hotel internal taxi ride to the hotel reception for kp and I. We bade our farewells to Dave and Helen, doing the usual “see you around”. It’s that weird situation where you kinda want to meet up again for dinner and time together, but you don’t want to force yourself on another couple who may just want some privacy etc…..As it turned out, we would be seeing a lot of Dave and Helen on the holiday and we now have a friendship that will probably carry on back in the UK, which is great.

Here’s a quick piccy so blogreaders can put names to faces….

We had Room service dinner on the first night, it was very good, and things looked promising on the food front for the rest of the holiday. How wrong we could be !!! By the way, it was the Sheraton Sharm we were staying at (a supposed 5 star hotel).

On the first day, we were dropping some stuff off at reception, when we bumped into Dave and Helen again ! The chances of this were very slim, because their reception was a different reception. Uncanny. Anyhoo. We had some drinks together and some fags (we all smoke) and enjoyed some good banter.

Up until this point, the plan for the holiday was for me to spend the first week of the holiday with kp so she knew her way around, and then from the Saturday onwards for me to take a 4-day Open Water Diving Course, and do a 1-day boat trip set of dives some day before we go home. Dave and Helen were only there for the first week. Dave is already a fully qualified Scuba Diver (to the highest level), so his plans were to do some dives when Helen was feeling ok. I think it was Helen who suggested that I swap my diving course for the first week, so that she and Karen could be company for each other and the boys could do their thang.

It was a great idea.

I started my diving course the next day. It was a mixture of classroom, confined water dives (deep swimming pool) and open water dives (the best bit). Here’s me on a confined water dive with my group and our instructor Chico.

The arrangement worked out great for everyone Helen and Karen would be gassing on sun loungers close to the dive centre. I would go out and meet them at breaks. Dave was enjoying his diving at various dive sites. I think the first day took it out of Karen though. Karen isn’t used to much company and because of the head injury, following conversations generally can be tiring. On the first day, she spent the whole day gassing with Helen, and on that night she was ABSOLUTELY shattered. I think it’s the first good night’s sleep she has had for ages. It sounds like it was “good for Karen”, but it wasn’t, so future days, she went for a snooze in the afternoons and felt much better for that.

The temperature whilst we were away was absolutely perfect !! About 30′c to 35′c during the day at a guess, and the coldest would have been about 20′c in the middle of the night. It was gorgeous. The hotel was magnificent, but the food was atrocious (apart from the room service, bizarrely). After 7 days, I sent a 4 page letter to the General Manager complaining about the food and being specific about what was wrong, hoping it would improve for the 2nd week, but it didn’t and he DIDN’T EVEN REPLY !!! But, the hotel was lovely. Here’s the view from our room…..

And here’s Karen on one of the corridors with Tiran Island just visible in the distance.

The sea temperature was also beautiful at 28′C. One of the things Karen enjoys about being in a warmer clime is that her pain becomes a lot more manageable and takes a less pain relief to keep in check. We picked Egypt specifically because of its temperature at this time of the year.

After the second day’s diving training, we all hooked up for a meal at one of the hotel’s 7 restaurants (The Italian). Karen had read good reviews, but we weren’t impressed. My Calzone was cold, and Karen’s meat tough. But it was good company.

Here are some pictures of me diving.

Here is me (photo by Dave) taken after a confined water dive…..

Here’s me underwater…… This photo cost me a beer…….

And this one cost me two…..

Divers will know why. In my defence, this was my FIRST open water dive.

The photos were taken by one of the dive school staff and he also took some of some of the wildlife we saw………Diving in the Red Sea is an AMAZING experience. We really saw the following…..

I can’t remember what these are called. Dave will let me know.

These are lionfish. Commonly seen in ones and twos, but we saw 5 together

I think this is a crocodile fish, that right Dave ?

So, the routine so far was, breakfast at about 8.30am (buffet style with pitiful tea/coffee service), meander down to the beach, reserve 4 loungers close to the dive centre. Karen would await Helen’s arrival (or I would pick Helen up from the room if Dave was diving). Helen’s accident was 18 months ago, but she can only walk short distances, so the half a mile from her villa to the beach was best in her wheelchair. In a way, it was great for Karen and Helen to be able to share their stories, but it was a shame they were so similar, as if one of them had been more mobile, they could have pushed the other around various local attractions, as it was, they both were restricted to the beach really, but thankfully, they got on great.

I would pop over for a beer and fag when we had a diving break. On the last night before the final day of the course, I did some revision as there was a final test, but I needn’t have worried as it wasn’t too taxing.

One some of the days of my course, Dave wasn’t on a dive trip, so he would entertain the ladies. He took them for a paddle, and according to karen “really looked after me”. Karen and water go together like fish and desert. But he took Helen and Karen in so they could have a look at the fish. Even in the shallow water, you could sea the most beautiful coloured fish just by standing up. They would come up and swim through your legs. I think Helen even got pecked by them. Here is a good photo, taken by Dave. He had escorted them in to waist height water, left kp attached to Helen and then took this photo….

On friday, I completed the course and had promised kp that we would go snorkelling on the Saturday. Helen had suggested Dave and I go for a dive now I was “qualified” to swim in Open Water. So in the morning, Karen, Dave, Helen and I went snorkelling off the beach. Dave looked after Helen and I did kp. The tricky thing was that the water was so shallow (the tide was out). So, it must have been just above knee height, but how do you get Karen to get her mask underwater and see the fish. It was a real struggle and she was very scared and there were quite a few tears as we tried it. She SOOOOO wanted to do it, but initially, she couldn’t get the confidence to trust me to get her horizontal. Eventually we cracked it, and she started wildly me tapping my leg. I thought she was scared so yanked her out of the water.

kp:- What did you do that for ? I could see LOADS of fish.

dp:- Sorry, I thought you were scared and wanted to get out of there.

We worked on a signalling system after that, but it never worked, and I just had to try and guess what she was signalling.

The good news is that she experienced some of the wonder that I had seen over the past few days. We vowed to do more snorkelling before the holiday was up.

We had to leave it there, as they were blowing whistles from the side to say “come in”. Think they were concerned we would damage the coral.

That afternoon, Dave and I went diving together off the Hotel Reef. Here’s me and Dave (photo courtesy of Canadian John, thanks John)…..

That night (Dave and Helen’s last night), we all went to Na’ama Bay (big touristy spot). We had an absolutely cracking night after the first of many HORRENDOUS car journeys. Since the accident, Karen understandably always travels in the front passenger seat. So, Dave, Helen and I were in the back. Egyptian driving is unbelievable. On dual carriageways the lane dividing lines mean nothing. They overtake on both sides of each other and often hover on the white line while driving THREE abreast !!! ALL THIS WITH THEIR LIGHTS OFF in the dark !! I kid you not. The logic for putting the lights on seemed to be. “Put the lights on if I think the car coming straight for me hasn’t seen me”. It wasn’t just our taxi driver who did this, but ALL OF THE DRIVERS drove with their lights off. Until this day, I still don’t understand why. None of them spoke good enough english to explain why they do this. By the time we got there, Karen was in a bit of a state. She was making the odd screaming noise on the way there. We all felt so sorry for her and had to keep our screams to ourselves so as not to panic her more.

Anyway…..Once there…..

We started off with some Sheeshka Pipe Smoking (HubblyBubbly), something kp and I would never have done)…..

Here are Dave, Helen and kp sat on the floor (virtually), getting ready to enjoy the cool smoke……….

Here is kp taking a puff

We had a nice and cheap meal at some restaurant and then headed back to the hotel.

The following day we met up again with Helen and Dave at the beach, but then they had to leave for their flight at 4pm.

So, then it was just kp and I.

Thanks for a lovely time Helen and Dave. We are looking forward to meeting up back in the UK

So, first day on our own, kp was keen to see the local area. She wanted to go to Old Sharm. It was dirty and very touristy. No sooner had we arrived than we were ushered into someone’s shop (a friend of the taxi driver, amazing

Shopkeeper :- Come into my shop. My shop is my home, and in Egypt, when we welcome people into our home, we offer them refreshments. Would you like some tea/coffee/sprite/coke ?

Well, I was well up for this. I knew it was a con, but it was funny and wanted the journey of it.

dp :- Yes please

kp:- SCOWL OF SCORN

We got a tea and coffee (in beautiful egyptian _plastic cups_).

Shopkeeper :- There is no need to buy anything. You are our guests. This is our family company and we sell aromas (or some word like that).

dp :- Perfume

Shopkeeper (SCOWLING) :- No, not perfume, this is pure incense (or whatever word he used)……

He went through all the perfumes from the UK, and allowed us to smell his equivalent, which we struggled to see the likeness of.

Anyway, 20 minutes later, and kp was dropping big hints for us to go, we ended up paying £25 for 5oz of some perfume just to get out of the shop.

The shop owner then proceeded to follow us ALL the way around Old Sharm. We couldn’t wait to get out of there.

At the end of the market, he wanted to call us a specific taxi, but it would be 20 minutes. Well, there was nee way kp was waiting 20 minutes for a taxi, so I just flagged one down and got the hell out of there.

Horrible experience.

We went on the beach for a bit in the afternoon and then had room service for tea (a safe meal).

Tuesday we went swimming with the dolphins. Something Karen has always wanted to do. It was expensive at over £220 (for the 2 of us) but money well spent. The water wasn’t as warm as the sea, and felt like it was about 5′C, but was probably about 20′C. We got in and stroked the dolphins and they gave us a ride around the pool, all you had to do was to hold on (even with one hand) to the dorsel fin. The dolphins were so clever. If you held on with one hand, they went slower than if you held on with one (which is all kp could do), but to start with she just didn’t feel confident enough to do it. They then got us to swim over the other side of the pool (I dragged kp in her life vest), cling on to the side and the dolphin came over and waited for you to grab its fin and then it swam you over. I did it first and it was great, apart from my trunks coming off. The dolphins probably just thought it was some sort of huge eel and weren’t phased. I then had to swim all the way back to kp as she wasn’t coming over on her dolphin. She started to get upset, she SOOOO wanted to do it, but wasn’t confident enough to hold on. I rode the dolphin again back over……

and asked the trainer if he could pull 2 people. Obviously Stephen couldn’t (that was the name of our dolphin). But, the trainer said if she held with one hand, he would go slowere.

Here is kp before she got upset, unable to grab the dolphin…..

So, I swam all the way back again (knackered by this time) and tried to coax kp to do it, and sure enough she did and loved it. Here she is…..

Here is Steven and Karen kissing…..

A thoroughly enjoyable hour and one of kp’s dreams fulfilled….

In the afternoon, we went snorkelling again, and this time got kp fully horizontal. She loved it.

Wednesday, we started with a morning of pampering in the Health Spa before leaving in the afternoon for “A Night with the Bedouins”.

We both went in the Hydro Pool which had jets for all the parts of your body, and then went for a LOVELY massage.

The Bedouin night followed, what a cracking excursion that was. We head off into the desert away from the security of Sharm-Al-Sheikh (there were police and army everywhere) and drove for 30 minutes. We saw wild camel on the way there and when we got there it was SOOOO quiet and there were about 30 Bedouin people and about 60 camels. I tried to get Karen to go on a camel, but I am so pleased she saw sense and she would have been thrown off for sure. If she had managed to get on one of the beasts, her hips would have been done in by the end of the 20 minute ride up the hill. My hips were buggered and they aren’t anywhere near as bad as kp’s.

Karen went back on the coach and the driver really looked after her and took her to our destination (the Bedouin tents). My camel was tied to pair that were being lead by a 10 year old Bedouin girl.

Here’s me and my camel……

We had been told not to give them much money at the end of the trip. The least I had were £10 notes (equivalent). We had also been told that the kids loved sweets. You couldn’t half tell by their teeth. When we finally dismounted, my girl put a hand-made bit of lace around my arm and held out her hand for some cash. I explained that my wife had my money. Blimey, she wasn’t happy about that. So, I handed her some fox’s glacier fruits (my last ones as well). She wasn’t happy with that, so I found some chewing gum and gave her that as well, and then walked off. Yikes.

I met up with kp, and we sat on these large rugs for some Bedouin Tea. It was hot and VERY sweet, and just about palatable.

Here is kp as the sun was going down……

After the tea, we had a lovely meal, cooked by the Bedouins, and then went back on the coach to go star-gazing. You could see LOADS of stars (no light pollution here) and they had also set up some BIG telescopes so you could see various things. Our coach arrived first, so we had no queues as you looked into these telescopes and saw Vega, some other planets, but the most remarkable thing through the telescope was the moon. You could see all the craters in glorious 3D. Wonderful. Once all the other coaches had arrived, an astronomer who REALLY knew his stuff gave a very entertaining description of the night’s sky. What a great day and night !!

The following day, I had booked for a day’s boat diving at Ras Mohammed (apparently one of the best diving sites in the world). Karen spent the day at the beach sunbathing and catching up on her books. My day was absolutely awesome. I met up with some really nice people and had what must class as the best day of my life. The diving was incredible. We did 3 dives. As an open water diver, the deepest you can go is 18m, but most of the best stuff is in this 18m anyway, so I didn’t feel like I was missing out. On the first dive, we went to 5m, entered a cave, swam through it exiting at 9m. I saw the most amazing fish and was dead proud that I found an Octopus hiding. I pointed this out to my buddy. He was well chuffed.

On the second dive, I thought I saw a school of shark, but they turned out to be Barracuda. We were close to the land and there were folds of land where the sea met the land. They call them chimneys. We were at about 15m, and you could look up and see the sunlight shining down through this chimney with loads of fish between you and the surface (wish I had a camera).

The best dive of the day for me was the last one. Here is a photo of the site……

I took this photo because I thought it would show how clear the water was. you could see from top to bottom, but it’s not obvious from the photo.

It was like the bonus dive (for some extra money) and my expectations were low, cos of the amazing things I had seen on the previous dives, but it was FANTASTIC.

It was the place all the boats came before they went back to the harbour. So in effect, you ended up swimming beneath the boats (this was a first, as on previous dives, the boat dropped you off and motored away from the coral). But here, you were swimming under the boats with shoals of fish between you and the boat. Amazing, sometimes the boats would be moving and you could clearly see their dual props hammering away.

Then the best bit, I caught sight of this strange boat with big windows underwater. It took me a few seconds to realise that it was the tourist submarine thing where non-divers can see the fish. When I realised this, I started waving and then all of a sudden, I saw loads of flashes go off and loads of people waving back. Awesome. I was thinking that it was amazing, but they were probably thinking “Look, there’s a diver waving at us”.

Fantastic.

What a cracking day.

I spent all night telling Karen all about it.

I met a nice couple called Hilary and Denis (from ireland) and she took some photos of me and said she would email them, so if she manages to email them, I will add some more photos in.

Friday, we went to Na’ama Bay in the day and had a horrid time. We missed you Dave and Helen. The journey was awful again and we had the “Come into my home” experience again. And that night, I had what turned out to be the best meal but the worst of the holiday. It was at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was gorgeous, but I had the meal that gave me food poisoning. It was in the form of a Beef Burger. They asked me how do I want it cooked. I normally say “Rare”, but I thought it’s Egypt, better say “Medium”. I should have asked for cremated. That meal ended the holiday for me, as I had the worst sh+ts I have ever had. And I felt awful. Headache, bad stomach cramps and the loosest bowels possible. If I blinked too heavily, I had gone to the loo !!!

The one thing I am grateful for is that I wasn’t sick. I hate being sick. And although the stomach cramps were bad and made me feel nauseous, I knew I wasn’t going to be sick.

So, the last full day, was spent entirely in the hotel room, mostly asleep as was Sunday, where we had to hang around for our 7pm flight. The flight home was torturous. Even the wait for the flight was bad. Loads of loo trips, and NO TOILET ROLL !!!! I’ll not tell you how I solved that one !!

Here is kp at the airport. She caught me taking a photo and then shut her eyes again for this photo…..

It was great to be home, but it’s now a week on from when we got home. I haven’t been to work, and have had a truly awful week. The sh+ts continue, the cramps have just started to ease off, but I still can’t eat big meals, and no matter what I eat, I immediately am back on the loo after the food. The main problem I have now, a week on, is that I haven’t really eaten anything, so the smallest walk tires me out, and my legs physically ache.

I got the results of my sample back, and they show nothing that can be treated with anti-biotics. I was annoyed at that. I had to wait 4 days for the results, and I was hoping it to say what was wrong, and that this tablet will make you better, but the doctor just says that he gets this ALL the time with people who have been to Egypt. It can go on for 2-3 weeks !!!!! I do feel it’s getting better, but I don’t want another week of this.

So, in summary, we both had a fantastic holiday. The hotel was great, but the HOTEL FOOD WAS VERY POOR. There was a waiter on the beach, that once he understood that Karen and Helen struggled to walk REALLY looked after them, bringing them drinks even when they hadn’t asked for them, which was great !! (Thanks Adel). Diving amazing, Company great !!!

Shame about the shits !

A cracking week this week, but not without tears.

I tentatively went back to work this week. It wasn’t without the odd trip to the smallest room in the building whilst holding everything in. Happy days.

I had asked my boss to keep me on light duties as I still felt very weak, but by Wednesday I was cooking on gas.

Work is a great tonic to take your mind off things and I feel sure I got better quicker because of it. I am now back to 100%. I do think Karen would benefit from something to keep HER mind occupied. We are a step closer this week to getting that.

So, what’s happened…..Well….For quite a while, we have been getting very frustrated with our solicitor. He has been uncommunicative on a big scale. I chased a couple of things this week and he said he had already informed us of these things. Well, I knew we had had no letter. I double-checked my email and there was nothing. I asked him how he had communicated these things, and I had no reply. Final Straw in my book.

So, we found a local solicitor who specialises in Brain Injuries and appointed her. She visited the same day we rang her on a night time (in her own time). On the first day alone, we had 2 emails from her !! The day after she came, we had a letter, so it looks very promising. This might seem a petty thing to blog readers, but I can’t emphasise enough how stressed we were both getting with our old solicitor. AND….to add insult to injury, he wanted payment as we went along, whereas the new one, doesn’t require any payment as we go along.

One of the frustrations we had was that we had found out about people called Case Managers. They sounded like the answer to all of our problems, namely, someone who specifically looks at Karen’s needs to get her better, and coordinates all the parties to achieve this. It must be about 4 months ago (if not longer) that we told the solicitor about this. We had stressed how important this was etc etc…… 4 months is too long !

Anyway, one day this week, Syd (the case manager) came for his first proper visit (he had been before the hols to introduce himself to Karen), but this was the real thing. I took the morning off work.

He was here nearly 4 hours wanting to know all about kp from birth to present day and how her accident has changed her life. He had asked Karen to compile a list of all the goals she would like to achieve. Blimey, she did a cracking job. There must have been about 20. Some more achievable than others, but Syd discounted none of them.

He had also asked her to complete a diary of what her days consist of. They were quite skewed for the first week, as I was rough-as-a-dog and throwing kp out of routine, but the second week (this week), was more accurate.

We could tell Syd was quite taken aback at how little kp has going on in her life and how bad her sleeping patterns were.

But, the good news is that he is going to compile a report summarising the state of affairs and recommending to the solicitor what courses of action need to happen.

Both Karen and I were over the moon after his visit. To end a cracking day, the solicitor visited on the nighttime (as discussed previously) and it felt like everything had come right all on the same day !

On that night, Karen woke up at about 2am, and was very upset. We got up and went outside for a fag. She was upset, because I think she realises there is going to be a lot more hard work required from her to get to the next stage of “better”. She also felt that Syd may feel she has been slacking recently. I tried to reassure her that Syd himself had said that in 9 cases out of 10, motivation is one of the key things affected by a brain injury. Anyway, she felt a lot better after I reassured her that the biggest fight is over, and that she will enjoy the next bit and that Syd doesn’t feel she has been slacking !!

So, all is good in the Pollard Hood. Well, apart from the damn fireworks going off. The dogs are petrified. We were hoping to get together with Dave and Helen (from the Egypt holiday), but we couldn’t leave the dogs, and I expect they couldn’t leave their cats, so it will have to be another week.

Not the best of weeks this week. Karen has been having what is probably best described as “flashbacks”. She gets stuck in a mindset where she can’t think about anything but the accident. She relives what little she can remember of the aftermath of the crash. With this comes a lot of upset and major distraction is needed to pull her out of it.

I think we had 2 episodes of flashbacks this week.

Wednesday saw the physio and OT (Occupational Therapist) visit this week. Karen had expressed an interest in getting into the bath on her own. We have a chair-lift, but kp even struggles to get over the sides of the bath, and the chair-lift leaves her quite a bit out of the water – not as nice as an experience by far. So, what we tend to do is I help kp into the bath, I stand in the bath with her and lower her down. We have it down to a tee and I feel it is pretty safe. The hard bit is lifting her from sitting to standing when she wants to get out.

Anyhow…..kp understandably doesn’t like to have to rely on my help and would sometimes like a bath in the day if her pain is bad – hence the physios came to offer their advice. So….

This was all done with no water in the bath, which is good because it is non-slip, but then you don’t have the benefit of the water taking some of the weight.

Step 1 was to get into the bath. They came up with a method to get her into the bath. It involved kp sitting on the side of the bath and leaning back so that she could get her legs over (one by one). It kinda worked after a few attempts.

Then she sat on the little side-seat (built-into the bath) – that was easy enough, and then she kinda slides herself over to the back of the bath and slides herself down. Works great in a dry bath (although not without difficulty).

At this stage, she is in the bath successfully. The tricky bit, of course, is getting her out of the bath.

They came up with a 2-step way of getting her up. The first step was to try and get her onto the half-way seat. With only one strong arm/hand, she found it extremely difficult and strenuous to get up to the half-way seat. So they aborted that and came up with the idea of sitting crunched up across the bath, so she could use her legs to help her to lift her bum on to the half-way seat. Well, what a struggle she had and she REALLY tried. In the end, the physio had to get hold of kp’s trousers and help her up. kp was out of breath by this time.

They tried it again, thinking it would be easier second time, but it wasn’t. So, they are going to get another little step that can go in the bath, that is halfway between the bottom of the bath and the half-way step. The idea being, that kp can grab this when she wants to get out and put it in the water and use it as a stepping-stone to the half-way seat.

We look forward to their next visit.

I went to work after their visit and came home to a kp in a LOT of pain. For ages, we have been just getting by on the morphine patches. She has avoided using the morphine tablets, but tonight she took 2 x 10mg, so bad was the pain. All the bath shenannigans obviously took their toll.

The following day she took 2 more !

By Friday, the pain had eased off I am pleased to report.

In fact, on friday, kp thought she would try the bath routine (just the easier getting-in bit). We couldn’t get her feet into the bath on her own, but she thought she would try the sitting in the half-way seat, and then the slide into the bath. Well, it was fun ! Rather than a nice steady slide  down the back of the bath on her bath, which is what we experienced when there was no water in the bath. It was more a steady slide until her bum touched the water and then Tsunami time !!  We had a giggle about that.

We got some bad news from my family this week. My dad had a mini-stroke. In typical dad-fashion, he drove to the hospital himself after having it, unable to open his left hand. They have told him to take things easy !!! So, DAD !!!!!! No more having the kids at a weekend, no more working those long hours. A few more holidays a year (if that’s possible)

On Friday, we were supposed to have our nephew (Ethan) stay for the night and take him to Toys’r'us on the Saturday, but in the end his mum said he had to go to his Nana’s. We tried to ring him at his Nana’s, but she said he wasn’t there. So, that was a bit strange.

We had a nice day yesterday. (Saturday). Marie brought Abbie and Louisa up and we had refreshments and lots of fun.

Today, when kp gets up (about 1pm hopefully as she is still not sleeping right), we will be walking the dogs and jobbing on.

This coming week, the only appointment we have is the Dentist – 2 fillings for me, and kp getting a clean and polish. I think that’s thursday. Quite a busy week for kp, with Angela coming on monday, Adele on tues/wed and friday and Helen on Thursday, so that should do her the world of good.

Busy week for her highness this week.

Monday saw a visit from Angela (fellow car crash victim). By all accounts they had a really good chat, exchanging all the latest news. There were one or two tears along the way. She had an awful sleep that night.

On Tuesday, she was due to go shopping in Durham with Adele, but we postponed that until the following day. On that evening, we went to the local blood donor’s session for me to give blood, and of course, it was a chance for Karen to catch up with her old work colleagues. They all seemed pleased to see her, and I could hear quite a bit of kp laughter from the waiting area where I was stationed.

As we were about to leave, Lydia asked me if I thought it would be a good time to give kp her leaving card and pressy. Last time I had given blood, she had asked the same question, and I had said “No”, because kp had had her employment formally terminated a week or 2 before, but I felt she was strong enough today, and gave the “nod”.

Lydia gave me the card, and I went over to the “Tea/Coffee” section to give it to her. I didn’t think twice about it, and just gave it her. Bad move Mr P. The tears and the upset started as she read everyone’s lovely comments. There was also a present of Gardening Gift Vouchers. The comments were lovely, and of course, for Karen, it was another reminder of the fact she no longer works there, and can’t share all the daily banter they used to have. I felt awful. kp just wanted to get out of there.

The tears continued at home and she was subdued the whole evening and the whole of wednesday ! She is keen to thank everyone for the lovely card and the pressy though – so big thanks to all involved !!!!

Tuesday night, Karen had another bad dream about the accident. She remembered peering up at Kevin and Angela and seeing them.

Wednesday saw her go to Durham with Adele. She had a shopping list she was supposed to get from Tesco, but they didn’t have the time to make it over there. She remained subdued on the night time.

Thursday morning, I woke up to hear Karen shouting in her sleep.

kp:- “Get off my legs”. “Don’t touch them”. “You’re putting pressure on my legs – someone’s on my legs”

It was clear she was reliving the accident AGAIN. As it got more upsetting for Karen, I had to intervene and wake her up, at which point she just wanted comforting and holding.

Thursday saw Helen come over (who we met in Egypt). They had a good catchup on what has happened since the holiday. I arrived in time to see Helen which was nice, and then kp and I went to the dentist. Me for 2 fillings, kp for a polish/clean.

Thursday was another bad sleep. Friday saw Adele come over. Karen rang Ronnie to arrange the forthcoming trip to Surbiton. I am going down with kp for a week. I am on a course, and we are seeing a musical one night. kp is also going to see the recording of “Loose Women” so she should enjoy that.

On Friday night, I went straight from work to pick up Ethan who was coming to spend the night. So a busy day followed. Karen had her usual nightly bath and then Ethan wanted one (he likes the jacuzzi thing). Here he is sporting a beard of foam.

On Saturday, we went to Toys’r'us to pick a birthday present for him, and then returned him to his mam.

A lovely quiet Saturday evening followed. kp took 3 sleeping tablets last night and had 6 hours sleep (broken into 3 x 2hours).

So pretty good.

This week, she is going for a meal with Debs and Lydia (from the Blood Service), and getting her hair done.

This coming Sunday we are going to Surbiton for a week (me for a course, kp to see vd) and then Southampton for the weekend to see the Maffey Crew

Another action-packed week in the life of kp.

Tuesday, we had arranged to meet up with Lydia and Debs for a meal at Chevitas in Durham. It was 3 hours of howling. We had a cracking time, and too much food.

Wednesday saw us visit the pain clinic at University Hospital, Durham. Karen is now on the maximum medication she can be for the pain, so this was supposed to provide us with a way forward. It was a cagey start with the consultant advising to just rearrange the existing pain relief ie more of one drug, less of the other. But, kp and I both instinctively knew that that wasn’t going to crack it. kp spoke up and said that we had come here, ‘cos we had tried all that, and that the doctor was hoping the consultant could come up with other ideas.

And then he did………….

He is going to put kp forward for a trial of Dorsal Column Stimulation. What that is, is that kp goes for a psychological assessment first of all to see if she is suitable. She told me later that she instantly thought that would rule her out, as she isn’t as switched on as she was before the accident. But kp raised her fear and he reassured her that she would have nothing to worry about and that the assessment was more for sussing out the negative people who believed “nothing fixes my pain” etc etc….

It costs £20,000, so they have to be very cagey about who they do it with.

If she passes that, and she will, they then arrange a week’s trial. It’s a general anaesthetic jobby, where they insert an electrode into the epidural area of the back. She wears it for a week to assess how much it improves things, and if all is ok, she goes back to get a full time one implanted. It sits completely under the skin (including the battery) and she gets a remote control unit which she can adjust to control the pain. BAGSY THAT REMOTE !!!!

We are both feeling really good/positive about it.

Thursday, Marie came up and with Karen, they went shopping for FOUR HOURS. Marie was a god-send, carrying 74 bags for kp and keeping her right. If anyone needs a pack-horse for shopping, Marie is available at very reasonable rates, and you’ll be sure to find all the bargains as well.
kp was the worst I have seen her when she got back. She was in an upsetting amount of pain ! She took a big 50mg Morphine tablet, which she hates doing it, so it must have been bad. It didn’t help that much, and she had an awful night’s sleep. She went to sleep, knackered, but as soon as she fell asleep, she was moaning, and that just carried on. I couldn’t stand to listen to her in so much pain, so slept in the other room. Thank God, she was asleep !

Friday, she stayed in pain for most of the day, taking more morphine tablets on top of the patches.

On Friday night, we went to David and Helen’s (the people we had met in Egypt) and had a lovely (and too short) evening with them.

Saturday, kp has been asleep most of the day, as she had a bad night’s sleep.

Tomorrow, we travel darn sarth as I am on a course in Surbiton for the week. kp is spending the week with Ronnie. We are going to see a show on the Tuesday night (Joseph), and kp (and Ronnie) are going to see the television show “Loose Women” being filmed on one of the afternoons.

And then next weekend, we are going to Southampton to spend the weekend with Tracey, Mark, Megan, Thomas and Madge.

We are both really looking forward to the week.

We don’t get back until late Sunday night, so there will be no blog entry until the middle of the following week or perhaps even the following weekend.

Big Thanks to Marie, who is once again coming to house-sit with the dogs.

Thanks Marie !

Well, 2-week gap in the blog as we went darn sarth to see family and friends for a week and didn’t get back until late Sunday night.

The big news is that I divorced Karen last week and remarried. Younger woman. Read on….

On the first Sunday, we took a train to London Kings Cross, taxi’ed to Waterloo (kp can’t do tubes anymore), and then a train to Surbiton, where we met up with Ronnie. Here is kp on the train……..this was as exciting as the journey got.

Ronnie took us to our hotel. It was the Holiday Inn Chessington and very nice it was too, apart from the fact that they could only accommodate us for 4 of the 5 nights.

I was down there on a course for work. kp came to spend the week with Ronnie. The course was great and Ronnie and kp had a great time. On the monday, kp and Ronnie went to be part of the audience of Loose Women. When kp relayed the events of the day to me, all she talked about (instead of the show itself) was that the audience were mental. It sounded like they were professional (albeit not paid) TV show attendees, and not a full shilling amongst them.

Tuesday, after my course, we all went to London to see Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Adelphi. It was a cracking show with a super Joseph mix at the end which earned a standing ovation. Everyone in the house was up on the feet, apart from the chap next to me. He didn’t clap once.

On one of the days, Ronnie and kp went to see Keith and Irene (VD’s mum/dad who she knew from being a kid). They had a nice afternoon with them.

kp’s pain is starting to get a bit out of control at the moment. A walk round some shops, or steps, can take it out of her, and we are currently using TWICE as much morphine patches as is currently allowed. We are seeing the doctor tomorrow to beg them to up it beyond the maximum allowed dosage, but I don’t hold out much hope. kp is focussed on the Dorsal Column Stimulation as the solution and me too !

On the thursday, we checked out, and slept at Ronnie’s on the night. vd did us a lovely roast meal. All the local hotels were booked up for a big conference. vd took me to the last day of the course, and picked me up with kp in the car, dropping us at the station to take the train to So’ton.

It was great to see the Maffey’s again. They have got a new addition to the family since our last visit (Thomas). Here he is with Megan.

We had a lovely weekend with them. Very relaxed, and lots of good chat.

Megan (5 years old) and I get on great. A few months ago, when she knew I was coming down, she had said that she wanted to marry me. So, on the Sunday, we had the ceremony. I divorced Karen moments before Megan walked in. She had her fairy dress on. She walked up the aisle (front room between the 11 jigsaws she had done) with her Dad to give her away. Marge was my best man, and Tracey was the vicar. It was a good laugh.

On the Sunday, we had another good chatting day with a super Sunday lunch at the Lone Barn before flying home on the Sunday night.

I think I recorded in the blog that we had changed solicitors recently, because of the lack of communications between our old one and the incumbent. So far, so good. The new solicitor could NOT have been more proactive and communicative. When we returned from the trip darn sarth, we had 3 letters from her. She has now received all the files relating to Karen’s case and we were flabbergasted to learn that the old solicitor (Watson Ramsbottom, from Blackburn, Lanacashre) had known about the Case Manager for 18 (EIGHTEEN) months without saying a word about it !!!!! Karen is so angry about this and I can’t blame her. Already with the new solicitor, we have lots of appointments lined up with consultants. More physio starts on Tuesday, photos to be taken of all her scars, support worker, occupational therapist, neuropsychologist etc etc….Things are starting to move !!

My work has been quite eventful for the last 2 weeks (even the week I was away). My best mate and my boss (in the Datacentre), Nigel, had resigned. He didn’t want to leave, but his position had been made untenable by the MD. Part of the reason I had offered to step down from my previous management post was that I found the MD incredibly hard to work for. Moving goalposts, micro-management, acting on tittle-tattle from other managers without getting the full facts, saying one thing, doing another – it was unlike any other management post I had been in etc etc etc…..

Conversation inevitably turned to who was going to take his role. I made it clear to the MD that I couldn’t work for him again (in a management context). Lots of VERY frank discussions occurred between all parties involved and the upshot of them all is that I am going to take the role on a 6-month trial with someone else between me and the MD. Fingers crossed on that front…..

This week, Karen’s pain has remained the main issue. The sleeping is still all to pot, but compared to the pain, it’s something she can cope with.

Well, let me get the dp work news out of the way first. All change on the ITPS front. For various reasons, I am now not taking the Datacentre Management role. It’s a decision I am very happy with and a big weight off my mind. I have said I will give the company 6 months commitment to get them through the sticky patch of Nigel leaving, and then will review the status quo thereafter.

On the kp front, it’s been quite an eventful week, with a jam-packed week coming up.

On Tuesday, a photographer came to the house to take pictures of all kp’s scars (back of the head, fatty leg lumps, missing section of her arse etc etc….). We were just expecting it to be a 10 minute job, but it took him 20 minutes to set up his studio in the hall.

Big white backdrop and all ! Not the nicest experience for kp, but she battled through. In the afternoon, she had the first visit from the new physio (one of the many treatments sorted by Syd the Case Manager). She got on great with him and he really is a nice bloke.

Thursday saw the physio return for another session. Tuesday was mostly an assessment, as was Thursday. I arrived back about 6.30pm on thursday and he was still there. I was greeted by a kp in tears and a physio saying all the right things to cheer her up. I asked why she was upset, and the answer was…..

kp:- Because I have done so well.

?

I couldn’t understand at all, and had to have another 2 explanations to even get close to understanding the upset and even then I pretended I understood so as not to look too foolish in front of the physio.

When he left, we discussed it at length and basically, she was upset because she had done really well, but had it not been for the morphine, she wouldn’t have been able to do any of it. That was the nub of it.

He had had her on the floor. Oops. That sounds bad, let me rephrase. He had had her getting onto the floor. Lying on the floor, rolling around on the floor, now it sounds bad again. Basically, he had got her to get on the floor and move around a bit. By all accounts, she did really well, and the physio is genuinely a really nice bloke !

On thursday night, Jane came over to spend the night. We had the usual hoot of a night, JB having us in stitches as she does. They phoned Ronnie and tried to organise a January holiday abroad, but they didn’t get it completed on the night.

On Saturday, kp took a taxi over to Middlesbrough (for Sister’s Day). It’s an annual day where kp and her sisters get together for games and stuff. It’s a girly day and Adele and Abbie were there too. They had a great time, although kp didn’t feel too good about the day.

She felt like “she didn’t fit in any more”. I KNOW if you ask the sisters they will say she does, but she can’t help this feeling that things aren’t the same. Very sad !

Karen came back in a taxi with Ethan (10-year old great nephew) and he stayed the night. We had a good time with him. He was over the moon that I had found some cheats on t’internet for Grand Theft Auto and that the cars now flew ! It was comical to see him SOOOO excited.

And today has been mostly a day of watching flying cars etc….

Tonight, we’ll probably watch some tv, have dinner and then bed.

This week is a busy week for kp. All the new treatments are kicking in.

Monday – Occupational Therapist
Tuesday – Speech Therapist
Wednesday – Physio
Thursday – Syd the Case Manager
Friday – Hair Appointment and next
Sunday – Speech Therapy again.

Things are really starting to head in the right direction !

Busy week for kp this week. A visit every day by one specialist or another. Physio came twice I think.

In a nutshell…….

Physio – Wobbleboard. This is kp’s new toy. Basically, the physio has assessed that kp’s balance is poor and she needs to improve it. With this aim in mind, he has brought a wobbleboard. Basically it’s like a wood circular board on top of a ball and she has to sit on it (whilst it’s on the table), and try and keep her balance. When she has cracked that, she has to do the same but standing on it. I have tried it, and it’s bloody hard, although to be fair I was a bit tipsy, but nonetheless it is challenging.

OT – Assessments

Speech Therapist (2 visits) – Assessments galore. Preliminary findings reveal that kp’s problem with words and conversation relate to more neuro reasons than speech issues – no big surprise there.

The Case Manager also came out for an update.

The only tears this week have been for Elsa (one of our German Shepherds) who wasn’t well on friday. Elsa has the prettiest face of any dog on the planet (obviously a little bias here), and she has the biggest “puppy dog” eyes. When she was ill, she was not getting up, hiding in corners, managing the feeblest wag if you made a big fuss. She had been sick SOOOO many times, we could tell something was wrong. Straight away, with dogs, we just think they are going to peg it. But, today, she has been much improved, so hopefully she has just had a 24-hour bug or something. She still hasn’t eaten all day as far as we can tell. But, a pigs ear seems to have been well received so things look promising.

Today, we have been doing the present run, going to all kp’s family to drop off presents.

Been a lovely day.

Pain seems to be well under control. About a week ago, the doctor begrudgingly allowed us to double the pain relief, so she is now officially on double the maximum of the morphine patches that she should be on. The only way he would do it is by only giving us a week’s supply at a time, which is a pain, but better than the alternative.

Sleep remains the dominant issue. She is just all over the shop.

I am working tomorrow (Xmas Eve), but then am off until 7th Jan, so we should enjoy some good time together !

Mum and Dad’s for Xmas Day.

Well, bit of a gap in the blog because of Xmas. First some good news – Elsa is back to 100% health. As suspected it must have been some 24/48 hour bug or something as she is right as rain now. Big relief all round.

Xmas Day saw us go to Mum and Dad’s for Xmas Lunch. As usual, it was an absolutely delicious meal and we were left stuffed My sister’s husband’s (Guy) dad (John) gave a nice little speech before we ate about how nice it was to see kp still here It was very touching.

Susa and Simon (Guy’s sister and brother-in-law) were there as was Guy’s mother Melda. We had a lovely day.

On the Saturday between Xmas and New Year, we had a big family get together for Karen’s side of the family. We had a lovely buffet at Marie’s and played some fun games. LOTS AND LOTS of laughs. It was great. kp had a great time too.

New Year’s Eve saw kp and I out clubbing in Newcastle. kp wore a mini-skirt and a bikini top and we were out until 5am. We were drunk as skunks. Actually, that was the dream I had. We were in bed for 11pm and saw the New Year in snoring.

On Thursday, we went to the Lakes for a few days with Mum, Dad, Jane, Guy and the kids. It was snowing hard overnight and when we got up, the roads were real bad where we were. The Lakes were snow-free at the time we set off. We set off and it took us 40 minutes to get a mile ! When a big white van jack-knifed coming down a hill towards us, we decided to go back home. kp was absolutely besides herself.

Here is the car in the drive. It had only been out of the garage for 5 minutes when i took this photo.

We planned another route going further south before going west, and that turned out to be a very wise move.

We had a great time in the Lakes. We took the dogs and luckily we had a little cottage with a separate single bed (perfect for the dogs).

Here are some photos of us down there.

Health-wise, kp is doing really well. The pain is pretty much under control. Sleep remaining the big issue. She had 2 hours last night. Weirdly, while we were away, she slept much better. Interesting !

She is going to start her new schedule tomorrow. It’s something we have drawn up to give her enough to keep her going in the hope it brings better sleep. Here is a snapshot of it.

Well, I have upgraded the blog and it has better anti-spam, so messages can be left for kp again. Fingers crossed.