Stage Five: Acceptance
I never did get back to work in this short week, and I've had my ups and downs, as you would expect. I've spent the past few years in the belief that my condition was going to get better, that I would need less medication, that the bouts would become rarer and less severe with time, and that eventually they would go away all together, and I would for all intents and purposes be "normal". However the research and conversation of the past few weeks is leading me down another, darker path, and that is that this will never go away. It may even get worse as I age. And I'll have to learn how to live with it. People live with far, far worse, I know that, but I haven't, I have lead, for want of a better phrase, a pretty charmed life. Sure things have gone wrong, but rarely anything that can't be fixed, and even more rarely anything all that dreadful. I guess it's character building time, eh?
Everything else is a bit of a mixture. Yesterday was the (or perhaps a) royal wedding, and apart from most people getting a day off work, I hadn't given it a minutes thought. Yesterday when I woke up, not that late at all I might add, Peterborough seemed a ghost town, and I assume this is because everybody was inside watching the event on TV. I was not one of those people, and I was amazed that so many people were apparently swept up in the whole thing. My anti-monarchy feelings are no secret to anyone who has read my words before, but I harbour no personal ill will to the royal couple, I just strongly feel that their wedding is in essence none of my fucking business. Still, nice of them to give everyone a day off I suppose.
And now we're off work for just over a week for Becky's birthday. We were supposed to be going away, but what with the inconsistent hours I've had at work since the New Year and then my being ill we've decided to cancel that, which is completely rubbish, but not as rubbish as either going away and having to scrimp and save and watch the pennies, or worse going away and have me suffer a major attack so we don't leave the hotel room.
Also Firefox 4 is here. And disabling a few of my favourite add ons. Bugger
I Found Low
I don't really know where this is going to go, but I think I need to say something, so I'll say it here.
For just over a week now I've been suffering a pretty major dizzy period. I've had them off and on, but not this severe or long lasting for a good few years now, and it's getting to me.
I know in my head that nobody blames me for this, or thinks less of me, and I also know that stressing myself isn't going to help but I've been feeling low, really low. I don't know what to do when I am alone, there isn't much I can do if I'm honest, and just sitting, being, isn't the easiest thing. Apparently the extra paranoia comes from the disease itself, or maybe comes with the disease is a better way to put it. I know I am neither alone nor unusual in this regard, I've been having a good look online recently, but still it's hard not to feel isolated.
I've always thought that this was going to get better, that periods of decompensation would become fewer and further between, but my research over the past week hasn't been so optimistic. For a start, all the various "dizzy" syndromes seem confused, poorly delineated and I think poorly understood. I certainly suffer symptoms that cross several boundaries, and don't conform clearly to any particular group, although the Meniere's diagnosis I got from the specialist those many years ago does seem the best match for me, although my attacks are both longer lived and also less severe (I've never been so dizzy that I throw up, at least not for years and years for instance). If it IS Meniere's, then there is an inevitable degeneration to look forward to, during which the symptoms will spread to both ears, my hearing will be damaged but on the plus side during this period the dizzy spells will fade and eventually stop. It strikes me that maybe it's something else, something that isn't really known about. Not that I am suggesting that I am special, a patient zero for whatever this is, just that with all due respect to GPs, they just don't have the time or inclination to look too deeply into cases that are managed by the received wisdom. And I pretty much am managed by the received wisdom.
I would normally think that I could stay inside indefinitely, and never get bored, but after a week an a bit I am already going a bit crackers. It's not that I have a lack of entertainments or diversions, more a limit on how long I can enjoy these things before I start to feel altered or other and have to stop. On top of that I am really having a hard time sleeping. Not that I don't feel tired, cos I do, oh so very tired, but I can't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time and when I do I am plagued with dreams which are strange and disturbing even by my standards.
When I write it all out like this it all seems so trivial, so petty, but when it's stuck in my head it seems insurmountable.
