Welcome to my health blog. I am a 29 year old living with a range of strange and confusing medical symptoms and conditions including various functional/neurological disorders, Endometriosis, PCOS, Raynaud's Disease
and seronegative Hughes Syndrome. This blog is to document my struggle with doctors and the impact these illnesses have on my life. I hope that in some small way, my experiences will give others who are in similar situations some sort of strength or some form of comfort. Thanks for visiting!

Some may question my choice of title but if you are ill constantly and seem to always have your brain on pain and discomfort that's making your life very difficult, you begin to feel that perhaps you are a hypochondriac or what's worse, that other people see you as one. Whether you are or not, you still feel pain, sadness, and dispair which brings me to this quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling:

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" - Albus Dumbledore

Friday, 29 June 2012

Speech Therapy

My eyes are stinging so much. I feel at the moment I've hit the point where some of the people I care about are just getting bored of me not being well and would just rather replace me with something more convenient. Just been crying and crying. I got a message but I'm not sure I understood it right but something about moving a day I was going to see someone. God, it's making me cry even more just going over it in my brain. I feel so stupid, I hate my body it's so rubbish and busted. I can't seem to do anything at the moment without breaking it further.

On Monday we just went for a short walk around the block - I felt as normal as I can at the moment so throught it was worth a try. As I was walking I was so out of breath and it looked like the floor perspective was all wrong. When I got back I sat down at my PC and suddenly felt very sick, like I was about to vomit. Went all shakey, stood up to look in the mirror and my face looked really pale. So I got my sick bucket and as I was trying to talk to my step mum, my face started to pull to the left and my tongue went with it. I tried to talk and all that came out is a slurred mess. The rest of the day was really scary, I was always out of breath, had burning in my head and I couldn't do anything. So stayed in bed with an audiobook and waited. The feeling of cold in my chest was horrible :( I know its so silly to get scared but I don't know how long to leave it before... well it's not like someone can help anyway. If someone could tell me that this problem is at least safe and its not going to damage my brain and limbs more than it has already I might feel at least a little more comforted. I feel so utterly useless. Just walking round the block and that happens..? The following days I've spent mostly sitting at the desk being immobile. Just going up and down the stairs makes me out of breath, I'm rediculious.

This whole thing is so complicated now. We discovered last Tuesday that if i push the spot on my head that sometimes 'burns' then I can talk normally. When I release it then my voice goes back to being strangulated. The same thing seemed to happen with standing and sitting. Then it would reverse. I just feel so odd inside. Everything feels weak and stupid. At times I would not be able to speak when sitting, then I'd stand up, my voice would come back and my ankles would start to feel numb then the legs go very heavy. Getting more tired and I just don't know where this is going to end.

We had an appointment with a Lupus consultant on Wednesday. They've taken lots of blood and I'll have a follow up next Wednesday. What was worrying is that the Dr there had all the old papers passed on from earlier appointments which already had incorrect information in them.. Why would these have been sent on?!  I didn't think of it at the time but it's so frustrating. I heavily regret not taking in one of my parents as when I got in there I was so overwhelmed with what I needed to tell him I feel that I messed it up. It's so difficult to talk, let alone put forward a case thats been going and not resolved in nearly a year! Seems to me that because medical professionals have a title, other doctors believe anything that's written from them and not question it, regardless of what the patient tells them. This most recent consultant didn't really mention the stuff which I suppose is good so far but if he bases assumptions on innacurate letters then... God I just don't know what the hell to do. I know it's wrong, but part of me wants something to come back positive so at least I can have something to work on and make better. Or at least make it managable so that I'm not having my face go wonky and collapsing randomly. I just want to understand what the hell is going on. I want to go back to work, back to life even. All I do right now is inconvenience people and that's about it. It makes me so so sad. I honestly don't know what I would have done without my parents, they've been so so amazing and it upsets me so much to put them through this. I just can't seem to get out of this hole and no one wants to help.

Today I've had speech therapy. The therapist there was very nice and talked to me about 'false chords' and such. On attempting to do the vocal exercises I became very dizzy and the room started to get very bright. It was getting harder and harder. She said, as there was no diagnosis yet, that she would treat it as if it were a 'functional' disorder (which rang certain alarm bells in my head). However, after a little while my real voice came through yet the feeling of an obstruction/lump grew more prominient. She suggested that might be in relation to something muscular. Then I had my voice, it worked as I knew it does.. Then the sickness came, the burning in my head, the heavy legs, the face pull to the left and my tongue as well. I slurred words to her to explain that this seems to be the trade off for being able to use my voice. At this point she seemed rather shocked, asked me if someone was with me and decided to stop the therapy there. She no longer thought carrying on with therapy such as this would be a good idea due to the reaction it caused. It was nice to see someone concerned, curious and a little shocked. She asked me 'how do you live with this' and I said.. well I have to, because no one is helping me or seems to be the slightest bit interested. Then, she went on to ask me if I would keep her informed of how things go and when they do find out what is wrong, to let her know. There have now been two people who have asked me to do this which is quite a nice thing to hear as it at least shows some interest and willingness to learn. Consltants pass me round like a hot cake, assuming its not their problem but they'll happily take the fees from Bupa. I wonder whether you would get a more accurate referral if fee paying was based on accurate diagnosis and recovery. We've only just seen a private health cover bill where the consultant has charged the company about £300 incorrectly by adding on 'surgery' and 'anasthetic' that were not part of the consultation whatsoever. We only noticed because the bill happened to be queried. Its fairly shocking, I wonder how many little extras are added on bills that the patient never sees? Sick people shouldn't have the extra stress of chasing up doctors and bills. It's just.. appauling. Side tracked there a bit but I feel quite strongly about this. So far I've seen about 10 private consultants this year and not one of them has done anything to actually help with the attacks or prevent them.

NHS hospital washed their hands of it long ago. I am hugely lucky and grateful that I have the luxury of private cover but looking over the past few months, I don't really know how helpful that has been and all I've got from it is hefty dosages of radiation.

It's not a happy day. :(



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