Damn it world…

Life is throwing so much BS our way XD

Obnoxious GP, the most insane toothache that has spread to my whole jaw, my partner is ill, we had a really stressful day today with a damn electrician, my seizures have been terrible…and have I mentioned ow toothache?! 😀

The electrician came today, and all we’d been told is that it would be a ‘quick job’, He gets here and tells my partner it’s going to take SEVEN HOURS!! Holy shit.

So for the entire time I’m sat in a room upstairs out the way, because oddly enough I don’t want to have seizures in front of a stranger in my own damn house…but eventually the lighting in this room fucks with me (normally we’re only up there for an hour max) so I fall into a huge seizure cluster with an awful panic aura.

And after all that, one of the things he did was switch the light in our bathroom to a new fitting and bulb. We’d mentioned to our landlord if it was gonna be a bright light could we swap it somehow, to try prevent accidental seizures, and the landlord didn’t respond. We now have this behemoth of a light in there that is SO FUCKING BRIGHT.

I immediately hung a notice on the door, to try prevent people accidentally leaving the light on and me going upstairs and being immediately triggered *sigh*

After the electrician had finally gone I had a nap. I  woke with some killer seizures (one lasting 3 minutes 25 – possibly my longest awake seizure to date?!) and in agony from toothache.

(me summed up in a photo today – blank, seizey, befuddled and in pain XD)

AAAGH.

Thankfully stressful shizz is over now, and we have friends coming to stay this weekend, so that should be fun. I love being able to socialise and have friends stay now, for the past 6+ years I have been too mentally / physically unwell to manage it, so this is a fun achievement 🙂

Please send us healing and happy thoughts, we both feel like zomibies XD

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Smashing stigma: shitty GP!

Oh we had a funny appt today 😀

I had blood tests done about a week ago, so I can finally be put on the waiting list to see a neurologist in regards to my seizures. If they are epileptic seizures I can then be put on medication to try stop them; if they’re non-epileptic seizures at least I know they’re not fucking with my brain, and we can try find ways to manage them.

The GP today was a HUGE bitch. So much so it was funny!

The appt started with her asking if I could take my goggles off, to which I replied I could, but the polarized lenses help prevent seizures. Strike one against me, she didn’t know what polarized lenses were and obviously hated feeling less superior.

I began telling her about the seizures (telling her about my auras, symptoms during and after).  I told her about CBD oil, and that we’ve identified several seizure triggers (she didn’t ask what they were or give me time to tell her them).

I showed her a recording of a seizure, and she responded with “Well what’s supposed to be going on here, because it looks like you’re just watching telly”.

OMG hahaha, what an idiot!! When I’ve just told you all the symptoms, and wow well done for showing you have no knowledge of seizures as anything other than tonic clonics / grand mals!!

This was the video btw

She spent ten minutes (meaning the appt ran over) talking about my MH. She kept trying to belittle or insult me, using my MH as a weapon, and got increasingly angry when I refused to be belittled or ashamed.

Some of the questions include

• When was I last on medication
• When was I last seen for my mental health
• Why aren’t I receiving help now
• What is my mental health like now
• Why do I think my MH is better now
• (weirdly) Did I go to a public school
• (after staring VERY pointedly at the scars on my arm) Do I have a history of self-harming? Why? For how long?

I was able to answer these questions extremely confidently, and this also annoyed her. Me and my partner joined as a team to explain the stress of appointments were extremely detrimental to my MH, and the fact they never helped anyway meant all they did was make me worse. I am doing better now, mentally, than I have in almost a decade.

She then asked me if I worked and when I last worked, and did not approve of the fact I hadn’t been able to work due to disability for so long.

After this she began talking about my seizures, but obviously referring to them as “episodes”. She began telling me that they may not be “true seizures”, and I interrupted to say we were very well aware about non-epileptic seizures, but obviously it’s worth seeing a neurologist because if I do have epilepsy, I can get treatment.

Everytime she spoke about epileptic and non-epileptic seizures, she referred to them as ‘true’ and ‘not true’ seizures. Well done for perpetuating the stigma against PNES!!

She said we might want to collect more video footage before the neurologist, and we said we had about a dozen videos spanning a year. She began to say we might want to record how many seizures I have a day, and we interrupted her to say we use a seizure tracking app to record how many I have, triggers, auras etc.

By the end of the appt she hated us, because I wouldn’t be embarrassed about my history of MH, and we were so knowledgeable about all my conditions. We (my partner and I) came out laughing, and feeling like a really solid team 🙂

A scary day turned good

I woke up this morning and realised immediately something was not right.

I figured I was about to have a seizure (I have a lot of seizures just before and after waking), but when I got out of bed I didn’t have the balance to walk. I had to crawl to and up the stairs to go the loo, because I was literally tipping sideways when I tried to walk.

I had a few seizures but was still just totally spaced, out of it, and scared. I was having lots of seizure warnings (auras) and some seizures, but I wasn’t feeling better at all between them. I didn’t know if I should be heading to hospital or what.

I wondered if maybe I was about to have a really bad migraine, as in the past I’ve had similar auras to seizures for that, and the left side of my face felt numb. That also happened during a migraine aura in my teens. I took some extra strong pain pills just in case.

After an hour and a half of this scary ‘offness’, I finally began coming out of it. My brain began to clear, and although I was still spacey, it was different.

My final seizure was a very odd seizure where I wasn’t responding and was twitching, talking repeatedly about tadpoles – tadpoles?!?

My partner said I was lying staring blankly, alternating between saying “TADPOLES – TADPOLES – TADPOLES” and saying another phrase involving tadpoles.

I also had one of the seizures where I rubbed my eyes ferociously during – idk what that’s about. Afterwards I had huge red rings around my eyes!!

And hey, who knew it – some disabilities are INVISIBLE!! This is *such* an important message to me, because so many chronically ill people with hidden disabilities constantly hear “but you don’t look sick!”

This could be from friends, family, or people who are being rude (intentionally or not) when you’re out in the world. Maybe you asked for a key to the disabled toilet at a library, maybe you have an assistance dog, whatever – to all the non-spoonies out there, you should never EVER EVER say to someone “you don’t look sick”. Looking sick has shit to do with it, if you’re sick, you’re sick.

For the last 90 minutes before the photo above, I was having seizures and scared I would end up in hospital. Looking at this photo, you wouldn’t know that.

‘Looking sick’ has no meaning on how much a disability affects your life.

(</rant>)

Once I’d recovered from the morning, we *had* to get out to a bank.

My partner’s bank card is broken (we have money in the account and can see our account on a machine, but for some reason the stupid bank aren’t letting us withdraw ANY money?!), and because my partner hasn’t had a phone for over a month due to his dad not sorting it, we had no way to ring the bank…my phone had no credit, and we couldn’t get money to top up with!!

So today we had to get to a bank before it shut at 4pm, to get money out of a savings account so we could live until his account is sorted.

The bus journey’s weren’t the hell I was imagining, thankfully, and neither was the trip out. I actually only had one or two seizures, and we were able to go in a few shops, eat a meal, etc 🙂

He was hiding the bubbles in his drink, because I have a tendency to accidentally fixate on them and trigger seizures!

Afterwards we found this crazy ice cream booth in the market – flavours included salted liquorice, cheeky monkey, blue banana, and turkish delight! My partner got a turkish delight flavoured ice cream and now says it’s his favourite flavour!!

When we got back I was even able to clean parts of the house and join my partner walking two of our dogs.

So all in all today has been good…it just had a really awful start 😛

Bleh bleh and bleh

My mania crashed…it seems forcing my body to sleep using Valium was enough to break it, and oddly enough depression hasn’t followed (yet…). As it is I’m just agitated and feel weird, but that could also be due to the high number of seizures I’ve been having.

Today has been awful. A lot of emotional stress, seizures, and episodic dyscontrol syndrome. Plus bad luck and the world just being a dick XD

The best thing that happened today was that the train driver asked my partner if it was “one adult and a child” (thus mistaking me for a teenage boy XD). It sounds weird, that being a positive, but for me it feels so amazing not to be recognised as ‘a girl’ anymore.

I’ve never identified properly with the idea of being female – I hate my boobs, I never felt like a girl, and I’ve been a ‘tomboy’ since I was about 8. But at the same time I didn’t feel male either…I didn’t want a penis, I didn’t want to change my gender. When I discovered the term genderqueer / non-binary, everything made sense!

For the first time I’ve been able to BE me 🙂

I finally have the freedom to dress how I want without feeling guilty because ooh but girls don’t dress like this, and changing my name to a unisex name means I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin.

So the fact that the ticket guy didn’t look at me and see GIRL really made my heart soar 🙂

After a long day my body was knackered, so I lay in bed for half an hour fighting for sleep. When my body finally surrendered I slept for over 90 minutes, but had the worst wake up…over half an hour of back-to-back seizures, where I wasn’t able to move, speak, or open my eyes. I HATE seizure clusters as I’m waking, it’s awful.

Zombie me!

Speaking of zombie me, my partner managed to catch footage of me during a complex / focal impaired seizure. These are the seizures where although my eyes are open, I am not conscious.

I move, fiddle and walk during these seizures, and afterwards I may be dazed, confused, shout nonsense or swear words, and act drunk. Watching myself move about like this, but look so ‘blank’ and lost, was hella weird.

And a weird photo of rust from our terrible day out.

The many faces of mania

About a week ago we noticed the very beginning of hypomania.

Since then it’s rocketed upwards. It’s felt VERY odd feeling this way, I don’t remember when my last manic episode was, and especially not where I got this manic!

All of yesterday was awful, but by the evening I was entirely broken.

For six nights I hadn’t gotten more than 6 hours sleep, with the smallest amount being less than 4 hours. I was jittery, couldn’t focus on anything, was irritable, and constantly moving – rocking, flailing my legs, punching myself. I felt like I was crawling out my skin.

My bf gave me half a valium in the evening. That usually knocks me right out; my mania was so intense I was left very much awake, but much more lucid and able to concentrate. I took another half before bed, and slept 5 blissful hours last night!

I’ve had half a valium early today, and will take another this evening. Must keep the mania at bay!!!

Anywho, here are the many faces of mania – insomnia, intense energy and frustration, bouncing off the walls.

I am back in the world

After being a recluse for 18+ months due to seizures, being physically and mentally able to go places again feels absolutely phenomenal.

For over 18 months I only left the house for dog walks. I didn’t leave my village, I didn’t travel on public transport, go in supermarkets, or stay outside for long periods of time. I basically didn’t have a life.

Most of this period we were totally unaware I was having seizures, and were desperately trying to work out what was causing my odd behaviour, panic, zoning out etc. We were trying to manage it, live with it and understand it – my ex-social worker blamed my seizures on bipolar moods / psychosis, as dissociation, but otherwise left us alone to handle it ourselves. Shortly after we stopped going to appts, because we couldn’t manage and as ever they weren’t helping!!

Now that we’ve found ways to manage everything a bit better, and especially with the polarized goggles, I am actually able to get out and about in the world 😀

I’ve been able to go in shops!!! Actual well lit, big, supermarket shops! I can go on public transport. I can have longer periods of time out and enjoy things and just *be* a person with a life!!

One of the things I am now able to do is go and manage GP appts. We recently switched to a new GP surgery, as our previous surgery behaved disgustingly yet again…and the new surgery seems INCREDIBLE!

The Dr at the meet and greet was lovely; very friendly, polite, and the ‘negatives’ he listed about the surgery (that sometimes you might have to wait two days for an appt, or if you wanted one at a specific surgery the longest you might have to wait is six days) made us laugh…at our previous surgery we had to wait three weeks for an emergency appt!!!!

He asked if either of us were on any referrals, and I mentioned that I was waiting to be referred to a neurologist to investigate seizures, but needed a blood test first. He said as soon as my info had been swapped across we could get that done, and if the previous surgery dicked about and didn’t send it soon enough, we could phone them, ask what specific blood test it is, and get it done sooner 🙂

So I’m actually on the way to having my seizures looked at!

Overall a very positive post…and hopefully not because I’m manic hahaha!! No but really, having a life rocks. Of course days out the house still affect me more, with the result being exhaustion and increased seizures, but the fact I am able to do things just feels so incredibly wonderful 🙂

 

Why must I be out in the world?!

We signed up to the new GP surgery today, the other one in our town.

We get there, and the receptionist says that although we’ll be signed to this surgery, most appts will be at the other surgery, a 25 minute bus ride away…whyyyyy?!

Apparently you can see Dr’s at our surgery, it’s just a longer wait as there are fewer appt slots there. We said that was fine as the previous surgery left you waiting 3 weeks for an emergency appt XD

Even so, apparently we have to have a ‘meet and greet’ appt with the GP before we will be registered, and that has to be at the far away surgery…this sucks because I’m already going to freaking out (I haven’t had a physical appt at a surgery in a few years, and this will be a new surgery with a new Dr!) and the bus will make me very sensitive seizures too. Add some stress and I’ll be fucked >__<

The receptionist said the lighting was dim at that surgery too, when I asked, but my bf still wants to try and get the meet and greet at the nearby one. Idk.

Filling the questionnaire in was fun, considering all the information they demanded from you, and I had no idea what to put for epilepsy…I’m 98% certain I have epilepsy (as my seizures are light triggers, no t tonic clonic, and I have auras – all are incredibly rare with NES), but as I’m not diagnosed I couldn’t circle it.

In the end I circled everything, and put seizures under investigation, which is what a previous Dr wrote on my fit note.

Whilst we were out I also goggled up and got to go in the second hand bookstore, where I haven’t been able to go for years due to seizures and lighting. I love this place, and found a very old interesting dog breed book 😀