There is a stand up routine by Sean Lock where he recounts being told off for swearing by belligerent airport staff. His exasperated reply finishes with "This is exactly the sort of occasion swearing was f***ing invented for!"
Excuse me a moment...
a$%e!... &u$%&!!... (%d%*!!!.... %^&*!! f&*^:~!!.... *()&*&^$%$"!!!!!!
There - out of my system...
No, wait, hang on...
%&^*£$^%$!!
There. Feel a bit better, now.
I went to see an orthoptist about my doublevision, nystagmus, intranuclear opthalmoplegia and oscillopsia the other day.
I spent about an hour undergoing various tests. I followed a torch with my eyes. I had various lenses passed in front of each of my eyes and I had to say when the image became double and single. I pointed at dots with a long stick (and missed). I looked at various patterns to find the hidden 3D shape and of course I read the all too familiar eye chart.
Things I didn't know before: I also have doublevision looking up to the right and my left eye doesn't pull in towards the nose as much as it should do.
I have been looking forward to my doublevision being sorted for the last year and a half. As I mentioned in my last post, this is the one constant symptom, the one that doesn't fade away and then come crashing back. The symptom that is constantly breathing down my shoulder reminding me I have MS and it is the symptom that spurred me on into visiting the GP in the first place.
It is also (as I screw up one eye to look at you) a symptom that makes me feel dizzy, tires me out, drags me down and makes me look like a weirdo. I was convinced that the magical people in the eye department of my local hospital would be able to build me prism lensed spectacles to straighten things out for me. Not to wear all the time, you understand, just when I'm at work, or in a meeting, or driving my car, or walking along the street. I'm not asking for much really. Just some semblance of normality.
"Sorry, there's nothing we can do..."
Apparently, they can't (or won't) correct doublevision unless it occurs in the primary position (straight ahead). Also, my eyesight is pretty good - I can read most of the bottom line on the eye chart and if I did have glasses, they would have to be plain glass and the prism lens would blur things a bit for me.
So there I was watching the orthoptist as he moved his head left and right to demonstrate how you look left and right.
Yes, I should be grateful for the fact that I can see, and yes, I should be grateful for the fact that I can see pretty well and yes, it could be a whole lot worse - a hell of a lot worse. I could have been maimed in an accident, I know. But days like this remind me that MS is a complete an utter uncurable bastard. Things will never be the same. I will never be able to look around with my eyes travelling the same speed again. I will never be able to look left and see a single image. I will never be able to look right and keep my eyes perfectly still. I will never be able to read a book without it tiring me out. Things will never be how they used to be.
So when someone tells you there is nothing they can do, that little ember of hope at the back of the hearth that you thought might be coaxed back to life with some newspaper and a bit of careful blowing, is snuffed out with a gallon of water.
And what makes it all so much worse is that I will probably look back on this day and think how lucky I was back then compared to how I am 'now'.
Doublevision is one of those symptoms that can come and go in Relapsing Remitting MS, but I'm pretty sure that after a year and a half we're not just talking about demyelination on the nerve controlling eye movement. I think there's been some permanent damage.
I have an appointment with an opthalmologist in a couple of weeks and they want to look at the back of my eyes and document the "state of things" I guess. They will probably also want to patronise me by telling me stuff I already know about nerve damage and so on.
So, having taken the knock and bottling up all the crestfallen feelings I'm back to the bustle of the hospital lobby. Past the people in Costa coffee. Skirting the guy with the mop and the couple with the walking frames. Through the automatic doors, past the A & E entrance, then the maternity wing with a handful of expectant mothers in dressing gowns, fags in hands.
Back to the car...
Negotiating the one-way system through the car parks...
Waiting for the ambulance to go past...
out onto the main road...
Whack the stereo on full blast to take my mind off things as I head back to town...
The music starts: "There's no escaping from / the man it seems that I've become..." *
... The grief.
* test your music trivia - identify the track and you may or (more likely) may not win a prize (not decided yet, but nothing big).
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Thursday, 19 March 2009
My MS History - Part Six
For the story so far...
After one more session of double-checking with Dr S where he had yet another student in tow - it seemed I was becoming a textbook example of nystagmus - it became apparent that the steroids really hadn't done their job. So to suppress my existing symptoms I was prescribed Gabapentin. As you can read elsewhere on this blog, gabapentin turned me into a zombie. Being a vegetarian and not at all into human flesh eating, I decided to ditch these drugs at Christmas 2008, for the good of my (and everyone else's) sanity.
Parallel to this, I had been given details of Disease Modifying Drugs (DMDs) prior to this meeting and using a slightly out-of-date MS Decisions website, made my choice which I was going to spend the foreseeable future taking...
... and then I made it again.
I had a choice of four DMDs, either Glatiramer Acetate (Copaxone) or one of the three Beta Interferon drugs - Rebif, Betaferon or Avonex. The choice was more of a case of elimination as none of the drugs stood out as being the obvious choice.
Copaxone was rejected because it was a daily injection and I didn't fancy the possibility of panic-attack style side-effects. It also hadn't got the clinical trial track record of the Beta Interferons.
Avonex was rejected because it was an intra-muscular injection and once a week. I wouldn't say that I was frightened of needles by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn't fancy dreading the one day every week where I would need to plunge a two inch needle into my leg muscle and then enduring any side effects over the weekend.
Betaferon was rejected because I felt that mixing the drugs every other day would become a bind. I downloaded videos off YouTube and these backed me up - too much of a faff.
So Rebif it was - sub-cutaneous injections three times a week but with the downer that it had to be kept in the fridge.
Eventually a large box with all the gubbins turned up with my monthly courier. By all the gubbins, I mean travel cool-bags (one large, one small), rebijector (injection pen), supporting literature, diary, "passports," sharps bin, injection site cushion (that I could heat or freeze), and the medication itself.
Two weeks at 8mg and two weeks at 22mg, and then I could expect a delivery of the 44mg syringes.
I have to say that I did get flu-like side-effects with Rebif, but it's a case of knowing when to take them. I noticed that it took a while before any nastiness kicked in, so if I remember, I take them relatively early in the evening and then sleep through the after-effects. I also take them on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday to keep the morning-after hangover in the more-managable work environment and away from family quality time. The worst day of side effects happened when I had the mother of all hot flushes, stepping out to my car at 6am in just a summer dressing gown, thinking that it was quite mild, only for it to be minus seven when I checked my in-car thermometer later.
I found that the side-effects became less severe after about three or four months and if I get any side effects now, I don't notice them.
All-in-all, I have been quite lucky with Rebif. Nothing as bad as the horror stories I have read in online discussion forums. Of course, it's early days and it remains to be seen if the drugs do their job of slowing down the disease's progression.
2009 update >
After one more session of double-checking with Dr S where he had yet another student in tow - it seemed I was becoming a textbook example of nystagmus - it became apparent that the steroids really hadn't done their job. So to suppress my existing symptoms I was prescribed Gabapentin. As you can read elsewhere on this blog, gabapentin turned me into a zombie. Being a vegetarian and not at all into human flesh eating, I decided to ditch these drugs at Christmas 2008, for the good of my (and everyone else's) sanity.
Parallel to this, I had been given details of Disease Modifying Drugs (DMDs) prior to this meeting and using a slightly out-of-date MS Decisions website, made my choice which I was going to spend the foreseeable future taking...
... and then I made it again.
I had a choice of four DMDs, either Glatiramer Acetate (Copaxone) or one of the three Beta Interferon drugs - Rebif, Betaferon or Avonex. The choice was more of a case of elimination as none of the drugs stood out as being the obvious choice.
Copaxone was rejected because it was a daily injection and I didn't fancy the possibility of panic-attack style side-effects. It also hadn't got the clinical trial track record of the Beta Interferons.
Avonex was rejected because it was an intra-muscular injection and once a week. I wouldn't say that I was frightened of needles by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn't fancy dreading the one day every week where I would need to plunge a two inch needle into my leg muscle and then enduring any side effects over the weekend.
Betaferon was rejected because I felt that mixing the drugs every other day would become a bind. I downloaded videos off YouTube and these backed me up - too much of a faff.
So Rebif it was - sub-cutaneous injections three times a week but with the downer that it had to be kept in the fridge.
Eventually a large box with all the gubbins turned up with my monthly courier. By all the gubbins, I mean travel cool-bags (one large, one small), rebijector (injection pen), supporting literature, diary, "passports," sharps bin, injection site cushion (that I could heat or freeze), and the medication itself.
Two weeks at 8mg and two weeks at 22mg, and then I could expect a delivery of the 44mg syringes.
I have to say that I did get flu-like side-effects with Rebif, but it's a case of knowing when to take them. I noticed that it took a while before any nastiness kicked in, so if I remember, I take them relatively early in the evening and then sleep through the after-effects. I also take them on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday to keep the morning-after hangover in the more-managable work environment and away from family quality time. The worst day of side effects happened when I had the mother of all hot flushes, stepping out to my car at 6am in just a summer dressing gown, thinking that it was quite mild, only for it to be minus seven when I checked my in-car thermometer later.
I found that the side-effects became less severe after about three or four months and if I get any side effects now, I don't notice them.
All-in-all, I have been quite lucky with Rebif. Nothing as bad as the horror stories I have read in online discussion forums. Of course, it's early days and it remains to be seen if the drugs do their job of slowing down the disease's progression.
2009 update >
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
My MS History - Part Five
For the story so far, see Parts One, Two, Three and Four
Between visiting Dr G and Dr Sh, I needed to do my research and also go for a lumbar puncture. I reacted badly to the steroids and as far as I can tell, they didn't do me any good.
After diagnosis, you enter a whole new world. Support networks are everywhere. The MS Society and the MS Trust sent me reams of free information to get my head round. I joined the MS Society and spent an hour talking to the local rep over the phone. The web is awash with discussion forums. I was assigned an MS nurse - H - who was to become my contact with the hospital as well as a source of advice and information. She came to visit me at home. I also had a meeting with one of the Occupational Health Nurses at work and the Disabled Workers' Group in my workplace also corresponded with useful and supportive advice.
With the information at my fingertips I was able to piece together incidents from my past and build up a picture of my MS history. The most interesting find was a diary entry from mid-2004 that documented "everything that has gone wrong with my health since starting work at (my employer)" This modest list was as follows:
Evidence of further MS activity crops up in other diaries. My 2007 diary, for instance, documented a nasty spell of vertigo and showed evidence of fatigue where end-of-the-day diary entries spouted random gibberish and spiralled off into unintelligible squiggles.
The lumbar puncture wasn't too bad. The nurse performing the procedure reminded me of someone I knew, so that put me at ease. The local anaesthetic being administered was the most painful bit. I felt the pop of the needle entering my spinal column and I was surprised to see that my cerebro-spinal fluid was completely colourless. Other than that I didn't feel any discomfort. Everything had been explained in great detail. I remarked that I had pulled a muscle round lumbar number 4, six years previously and the nurse commented that it was still rock hard and impossible to get the needle through. She did physio for one of Sheffield's top sports teams, so I guess she knew what she was talking about.
I was one of the 10% of puncturees who had bad headaches for the next few days and on the third day afterwards (my third day in my new job), I vomited.
Seeing Dr Sh was a world of difference from Dr G. He popped in to yet another session of symptom observation with students in tow, listened to his registrar (who amusingly became all flustered) and declared that I had obviously had active Relapsing Remitting MS, that I had probably had a few relapses that year already and that we should put me on some disease modifying drugs as soon as humanly possible.
I had one of those amusing moments like the good vibrations in the MRI. Dr Sh, his registrar (Dr T) and two students wanted to see how my eyes were moving, so while I followed the path of Dr Sh's pen, I was aware of four pairs of eyes leaning forward and concentrating closely on mine.
One of the marvellous things about a neurological diagnosis is that you get to see the MRI of your brain. It is an odd experience and, probably because I was in a vulnerable spot emotionally, quite moving seeing it nestling snug inside the thin skull wall, also... dare I say it as an agnostic... an almost spiritual experience.
part 6 >
Between visiting Dr G and Dr Sh, I needed to do my research and also go for a lumbar puncture. I reacted badly to the steroids and as far as I can tell, they didn't do me any good.
After diagnosis, you enter a whole new world. Support networks are everywhere. The MS Society and the MS Trust sent me reams of free information to get my head round. I joined the MS Society and spent an hour talking to the local rep over the phone. The web is awash with discussion forums. I was assigned an MS nurse - H - who was to become my contact with the hospital as well as a source of advice and information. She came to visit me at home. I also had a meeting with one of the Occupational Health Nurses at work and the Disabled Workers' Group in my workplace also corresponded with useful and supportive advice.
With the information at my fingertips I was able to piece together incidents from my past and build up a picture of my MS history. The most interesting find was a diary entry from mid-2004 that documented "everything that has gone wrong with my health since starting work at (my employer)" This modest list was as follows:
- vertigo. My local practice nurse told me this was some sort of postural hypotension because it occured when bending or lying in certain positions. I had a mental image of my aorta being squeezed, every time it flared up.
- eye problems. I had flashes and flickering lights in my vision and pain when looking round. I went to my GP, an optician and eventually my local hospital as an out-patient over this and was told that I had symptoms consistent with a detached retina, but apart from that , they were stumped. I can picture the present-day Dave, in a white coat, leaning over the opthalmologist's shoulder: "Hmmmm.... how about optic neuritis??"
- a four week headache that wouldn't shift with painkillers
- pins and needles on one side of my head.
Evidence of further MS activity crops up in other diaries. My 2007 diary, for instance, documented a nasty spell of vertigo and showed evidence of fatigue where end-of-the-day diary entries spouted random gibberish and spiralled off into unintelligible squiggles.
The lumbar puncture wasn't too bad. The nurse performing the procedure reminded me of someone I knew, so that put me at ease. The local anaesthetic being administered was the most painful bit. I felt the pop of the needle entering my spinal column and I was surprised to see that my cerebro-spinal fluid was completely colourless. Other than that I didn't feel any discomfort. Everything had been explained in great detail. I remarked that I had pulled a muscle round lumbar number 4, six years previously and the nurse commented that it was still rock hard and impossible to get the needle through. She did physio for one of Sheffield's top sports teams, so I guess she knew what she was talking about.
I was one of the 10% of puncturees who had bad headaches for the next few days and on the third day afterwards (my third day in my new job), I vomited.
Seeing Dr Sh was a world of difference from Dr G. He popped in to yet another session of symptom observation with students in tow, listened to his registrar (who amusingly became all flustered) and declared that I had obviously had active Relapsing Remitting MS, that I had probably had a few relapses that year already and that we should put me on some disease modifying drugs as soon as humanly possible.
I had one of those amusing moments like the good vibrations in the MRI. Dr Sh, his registrar (Dr T) and two students wanted to see how my eyes were moving, so while I followed the path of Dr Sh's pen, I was aware of four pairs of eyes leaning forward and concentrating closely on mine.
One of the marvellous things about a neurological diagnosis is that you get to see the MRI of your brain. It is an odd experience and, probably because I was in a vulnerable spot emotionally, quite moving seeing it nestling snug inside the thin skull wall, also... dare I say it as an agnostic... an almost spiritual experience.
part 6 >
Thursday, 15 January 2009
My MS History - Part Four
For the story so far see My MS History... Part One, Part Two and Part Three
I had a job interview in two days time. With a rare evening free of brain fog, I was sitting at home preparing a presentation for it. My wife, unable to take the wait, had earlier phoned my neurologist, Dr G, to press him for the results of my MRI. As I was staring at the Powerpoint notes he phoned me back.
"I have the results of your MRI scan... It shows some inflammation in the white matter of your brain and spinal cord..."
Here comes the bit where they let you break the news to yourself:
"When you saw my colleague Dr S, did she give you any indication what it might be?"
"Yes, she said there was the possibility that it could be MS."
Quick as a flash: "Yes! It certainly looks that way."
"Oh! - OK!"
So there you had it. It was MS. Dr G - not an MS specialist by his own admission - thought it was nothing to worry unduly about. He told me that there were "only eight to ten large lesions" (only??) visible in the scan and more in the way of tiny insignificant ones. I now know that one lesion in a crucial spot can be more debilitating than several lesions spread all over the place.This, he thought, looked like a case of benign MS and that I would be very unlucky if I didn't go into remission and then get no further flare ups for years. Indeed some people can go for 20 years without a relapse, he told me.
He didn't think it worth me coming to see him at the appointed time the following week, but then conceded that I might have "some questions." So the appointment remained.
I took the rest of the evening off from job interview preparations.
The following day at work, I broke the news to my workmates.
I had no quandary telling them as I had good working relations with virtually everyone. I have since found that talking about MS can sometimes be the best therapy. It can be an invisible illness, so a bit of awareness raising doesn't go amiss, sometimes. I figured that it was probably better to be open about any problems I might be having in case I had a bad day, like the day where I had all but fallen asleep at my desk.
Everyone was very understanding and asked intelligent questions. All except my boss who pronounced that she knew someone with MS and that even when he lost the ability to walk it hadn't changed his life much because (to the whole office, rather than me) "they got him a little buggy!"
I made a mental note that should I get a little buggy of my own, she would top a hit list of people I wanted to hunt down and run over.
I met Dr G a week later. I won't go into the details of the meeting, except to say that he was uninterested and unengaged. The information he gave me was wrong. Things that I suggested were symptomatic of MS, like my optic neuritis four years previously, he disagreed with. He sent me and my GP a strange letter where he obviously hadn't listened to a word I had said and pronounced that my symptoms were getting better and clearing up, which was new to me. It all left me feeling very angry and very frustrated, on top of feeling crap anyway.
Dr G did three things for me: he prescribed steroids to relieve the symptoms (see Life with MS - part two(?)), he referred me to an MS specialist - Dr Sh - and most importantly, he made me determined to do my research, become an expert in my own MS and to build up a history so that I could make my case for treatment.
The criteria for getting disease modifying drugs in the UK is that you need to have two relapses within two years before they will prescribe anything. All the research says that the earlier you can get on the drugs, the better the long-term outlook.
part 5 >
I had a job interview in two days time. With a rare evening free of brain fog, I was sitting at home preparing a presentation for it. My wife, unable to take the wait, had earlier phoned my neurologist, Dr G, to press him for the results of my MRI. As I was staring at the Powerpoint notes he phoned me back.
"I have the results of your MRI scan... It shows some inflammation in the white matter of your brain and spinal cord..."
Here comes the bit where they let you break the news to yourself:
"When you saw my colleague Dr S, did she give you any indication what it might be?"
"Yes, she said there was the possibility that it could be MS."
Quick as a flash: "Yes! It certainly looks that way."
"Oh! - OK!"
So there you had it. It was MS. Dr G - not an MS specialist by his own admission - thought it was nothing to worry unduly about. He told me that there were "only eight to ten large lesions" (only??) visible in the scan and more in the way of tiny insignificant ones. I now know that one lesion in a crucial spot can be more debilitating than several lesions spread all over the place.This, he thought, looked like a case of benign MS and that I would be very unlucky if I didn't go into remission and then get no further flare ups for years. Indeed some people can go for 20 years without a relapse, he told me.
He didn't think it worth me coming to see him at the appointed time the following week, but then conceded that I might have "some questions." So the appointment remained.
I took the rest of the evening off from job interview preparations.
The following day at work, I broke the news to my workmates.
I had no quandary telling them as I had good working relations with virtually everyone. I have since found that talking about MS can sometimes be the best therapy. It can be an invisible illness, so a bit of awareness raising doesn't go amiss, sometimes. I figured that it was probably better to be open about any problems I might be having in case I had a bad day, like the day where I had all but fallen asleep at my desk.
Everyone was very understanding and asked intelligent questions. All except my boss who pronounced that she knew someone with MS and that even when he lost the ability to walk it hadn't changed his life much because (to the whole office, rather than me) "they got him a little buggy!"
I made a mental note that should I get a little buggy of my own, she would top a hit list of people I wanted to hunt down and run over.
I met Dr G a week later. I won't go into the details of the meeting, except to say that he was uninterested and unengaged. The information he gave me was wrong. Things that I suggested were symptomatic of MS, like my optic neuritis four years previously, he disagreed with. He sent me and my GP a strange letter where he obviously hadn't listened to a word I had said and pronounced that my symptoms were getting better and clearing up, which was new to me. It all left me feeling very angry and very frustrated, on top of feeling crap anyway.
Dr G did three things for me: he prescribed steroids to relieve the symptoms (see Life with MS - part two(?)), he referred me to an MS specialist - Dr Sh - and most importantly, he made me determined to do my research, become an expert in my own MS and to build up a history so that I could make my case for treatment.
The criteria for getting disease modifying drugs in the UK is that you need to have two relapses within two years before they will prescribe anything. All the research says that the earlier you can get on the drugs, the better the long-term outlook.
part 5 >
Relapse spotting
Well, I guess this goes to show how difficult it can be to spot a relapse, sometimes.
I spoke to H (my nurse) today about the optic neuritis and heavy legs that I have been experiencing over the last few days. She thought the optic neuritis sounded like I was experiencing a small relapse, but the heavy legs and the 'cactus gloves' I am wearing may be related to coming off Gabapentin.
I am to "take it easy and see how I get on"
I thought I would make a list of things that had flared up over the last month or so:
I spoke to H (my nurse) today about the optic neuritis and heavy legs that I have been experiencing over the last few days. She thought the optic neuritis sounded like I was experiencing a small relapse, but the heavy legs and the 'cactus gloves' I am wearing may be related to coming off Gabapentin.
I am to "take it easy and see how I get on"
I thought I would make a list of things that had flared up over the last month or so:
- optic neuritis - lights in my vision (currently) and pain when moving my eyes (last Friday to Sunday)
- stiff heavy legs - currently finding it difficult to walk (up hills especially)
- foot switching itself on and off repeatedly - hot then normal then hot etc. (before Christmas)
- the same foot going excessively cold
- occasional tinnitus - right ear (since early December)
- dizziness - no vertigo head rush, yet, but I lost my balance a couple of times today and either bumped into things or nearly fell over
- my head has gone tingly a couple of times
- I felt very lethargic on a number of occasions since the New Year, but nothing I would class as chronic fatigue
- an increase in the amount of insects who seem to want to escape from my feet
I can go to hospital to be checked over and prescribed more steroids if I need them. I don't really want to do that, though. H also advised that I take some time off if I feel any more crap than I do now, and I don't really see that happening either.
Strangely, as I typed this, I experienced a tightness across my chest that may or may not be the "MS hug."
Monday, 15 December 2008
My MS History - Part One
Once somebody tells you, you have MS, you start to put a jigsaw together. You wonder whether that strange tingling sensation you had in your right arm last year had something to do with it, or in my case the vertigo diagnosis from the previous year and the little numb patch between my big toe on my right foot and the others.
It all happened at roughly the same time, but seemingly by stealth as I can't put an exact time or date on it. My old office at work used to look out onto rolling Derbyshire scenery. In the distance there was a radio mast on top of one of the hills. I remember looking up at that radio mast and hilltop one morning to see two radio masts and hilltops, but weirdly, only when I looked left. Also, when I hammered away at my computer keyboard, I noticed that my fingers felt a bit tingly. 'RSI?' I wondered.
I had recently had delivery of a new computer at work and I moved my workspace around and shifted my desk from one side of the room to the other. When this sort of thing happens, my employer automatically sends a health and safety person round to look at how you are sitting, whether the new screen you have is causing any eye problems ("Yeah, well I do have this problem with double-vision"), or whether your seat is suitable ("Funny you should say that, but I get this strange electrical tingling sensation down my back and into my thighs when I put my chin to my chest"). The double-vision I put down to eye strain as I had other unexplained problems with my eyes a few years before (this particular jigsaw piece hadn't dropped into it's slot at this point).
The health and safety guy, barely into his twenties, was non-plussed. "Maybe ask your GP," was his suggestion.
"Yeah... maybe I will"
I recounted my recent problems to my brother shortly afterwards while watching Man City lose to Fulham at the City of Manchester stadium. "If you were a TV, I'd take you back to the shop" was his comment. This made a lot of sense, and I needed to see my GP about something minor anyway - I needed a wart removing from my lip. I could always mention this weird stuff at the end as an aside.
I saw a locum GP - Dr E. It turned out that the wart was the least of his concerns. He did various tests. I had my reflexes tested, I watched his finger move left to right, I stood on one leg, I touched my nose then his moving finger then my nose and so on. He booked me in for an emergency CT scan at the Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield - I should get an appointment within the fortnight he said. He thought everything I was experiencing was connected somehow, but wouldn't be drawn on what it might be apart from that it might be something pressing on my spinal cord. "Basically, where my expertise ends, someone else's begins..." were his words. "Take it easy, don't do anything strenuous, no heavy lifting, look after yourself, be selfish, let others take the strain for a while." A GP has never said anything like this to me before, my previous visits had always been met with a "don't worry about it, it'll go away" air about them.
I thought of the heavy suitcase that I had to load and lift into the car, ready for our family holiday in a couple of day's time. "I'm going on holiday at the weekend." I explained.
"Where are you going?"
"Cornwall."
"That's good. They have hospitals down there."
"You've got me worried now," I laughed. . . no flicker of a smile on Dr E's face.
As I left the surgery, I felt the weirdest sensation. Something other-worldly, like I had been given a serious secret assignment.
I had a door with what could be a monster lurking behind it. All I had to do was find the key.
Part 2 >
It all happened at roughly the same time, but seemingly by stealth as I can't put an exact time or date on it. My old office at work used to look out onto rolling Derbyshire scenery. In the distance there was a radio mast on top of one of the hills. I remember looking up at that radio mast and hilltop one morning to see two radio masts and hilltops, but weirdly, only when I looked left. Also, when I hammered away at my computer keyboard, I noticed that my fingers felt a bit tingly. 'RSI?' I wondered.
I had recently had delivery of a new computer at work and I moved my workspace around and shifted my desk from one side of the room to the other. When this sort of thing happens, my employer automatically sends a health and safety person round to look at how you are sitting, whether the new screen you have is causing any eye problems ("Yeah, well I do have this problem with double-vision"), or whether your seat is suitable ("Funny you should say that, but I get this strange electrical tingling sensation down my back and into my thighs when I put my chin to my chest"). The double-vision I put down to eye strain as I had other unexplained problems with my eyes a few years before (this particular jigsaw piece hadn't dropped into it's slot at this point).
The health and safety guy, barely into his twenties, was non-plussed. "Maybe ask your GP," was his suggestion.
"Yeah... maybe I will"
I recounted my recent problems to my brother shortly afterwards while watching Man City lose to Fulham at the City of Manchester stadium. "If you were a TV, I'd take you back to the shop" was his comment. This made a lot of sense, and I needed to see my GP about something minor anyway - I needed a wart removing from my lip. I could always mention this weird stuff at the end as an aside.
I saw a locum GP - Dr E. It turned out that the wart was the least of his concerns. He did various tests. I had my reflexes tested, I watched his finger move left to right, I stood on one leg, I touched my nose then his moving finger then my nose and so on. He booked me in for an emergency CT scan at the Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield - I should get an appointment within the fortnight he said. He thought everything I was experiencing was connected somehow, but wouldn't be drawn on what it might be apart from that it might be something pressing on my spinal cord. "Basically, where my expertise ends, someone else's begins..." were his words. "Take it easy, don't do anything strenuous, no heavy lifting, look after yourself, be selfish, let others take the strain for a while." A GP has never said anything like this to me before, my previous visits had always been met with a "don't worry about it, it'll go away" air about them.
I thought of the heavy suitcase that I had to load and lift into the car, ready for our family holiday in a couple of day's time. "I'm going on holiday at the weekend." I explained.
"Where are you going?"
"Cornwall."
"That's good. They have hospitals down there."
"You've got me worried now," I laughed. . . no flicker of a smile on Dr E's face.
As I left the surgery, I felt the weirdest sensation. Something other-worldly, like I had been given a serious secret assignment.
I had a door with what could be a monster lurking behind it. All I had to do was find the key.
Part 2 >
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