I’ve been seeing an acupuncturist for the last couple of weeks in the hope that some good might come of it.  And by ‘good’ I mean some relief in the unrelenting and and quite severely debilitating pain I’ve been experiencing daily since the latest car accident.  I think I went into it with an open mind and realistically optimistic attitude…. but I’ve been for three visits now  and I’m not sure if it’s helping in any discernible way.

Each time I turn up, he asks me how I’ve been feeling and I try to describe my week’s aches and pains in language suitable for a twelve year old…. English is not his strong suit and I’ve noticed it’s not a good thing if I use my normally precise and often polysyllabic mode of speech as it seems to cause him to smile and nod in a vacant way that leaves me confident that he hasn’t understood a single word I’ve uttered.  So I try hard to simplify things and when I do, he goes ‘ahuh, ahuh’ scribbles down notes in some mysterious and indecipherable shorthand (Oh well, okay… it’s probably not so mysterious and indecipherable, it’s probably  just Chinese or something). Then it’s onto the table and in with the needles… in the oddest of places, back of my hands, in my feet, above my collarbone and behind one knee??  Some of them hurt, some of them make my muscles twitch and spasm and some I can’t feel at all.  Then it’s time to try and relax for a few minutes while feeling strangely like an entomological specimen.

Each visit has left me with some teeny little spot bruises where he’s jabbed me but today, there’s one spot on my neck that is still sore three hours after the needle has been removed and I can feel a bump under the skin promising to be a decent bruise tomorrow… no doubt one that my physio will get her pointy little hands into tomorrow.

I’m just hoping the acupuncturist doesn’t turn around and decide to go all medieval on my ass with them strange little glass cups that sit on a shelf in the corner looking completely innocuous yet simultaneously menacing …..

I was up late last night, and didn’t get to sleep until after 1am. Couldn’t read anything as I couldn’t think straight and was feeling more than a bit lonely and depressed… and thought I’d like to think it’s got nothing to do with it, I’m sure it is in small part due to the Shakespeare overdose of late. I slept so poorly last night, I think I spent more time awake than asleep.

At one point, being 2:47am precisely, I woke up thinking I heard something outside my bedroom window. Now normally this would cause me to get up and peer out from behind the curtains into the darkness in order to try and ascertain where the curious noise had come from. Or at least that would have been my usual manner of response to untoward things that go bump in the night. But that was before…. before the Valium that is. Last night, upon hearing strange and unidentifiable noises, I lay in bed for a good five minutes feeling heavy limbed and trying to shake my head to allow my eyes to function through a drugged haze. The attempt to regain control of my limbs and mental faculties proved positively futile and I eventually abandoned the effort to get out of bed to investigate what was possibly a potential intruder (either that or it was the tear away teenager from next door using my patio to have deep and meaningful conversations (read God awful rows) with her balding middle aged boyfriend again.

It was the weirdest feeling I think I’ve ever encountered… I used to be instantly awake when roused in the night to the point I’d have difficulties going back to sleep, but not so on this occasion. I felt like I couldn’t get up or see anything clearly even though I wanted to. I found myself awake again at 3:30am and again at 4:10am. I also clearly remember the Small Child waking me at 6:50am asking if he could watch the latest Harry Potter movie (one we had deemed too dark for a six year old) and I blithely gave my permission for same in a half asleep and wholly drugged stupor. I’ve woken again at 7:40am with the Small Child demanding an explanation of who the evil man with no nose is. And then I dozed in and out until 8ish when I realized that I was sleeping in and my Small Child was up watching something with concepts inappropriate for his young developing mind.

So I dragged myself out of bed… several times actually as I kept on crawling back in. And now I’m tired… de do do do. Tired of playing ze game… de do do do… aint it a cwying shame… I’m sooo tired!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au5f6pMgN2s

It calms down a bit and then before you know it comes back again… bigger and badder than before. I was kinda complacent last night… calm, quiet, my back not too hideous.  Could be the appointment with the specialist gave me some confidence that help might be on its way or could (more likely) be the Ordine/Valium/Endep night cap I had last night.   Ultimately the how and why of that is neither here nor there.  I awoke this morning in severe pain… and I mean severe.  I could not roll over (I think I slept on my back in the one position all night) I could not lift the covers off me.  I could not get out of bed unassisted.  I had tears rolling down my cheeks and I reached immediately for some pain killers.  It was bad… really bad.  Pain just seemed to be assailing my every movement, and bits of me I didn’t even know I had were screaming out in pain.

The hard bit though was Mr K is out of town, so I had to try and get Angel dressed and fed and packed and ready for school though it was all I could do to stop crying!  Managed to get the Small Child squared away for the day and decided the best thing for me today was a reminder that things can always get worse!  So I’ve been indulging in a day of watching Shakespearean tragedies, and thanking my lucky stars I didn’t marry Othello or have a brother like Richard III.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll move onto Romeo and Juliet and Branagh’s Hamlet.  More distraction therapy for the people….

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I went to see yet another specialist today…. I think this makes 43 since my back pain began after the first accident back in 1991.   This time a very well known and widely respected neurosurgeon who specializes in pain medicine.  Anyway he was very methodical and seeming thorough compared to some of the doctors I have seen in the past.  I’ve often gotten the impression that half the physicians I’ve been to simply don’t know what to do with someone with my convoluted history of repeated back injuries that hasn’t ever responded so great to various treatments.

He put me through my paces – bend here, poke there, prod this, twist that.  Answer the never ending questions about where and when it hurts and what sort of restrictions I have, medications I take and treatments I’ve endured…. and it certainly starts to feel like you’re being looked over by a potential purchaser  :S  

I had been looking forward to this appointment… I think I have pinned quite a lot of hope on this poor encounter.  Hope for treatment options, hope for rehabilitation solutions, hope for pain relief… however small in measure.  And while it’s early days yet, I am still hopeful that the pain management clinic he runs will be able to offer me something by way of useful solutions and (dare I be so optimistic) some tangible results.

Time will tell.

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Since my last accident I’ve been scared shitless of going anywhere.   I mean anywhere.  So I’ve been finding all sorts of reasons to avoid having to go out and especially avoiding driving my car.  I’m not sure why this is happening now.  I’ve a couple of theories but that’s probably all just bullshit.

I’ve been in four serious accidents and only now I’m freaking out on the road?  What gives?  I’m not an irrational person … most of the time.  In fact I consider myself more than ordinarily pragmatic and quite sensible for someone of the female persuasion.  Yeah, I don’t care if that’s not particularly PC – most chicks I know drive me nuts with their friggin’ hormonal mood swings and I abhor Drama Queens no matter what flavour they come in… equal opportunity derision there. 

So here I am…  literally having episodic panic attacks on the road.  Someone only has to get within spitting distance of my car from a side street or something and that seems to trigger a memory of my dashboard at an alarming angle as we nearly rolled into the oncoming traffic and an uncontrollable emotional reaction on my part that sees me hanging onto the steering wheel, shaking, and yes there are often tears and the worst of it – an impulse to shield my eyes and look away from the road…. which I am fairly confident is not the sort of thing that is congruent with safe motor vehicle handling practices.   

Naturally I am less than impressed about this stunning failure on my part to override or control these impulses….. it doesn’t quite sit with my  preferred internal picture of myself as someone who is sensible and capable… unflappable even…. and able to negotiate difficult obstacles with ease.  I had an acupuncture appointment across town today, and I realised this afternoon that I have spent the last three days trying to figure out how to get there without having to face the city traffic and the predicted anxiety that is now accompanying expeditions of this nature.  Three days worrying about having to drive across town.  Apprehensive, anxious, uneasy, nervous, disquieted and distressed about getting in my car and going to an appointment.  

It’s exhausting…. and it’s fucked.  Just totally fucked.   How have I gone from being able to fly off to Pakistan on my own to being someone who doesn’t want to drive to Newstead in six short months??
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