mental-health

Disc-Oww Inferno

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Done gone and put my back out, haven’t I? And done it in the most pathetic way as well. I’d like to say that I did it whilst outrunning an avalanche on only one ski or that my parachute got twisted and I hit the ground hard but lived to tell the tale. I’d love to say that I did it whilst carrying a child from a burning building or that it happened whilst attempting to lift my own body weight at the gym.

It would be great if it were something exciting or dramatic but no…

I did it getting out of the car.

The worst part is that I’m not even sure what happened exactly. We pulled up in Morrisons carpark on Monday morning, I opened the car door, stuck my leg out, went to stick the other one out and the next thing I knew I was walking like Igor and in a state of total panic.

The problem is, you see, that my back tends to go out in two stages. The first stage, that I’m in now, is like a painful warning shot that much worse is to come if I don’t watch out. I can still function but in a limited capacity. The second stage is a full-on prolapsed disc that renders me incapable of even turning over in bed without screaming for about a fortnight or more.

Thankfully, I’m at stage one still and with careful management it should put itself right and I’ll be back to myself in roughly ten days or so.

If I’m not careful and it goes to stage two then I’m in a world of trouble and you won’t be hearing from me for a while because, let’s face it, it’s incredibly difficult to type whilst lying flat on your back. And that’s just about the only position I’ll be in if it happens.

Now, here’s the thing – I haven’t had a stage two since April 2016. There’s been a couple of stage ones but mercifully it’s gone no further than that. So as you can probably guess I’m on tenterhooks at this precise moment.

And if it does go to stage two there is only one solution and that is a visit to the chiropractor, which is an ordeal in itself. What about painkillers you say? Pah! A waste of time, effort and a perfectly good glass of water. The only pain relief that would touch it is probably banned by the W.H.O, the U.N and most countries in the Western world.

No, it has to be the chiropractor. Only he/she can end the misery of a stage two.

I have a kind of love/hate relationship with chiropractors. I hate them when they’re pulling me about and twisting me into the kind of positions normally only achieved by Judo masters and I feel like screaming for them to stop but then all of a sudden there’s that wonderful little ‘click’ and the pain is gone. When that happens I love the chiropractor to the point of offering to wash their smalls for them.

Of course, the chiropractors charge for putting you through hell, don’t they? £50 a pop these days I’m led to believe. Last time I went (2016) it was only £30. Well worth it though I suppose. The sense of relief when I leave the chiropractor is beyond profound. I feel like I’m sixteen years old again, although that feeling only tends to last about a day before I remember my actual age but for a while there it’s nice to be a spring chicken for a few hours.

The most annoying thing about it all is that its entirely my own fault. I did it to myself many years ago aged just twenty-three. I was working in a warehouse and it was my job to load pallets onto a lorry with a forklift truck. On the day in question I had a metal pallet on the forks upon which were two gigantic leaf springs for a HGV suspension. Whoever had prepared them hadn’t done a very good job and as I went to load them onto the lorry one of the springs slid off the pallet.

Not to worry, though, I was young and fit and strong, wasn’t I? I’d have it back on the pallet in no time at all – this thing was about 75kg by the way. So I dismounted, put on my heavy-duty gloves and grasped the leaf spring in both hands and lifted with all my might.

They heard the scream from five miles away.

I’d prolapsed one of my lower vertebrae and I had never experienced pain quite like it in my few short years on this Earth. Thankfully, it was right at the end of the working day and I went home in the misguided belief that a Radox bath and an early night would soon put it straight.

How very wrong I was.

The next morning my entire body had about as much movement as a cheap ironing board but considerably less structural integrity. I was in sheer-bloody-agony. There was nothing for it but to ring in sick and get my sorry ass to the GP.

The GP gave me some painkillers; codeine possibly, and advised me to go to an osteopath. I’d heard of osteopaths but weren’t sure exactly what they did. I was told there was one on the High Street who was very good but I couldn’t get the treatment on the NHS and would therefore have to pay. That was fine, I’d have paid every penny I ever earned if this chap could make me walk like I hadn’t soiled myself.

The year was 1989 and it cost just £5 for the osteopath to sort me out. Oh, admittedly, I nearly fainted as he performed his best Hulk Hogan impression and bent me into positions that would defy any self-respecting contortionist but then, eventually, he pushed the heel of his hand hard into my lower spine, there was a loud ‘click’ and he said, “How’s that?”

I could have French kissed him, tongues and all. I was cured!

During the years between 1989 and 2016 I only had a stage two on three occasions. Once when I was raking leaves off the lawn, once when I bent down to pick my Yorkshire Terrier up and once when I went over the handlebars of my bike.

Now, three times in twenty-seven years might not sound a lot but believe me, when it goes to stage two I cannot do anything except sit and cry like a lost kiddie in a supermarket. Honest to God, that’s it; that’s all I can do. So three times was three times too many in my opinion.

So here I am, in the midst of a stage one and taking the very greatest care not to do anything remotely physical so as to avoid a stage two. But if it should go to stage two you won’t need me to tell you about it as I shall be noticeable by my absence.

Watch this space!

A&E and Me

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I make no secret of the fact that I am the National Health Service’s biggest fan. Seriously, for all those that criticise it do you realise just where the hell we’d all be without it? Up Excrement River without an oar, that’s where!

The NHS saved my life in 2003. Literally! I was about one degree higher in body temperature away from shuffling off this mortal coil but the skill of doctors and nurses pulled me through. And that’s before I get to the bit about how they have looked after and treated my wife in the last few years when she has had both a heart attack and cancer.

In short, they’ve been bloody marvellous.

So, please, do yourself a favour, if you want to slate the NHS then don’t do it to me or you’re liable to get a lengthy diatribe in its defence.

I went a bit quiet last week and did very little in the way of actual writing. Now, there’s a perfectly good reason for this and it’s a bit of an old chestnut, I know, but I wasn’t very well.

Tuesday afternoon my face went numb and I was greatly alarmed gentle reader. I thought that perhaps the Bell’s Palsy was making a return or perhaps it was something a lot worse – you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, my fab-u-la-tastic wife thought that it warranted a trip to A&E to get it checked out and so off we went once more on that well-trodden road to Airedale Hospital.

I say well-trodden because in the last 10 to 12 years or so I have made more trips to A&E than any other person alive. So much so that I believe I should have my own private seat in the waiting room and some kind of loyalty card for the vending machines.

And yes, there have been times when I’ve had to wait an eon to see someone but I realise that its only because the poor staff there are absolutely snowed under. When we walked in on Tuesday I counted exactly 48 people, including myself, in the waiting area. I took a seat and we waited with them.

It took a full six hours before I was sat in front of a doctor, although I had been through triage and had my blood taken etc much earlier. After a discussion and examination with the doctor he concluded that the nerves in my face have been compressed by my CPAP mask at night and this was causing the numbness.

I breathed a sigh of relief but also felt like giving myself a jolly good kick in the pants for having the damn mask too tight in the first place. That was a week ago and I am still experiencing some numbness but nothing as bad as it was last Tuesday. To cut a long story short there was a fault with my mask that I hadn’t realised which has now been satisfactorily resolved.

But it did get me thinking over the Easter weekend just how many trips I have made to Airedale A&E department. Actually, its not called A&E anymore, is it? It’s just called “Emergency” now but I still call it A&E because I’m an old stick in the mud and I don’t like change when there’s no need for it.

Anyhoo, about those visits to Airedale A&E. There have been a great many. The first of which was in the Spring of 2013. I was chopping some fire wood and without going into too much detail I successfully managed to – bury the hatchet, as it were, into my right foot.

Ange hastened my to Airedale and I was seen quickly, stitched up, bandaged and on my way home again in no time at all. And I learned a valuable lesson that day which is this – don’t try chopping wood wearing only Crocs.

Since then I’ve gone and sat in that old familiar waiting room for things such as:

  • Pneumonia
  • Chest pains (twice)
  • Bell’s Palsy
  • Vertigo
  • Violent stomach pain (which turned out to be constipation on an industrial scale)
  • A bad knee
  • A bad arm
  • A bad back
  • And a great and varied host of other minor offences

Sometimes it’s been a quick in and out and sometimes it’s been a more prolonged and drawn out experience. It just depends how busy they are on the day. Although, the pneumonia one led to me being put on a ward for the best part of a week whilst they pumped me full of nuclear strength antibiotics.

And the thing that has stood out the most for me in all that time is the tremendous patience and complete unflappability of the staff. From the first point of contact at the reception desk right through to the doctors, nurses, radiographers and everyone else.

I’ve had X-rays, MRIs, CT scans and had more blood taken than a black pudding factory and it’s always been done with the utmost care and the most remarkable professionalism. Never, I say again never, have I ever felt not in safe hands there.

So, now you see why I am such a champion of the NHS. They do an immeasurably difficult job with nowhere near enough funding and they do it with smiles on their faces and tenderness in their hearts.

As for the rest of last week, I spent all day Wednesday in bed catching up on all the lost sleep I’ve missed and Thursday I was as limp as a two-day old banana skin although I did manage to shuffle down to the chip shop at teatime although the walk back felt like I was trying to conquer Everest. I just barely roused myself on Friday to do a bit of catching up on my journal and some laundry but that was about it. As for the weekend it was pleasant (and chocolatey) enough but I still had less energy than Rip Van Winkle on his day off.

Monday was nice as I did a bit of canal boat steering which brought back some genuinely happy memories and proved that however crap my body is these days; I’ve still got it at the business end of a tiller!

Here’s hoping this week will prove to be far more productive and please join me in raising a glass to our glorious NHS. Long may it continue.

A Catch 22 Situation

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Catch 22

Noun:

A dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.

And I found myself in the midst of a Catch 22 on Friday.

I had a blood test a few weeks ago and thought no more about it until I received a phone call from my GP to say that he’d like to see me as the test had shown a significant increase in cholesterol since last year. Quite a hike actually.

We had a discussion during which he bombarded me with information but the thing that I took away the most from it was when he told me that I was now 20% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than I was this time last year. Now, I had two trains of thought about this.

  1. 20% isn’t too bad. It could be worse.
  2. Then again if the current trend continues at 20% per annum I’ll be dead in another 4 years.

And that second thought really woke me up rather. And, to be perfectly honest, I needed a bloody good wake up call and there it was.

It’s been a tough old year so far, and the previous three months, and I must hold my hand up and admit that I’ve sought a lot of help from Barefoot, Yellow Tail, McGuigan and Jam Shed. I’m not talking getting pie-eyed every night but certainly having more units per week than is thought safe by the medical profession. So I can’t help thinking that I have indeed been the architect of my own downfall as it were.

I haven’t actually had an alcoholic drink for eleven days now as I was aware that every time I stepped on the bathroom scales the needle was going in the wrong direction. The good thing is that I can’t say I miss it either so that’s a good thing.

But I did leave the health centre that morning with a grim determination that I was going to reduce that 20% figure and beat cholesterol into bloody, quivering submission. I have been prescribed statins, which will help, but I want to do it the old-fashioned way and clear those arteries out with healthy food that is low in cholesterol.

So I went home and did a bit of Googling (as one does) and found that most of the things I enjoy eating are actually plotting to assassinate me – red meat, bacon, chips, chocolate, eggs, butter etc etc. However, the foods that will prolong my existence on this Earth are things like avocados, salads, fruit and veg, olive oil, chicken without the skin and fish. All I can say is that it’s a good job that I like all of those things as well.

Being thus armed with the information I needed I started exactly how I meant to go on. I was home by half past nine as the surgery is quite literally a stone’s throw from our flat (although, I haven’t ever thrown a stone at it so I can’t vouch for the authenticity of that statement) and I was home in much less than five minutes.

Breakfast time!

I had a banana and an orange. By most people’s standards that’s not much for a man of such ample proportions to last on until lunchtime but I was so determined that I was going to change the course of my life that I was resolute. I washed the fruit down with a cup of rooibos tea which has something like 2 calories in it and is packed with anti-oxidants whilst also being naturally caffeine free. I thought I was on to a winner.

However…

In the afternoon we drove the twenty or so miles to Keighley as we needed to speak to someone at the bank about one or two things (nothing to worry about – we aren’t destitute) and we arrived at twenty past two. The bank closed at three and there was quite a queue and we began to wonder whether or not we would get served in time before it shut its doors.

I’m not good at all at standing for long periods of time and the heat in the bank was actually quite oppressive. There was no air and to be honest the whole place had a sort of stale tobacco/sweaty armpit kind of odour. I began to feel queasy.

Within a few minutes I found myself forced to sit down and by the time that a very nice lady (called Tracy) smilingly ushered us into one of the little interview rooms I was sweating from every pore, my clothes were wet from it, my hair was plastered to my scalp and my vision kept going dark. I was sure that I was about to measure my length on the floor and thoroughly embarrass myself and my lovely wife by fainting.

My blood sugar was incredibly low and that happens a lot.

An awful lot.

Fortunately, Tracy was quick to respond. She got one member of staff to bring me water and another member of staff was dispatched to Poundland (next door) to procure some Mars bars for me. He came back with a four pack of which I ate three in quick succession and downed three glasses of water.

Eventually, I began to feel a little better. But only a little. We concluded our business at the bank and then returned to the multi-storey car park, my legs shaking like a border terrier who has just seen a cat walk past its window. I was in a bad way folks. A very bad way.

Ange decided that more food was in order and so she advanced on Greggs and bought me a couple of sausage rolls. Now, I usually think of Greggs sausage rolls as a food source in the same way that I think that raw sewage is, but right there and then as I sat in the car chewing on those foul, grey-meated, grease-dripping comestibles I couldn’t have been happier with a medium sirloin steak and triple cooked chunky chips. It was just so good to get some food inside me so that the shaking would stop.

You can, therefore, no doubt see what my Catch 22 situation is…

I have to eat healthily to get my cholesterol down and I have to stuff myself with carbs and sugar when my blood sugar levels drop. The choice is either fight or faint. And I don’t know what to do.

The good news is that I have been tested for diabetes and despite being told that I am at risk of it there is no sign of me actually having it yet. Phew!

I don’t know why these episodes are so severe. I know everybody gets their energy depleted from time to time and feels weak as a result but I go from this huge big guy to trembling, sweaty, whimpering shambles in a matter of minutes. And when that happens it really is a case of either sit down or fall down.

Shoving carbs and sugar down my gullet will do my cholesterol levels no good whatsoever but lets be honest, when my blood sugar drops like that then a celery stick isn’t going to get me back on my feet again. Ergo – Catch 22.

Suggestions for my problem will be eagerly received so please do pop them in the comments section or email me at contact@blesshamhall.co.uk I look forward to hearing from you.

Incidentally, Catch 22 is the title of one of the best books ever written, by a man called Joseph Heller, and is so funny and yet so shocking at the same time that it really does fit the old adage of “couldn’t put it down.” If you haven’t read it then I strongly advise, nay urge, you to do so at the earliest available convenience.