Three Days

'I have known you only three days..."

PUSH, DAMN YOU, PUSH!!!

Whitney had her puppies yesterday morning after a very long first stage of labour. She actually started scratching up on Friday so I had to stay close to her from then on, sleeping on the armchair. Her temperature did not drop until Sunday afternoon and I knew then that the puppies would be born that evening. However that did not happen and she did not have her first visible contraction until 5:10 AM Monday morning. I have never had a bitch take that long in the first stage of labour. During this stage contractions are happening but they are not visible.  

The first puppy born was a full breach birth and he was very difficult to get out of her. This puppy is not going to make it. I thought that maybe he would but I now know that he isn't. Because of the trauma of his birth he was born without his placenta and umbilical cord.  Unfortunately, his bowel fell out of the hole  that this left.  although I put it all back in easily enough I really did not expect that this puppy would survive. Amazingly, the hole has healed over.  I mean skin has grown over the hole not that there is a scab.  Despite this,  he does not look or feel right and I am as certain  as I can be that he will die. 

 We have the decorators in and they are working on the two bedrooms upstairs. They have stripped all the wallpaper will be laying lining paper and then painting.

New shelving and wardrobes will be put into these two bedrooms. The two built in wardrobes in the main bedroom will be used for clothing and John will put shelving up all around the walls for my Dr Martens. I have two knitting machine setup, complete with motors because I cannot knit without them now,  and they will stay there.

 And the smaller bedroom will have wardrobes put in and this room will be used as my dressing room which will make life much easier as there will be room for a chair which I need to sit on in order to get dressed and there will be more space generally.

Having a dressing room will make such a difference to me. Dressing is one of the major challenges of my day. So much so that as much as I do not like to admit it I now do not get dressed unless I know I am going out. Not only is it dangerous for me in that I am much more likely to fall it takes a long time and is tiring! So I hang about in my "leisure outfits". These are pull on or pull over, hence they are much easier to put on. I would prefer not to be in my pyjamas all day but I would rather use the energy required to get dressed on something else.

I have learned a lot more about myself recently and about how the effects of abuse upon the psych are subtle or perhaps one could say they hide in plain sight. It has come to my attention recently how my illness and my treatment is greatly affected by the negative things that the abuse taught me.  I have only recently become aware of this. I intend to write a separate post about this. I will be listing all of the effects of my disease as best I can and also relating how the negative programming of the abuse has affected my reporting of my disease to the doctor and therefore my treatment.

ALL'S WELL

Just to say that al is well here, just very busy. Whitney's had her puppies. The decorators are in. I will be writing more as soon as I can. 

SEX REVIVAL?

The new bed is amazing. I sleep very well on it. The remote control is very responsive and the bed goes up and down very easily. It has got me thinking that I might have a sex life again since the bed moves up and down on its own… 

 My legs are very painful from yesterday at the pool but don't care because I feel pleased with myself because I did it. The pain is weird it is not the usual muscle aching that one gets if you've been weightlifting or running (not that I have done either of those things for many years). No it comes from my pelvic region down both thighs and is more like a burning electric type pain. Very hard to describe. I imagine it is neurological or nerve pain.

 I may go for a swim later or I may bathe dogs. Or I may do far call. (My voice to type still refuses to swear. I do think it is quite clever in what it actually writes. If you say the words out loud it is obvious what I actually said.)

 I've actually been up for hours but I got waylaid by music on the Internet. I was sent a link to a radio concert that Iris deMent did and that sent me off listening to Neil Young and he sent me off to listen to John Prine. I bought to John Prine CDs. You can get CDs incredibly cheaply. I often buy them second hand for £1.50! After all I only record them onto my MacBook Pro and file the CD away. My MacBook Pro is plugged into my hi-fi system and is only used for music. All of the tracks are recorded in AIFF as this is what the CD files are and therefore this is the best quality. Yes it does take up more space. The only other file I will use is Apple lossless but at the moment most is in AIFF. 

 One of my boasts because I'm very pleased with myself that I was able to do it, is that I changed the hard disk inside my MacBook Pro to a solid-state 1 from Crucial. I am sure my heart stopped when I pressed the button to start the MacBook Pro after I had changed the hard disc. The relief I felt when it started up properly!

Whitney is now about 10 days away from giving birth. She has already claimed her whelping quarters which she has had available  for a couple of weeks. She got in it immediately it was put up. Even when she had her first litter she knew what the whelping box and pen were for. The whelping box is in the sunroom because of the underfloor heating which is going to be much better for both the puppies and her. If the sun is shining then the sun room gets warm but not too warm.

I had wondered with the sunroom how it was going to be in the winter. I assumed that if the sum was shining and then the room would still get warm. The temperatures have been in the high 50s and the sun room reaches about 25°C during the day. It remains to be seen what it is like when the outside temperature is near zero even with the sun shining.

And we are already feeling the effects of the new insulation.  Normally by now we would have the house central heating on at night because the outside temperature is falling well below 10°C. We have had no reason to turn it on and I am sleeping without my duvet covering me. I find that I am perfectly warm enough in my so-called lounge outfits. (This consists of silk longjohns and silk longsleeved vest, lounge trousers, longsleeved T-shirt, and then a T-shirt. In winter, the longjohns and the longsleeved vest become silk and cotton or wool and cotton.)   I imagine that our fuel bill is going to be lower now that we have the insulation. I really am surprised at the difference it has already made.

BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN

 The appointment with my doctor went really well. I had properly prepared for it so I remembered to tell her not just what I knew I was going to tell her about, but what John wanted me to tell her as well.

I did tell John that I thought that my doctor probably realised that I minimised everything to do with my disease and my mood. I do not do this deliberately. It is what I learned to do and in fact what I was taught to do. In common with very many other survivors of childhood abuse I learned a very clever trick; I learned to disassociate. The best way I can think of to describe this is that one is able to go elsewhere in one's mind when bad things are happening. This ability of course has been very good in enabling me to cope with my disease. I am able to put my awareness elsewhere.  Unfortunately, this also means that I do not really recognise the truth and so I do not of course tell it when I am asked. However, my doctor did tell me that she knew just from the way that I moved or the way that I looked that my answers to the questions were not truthful! It was made clear to me today that I do need to tell her everything that I experience. I am not sure how well I am going to be able to do this because the ability to disassociate is not exactly deliberate and so I am not aware that I am not aware! Minimising is so ingrained, and the teaching to not 'be a sissy' and to 'not make a fuss' is ingrained also and all of this combined with the trauma of abuse and seeing my best friend killed when I was 7, just makes it difficult for me to always be present. the ability to not be present does have it's up side-it helps me live a good life despite my fcked up body. If I turned my awareness on 24/7 I'd not be happy.  I have just realised that my awareness suddenly being turned on is possibly what causes those episodes I get occasionally aware I become extremely uncomfortable and I have to remove all of my clothing because having the clothing touching me is too much to bear. I certainly could not live with that 24/7!

It has only been a combination of recent happenings that made me realise that I had to speak with my doctor frankly about my day-to-day living. The first thing was that the weekend before the one just past, Paul, the man who works in the clothes shop where we sometimes by clothes,  mentioned that he could tell that it was painful for me to try on clothes.  I was really surprised that he should say that and I asked him what made him think it and he said that it was obvious from my face and the way that I moved. When I questioned John about it later he too said that he was able to tell how I was by the look on my face and by how I moved and held my body. I asked the people at the pool today and their answer was exactly the same.

Due to the above I realised that I needed to tell my doctor what was going on with my body. Oh, the other thing that happened that really brought it home to me was earlier today I realised I had left the bathroom light on and I made myself go back upstairs to switch it off. For some reason, when I got to the top of the stairs I became conscious of the fact that I've felt exhausted and that I hurt all over and that I needed to sit down. I did no such thing of course and I just went back downstairs and carried on with what I  was doing which was getting ready to go to the pool. I think that moment of conscious awareness  enabled me to realise what it is that I need to speak to the doctor about.

 As I realised because of the wonderful effect it has had on me, the baclofen was not prescribed to me as a temporary fix but as a hopefully permanent one. It has worked far better than the doctor was hoping and of course I had no idea what it would do because the only muscle relaxant I knew  of was Valium and that only really worked when taken in a dose large enough to make me fall asleep! In other words it isn't that much good. I did not hold out much hope that the baclofen was going to enable my neck to move again. Not only did it make my neck move again but it has made my whole body feels so much better. I have only been aware of muscle pain when I have had extreme spasms either in my legs  all my rib cage. I did not realise just how taut my whole body was the whole time.  As you can imagine it has made a remarkable difference to the way that I feel in a positive way. I will be continuing to take the 40 mg a day but will have a diuretic added as it does indeed seem that I have retaining water.  I would much rather deal with the side-effect of this drug by taking the diuretic than by stopping the drug.

To all those who wrote to me I want to tell you how much I appreciate your support and let you know that I did feel supported.  All of you pointed out how stressful the house renovations and the wedding in the last six months have been. Not something I really took into account, especially the wedding. My doctor is in full agreement with all of you! 

I feel much more positive now about tomorrow and onwards and I feel that I am more likely to be able to return to my normal routine as it was prior to the house renovation starting. Yes, I do know that it will take time and that I must not expect I shall be back to normal by tomorrow. It does seem  though that it is possible now and that is what is most important: that I feel that it is possible.

HARD TO BE HONEST

TUBE SOCKS BEFORE AND AFTER WEAR

THE SOCKS ABOVE ARE TUBE SOCKS, NO SHAPING FOR HEEL, JUST FINISHED.

THE PAIR BELOW ARE THE SAME PAIR AFTER NORMAL 24 HOUR WEAR, IN SHOES AND IN HOUSE SANDALS.

THEY ARE KNITTED ON 2MM NEEDLES OVER 80STS FOR MY UK8 FOOT. I BELIEVE THAT IS A US 10 MENS. WHATEVER, MY FOOT IS 9.5" AROUND THE BASE OF TOES.

DOING DRUGS

Chase