Crash!!

Over the months I have started several posts – and not finished them. Sometimes just because there was nothing really to report, sometimes because I didn’t have the energy to post them. I don’t have the energy to post now – but I am taking my time over this post and hopefully I will get it done. I think it is a significant post to make.

My wife and daughter were due to go away together early September for a mother/daughter break – as they have done several years. I booked the time off myself so I could enjoy having the house to myself for a week, but still be able to work if needed. On this occasion however my daughter didn’t feel like going – so it was cancel the holiday and waste the money, my wife to go alone, or me to go with her as I had already booked the time off.

On the Friday the 8th September then we drove up to Scarborough. It wasnt the most comfortable place we stayed – and it was made worse by the fact that a couple of things had started to go wrong at work – that needed to be worked on. I took my work laptop with me on holiday – and my large monitor. The laptop screen would have done at a pinch for playing some games etc – but for working I needed the large screen.

This work issue was stressing me out – and we couldn’t find a fix for it for a while. Sleeping hadn’t been easy to say the least because the beds were so hard and uncomfortable (and I like a hard bed – so it must have been bad if I found it hard!). We had to leave the property by 10am on Friday morning, and as is often the case we decided we would so something local on Thursday morning – and then drive back on Thursday afternoon. There was nothing to be gained for staying the extra night when it wasnt comfortable and that meant we had a whole day at home on Friday to do something local to home if I felt up to it.

Our plans were torn apart though at 2am Wednesday morning. My wife had a call from her brothers girlfriend that he had been taken into hospital with a suspected stroke! We were on the phone to the Hospital till around 4am but could not get any information from them. While my wife was holding on the phone – I started packing everything up so we could leave. There was no way I could safely drive 2 hours in the middle of the night – so after we gave up getting information from the Hospital we managed to get back to sleep for a few hours.

In the morning we cleaned up the rest of the place – washed up in the kitchen etc and left around 10am in the morning getting back home around midday. Once home I had a brief break before driving down to Barnsley to visit and see how he was doing.

I was still trying to find the solution to work problems and drive over to Barnsley several days (my brother in law seems to be making a fairly decent recovery by the way so that’s good). I hadn’t had a restful holiday and the stress was mounting up.

On the following Monday the 18th September I had to go back to work and as I knew there were issues I started work at 6am. I managed to find a solution to the work problem but it would take a while to implement. I wanted my team to check over my findings before I implemented anything so didn’t “do” anything related to this fix in the morning while they looked at my findings. My wife was going over to Barnsley on the train that day – but she got into the city and realised she had left her purse behind so came home – very flustered. I offered to finish early and take her over as I didn’t think going on the train would be good as she was so stressed. At 1pm I finished work – after 7 hours work and drove her to Barnsley. When we came back again I spent another 3 hours working and was able to implement the fix then.

Over the next few days we were working on another major problem at work – one of our systems stopped working. To my knowledge, we have not yet found a solution to this one.

On Thursday my wife went over to Barnsley on the train and this time stayed over on my sister’s couch so she could visit and run errands for her brother on Friday as well.

As you can imagine – things were rather stressful with the worry of my brother in law, work, making sure I was there for my wife, as well as feeling gradually worse every day myself.

On Friday afternoon I drove over to Barnsley with my daughter. It was a real struggle. I was feeling totally burned out – could hardly speak clearly and needed to get back home. I was not well enough to trust myself on the Motorway driving back (was having panic attacks and palpitations driving to Barnsley), so was planning to drive back on the slower roads. It was rush hour and I didnt think I could drive anywhere before having a little break so we went to Morrisons Cafe and had something to eat. I spent most of the time with my head in my hands – half asleep. I was starting to feel really unwell.

I managed to drive back but then went almsot straight to bed.

The next day I was worse – and over the next few days I realised that all the stress and effort had pushed me over the edge and I had experienced a significant crash of my symptoms.

I spent all of Saturday and Sunday in bed. On Monday I logged into work and started working on something – but 30 mins later I realised that the effort of doign that had used ALL my energy. I decided I would have to stay off sick that day.

I was overdoing it in just 20-30 mins. 15 mins washing dishes up – left me walking so slowly it was taking like a minute or two to walk the 10 paces from the bathroom to my room etc. I was also in more pain from the ME or FMS or combination of both than I had been before. If I was was out of bed for 30 mins – the pain became so much that I could not concentrate on anything and had to get back into bed. There was no way I was going to be able to concentrate on anything at work for a while.

On Wedneday I managed to get a call back phone appointment with a doctor and explained my issues. In fact I had to write down what I wanted to say as I was having so many cognitive issues I would not be able to remember to tell it all. Annoyingly he never let me finish reading it (I have found this doctor impatient before and it irritates me). I did manage to explain though that I was in pain and the over the counter cocodamol I was taking was not enough. I also explained that I was worried about going back to work as I cannot concentrate on anything. I DIDNT get the chance to explain properly the cognitive problems I was having or how my intense fatigue was affecting me.

This WAS the doctor however that had a year before told me I have ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia so at least I wasnt too worried that he woudl question me saying I had a ME crash.

He prescribed me some codine (stronger than the amount of codine in over the counter cocodamol) and told me that if I phone again on Monday he will write me a fitnote for 2 weeks. I can self cert until then.

So it’s now Friday. I’ve had to take the codine 4 times so far – but thats not too bad as I can take it up to 4 times a day and thats only 2 times a day so far. I HAVE spent most of the day every day in bed though. I’ve not allowed myself to look at work. I am sure my temporary line manager and head of IT is not pleased with me – but I am not allowing myself to worry or think about that too much.

Ultimately I have been feeling worse and worse over the last few months – and have thought again about if I will need to take early retirement under ill health. I guess if I DO end up qualifying for that – it’s not going to be without being off sick unable to work. They are hardly likely to say I cant work while I AM working! I don’t know if I WILL ever be able to claim that – and even if I do, my full work pension will still be a drop fo £10k a year from my current salary and I wont have my state pention for another 12 years still.

Anyway – I have the weekend to go – and then on Monday I have to decided if I am going to phone for a fitnote for another week or two, or if I’m going to try and go back to work. However as to date anytime I do anything I am worn out in 30 mins or so – I think its unlikely to be a good idea to go back on Monday unless I suddenly feel a lot better.

I’ve been out three times this week while off sick. Once for a diabetic eye screening. That was annoying – I couldn’t drive to that as the drops they give you in your eyes make it unsafe to drive. I had to walk there and back – 30 mins or so each way. That took everything out of me, and for nothing: they decided they didn’t need to give me the drops that time – so I would have been abel to drive. As soon as I got back I went to bed though. The next day I popped across the road the the pharmacy (literally the other side of the road) and had my flu jab as I had needed to cancel the one the doctor had invited me for as we were away. Yesterday I went out for a brief walk with my wife – and picked up a couple things in ASDA. Again that totally wiped me out and left me in a lot of pain – but I needed to get out of the house. I also need to see what I can do or I will never see if I am improving!

So now it’s wait and see. I am taking it very easy – not driving anywhere significant and spending most of my time alternating between sitting down and laying down when the pain or fatigue gets too bad.

It’s now 20 past midnight – time to try and sleep I guess. The codine is wearing off so hopefully I can sleep before it gets too bad – I don’t want to take more today if I don’t need to.