Appointment at Moorfields

Nearly a whole week later and I have finally started to get my head around my visit to Moorfields well enough to share it with you.
Any one living in the East of England might remember that last Thursdays weather was crap. We had freezing rain and high winds, stay indoors under a duvet weather, but I dutifully brought two return tickets, peak time, into London on Wednesday morning. I popped them in my purse all nice and safe. My appointment at Moorfields was at 9am (and I promise you now, if they ever give me a appointment at that time again, they can feck right off!) In my wisdom, because I am very astute and aware of how unpredictable our public transport is, I opted to get the train before the one I actually needed to get. So, my partner and I fought our way to the stain station at 7am in the wind and rain to catch the 7.15am train into London. I took the train tickets out of my purse put my way out journey ticket in my coat pocket and gave my other half his, and then put the return tickets back in my purse. 
On the platform the rain was cold and the wind howled around us and I began to wonder why the hell I thought wearing a skirt was a good idea. I shoved my hands deeper into my coat pocket and did the stamping my feet thing that every single commuter on the packed platform was doing, then my nose felt drippy so I felt around in the pockets...nope, nothing in my pockets.....OH FUCK, THERE IS NOTHING IN MY POCKETS... total panic, I had lost my ticket, the other half doesn't panic and says..never mind we will just buy another....so off we go and squeeze into the packed ticket office to buy another ticket. I fought my way forward and explained to the lady ticket seller that I needed to buy another ticket because mine had blown away, she laughed and said she remembered me buying it yesterday, so she just printed me off another one. PHEW, ticket problem sorted and we made our way back up the platform to our spot! Only for an announcement to come on the loud speaker to say our train had been cancelled and the next one will be delayed. Dismay, I cant tell you how panicked I felt, a whole load of people left the platform, jumping into their cars and driving to the next station where there are more trains in to London due to the Cambridge and Peterborough lines meeting there. So what do we do? Do the same? Stay put and hope the train isn't cancelled? or Drive to London? The third option wasn't really an option as driving into London and then finding parking would be ridiculous, if we drive to the next station, we still have to find some where to park the car, so we opted to wait, we decided to walk off the platform and stand under the bridge for a bit of shelter, and there, in the middle of the road, being tossed along in the wind, was my lost ticket! Bloody thing!
The train rumbled in 20 mins late and had been reduced from twelve carriages to eight, you can imagine the carnage...there was no way all the people on the platform were going to fit on the already packed train, however I HAD to get on this train, there was already no way I was going to make the 9am appointment, so I do what I do best and started barking orders at people to move there fat arses down the train cos I was getting on even if it meant crowd surfing. Once we were on we spent the next forty minutes uncomfortably close to other humans, and our next train to Old Street was just as packed. How people working in London do this every day I will never know, I really hope they are paid well, cos there isn't any amount of money that would get me rubbing noses and other body parts with strangers every morning. We moved quickly with the flow of people towards the underground exit and onto the street, and luckily we were able to get to the hospital without much delay. I was twenty minutes late for my appointment but it didn't seem to be a problem for them, luckily. My heart was still racing as I was called in for a eye sight test and to have my eyes dilated, and the nurse made me sit quietly for a few minutes to calm down. The sight test was crap, but I already knew that there had been a big change. I was sat back out in the corridor to wait for scans, I was only sitting there about ten minutes before I was called in, fifteen minutes later I was sitting back in the corridor waiting for the consultant to call me in.
This is where things get really confusing, I was called in to see a junior consultant, who was lovely, but said the new scans do not show a hole, overwhelming relief warmed my entire soul (quite literally, I was so pleased) he said that he was sure I had been misdiagnosed BUT the scan did show that the jelly which is attached to the retina has detached itself and is now settled away from the retina, this is also good newsish, as the jelly is no longer pulling on the retina which means a tear or retinal detachment is less likely although the scan did show an accumulation of fluid which isn't so good. The reason I cannot see is because I have a very small patch of blur in my central vision (which has a name but I cant remember, spell or pronounce it) accompanied by this massive black floater which has also fixed its self right in my central vision. My consultant, the man at the top, was wondering around checking all his juniors were ok when he noticed me, after ejecting the poor junior from his seat, my consultant checks my scans and then my eyes, sits back and stares at me for a moment. He then went into much explanation and detail about how the floater might move on its own, he couldn't say when, and he couldn't promise that it would ever move or that once it had moved that it wouldn't move back. when I explained that it was having a big impact on my quality of life, as in I can't be at work, I can't go shopping on my own, i can read or write etc, he talked about operating to remove the floater, or rather he talked about removing a floater from someone's eyes whose sight wasn't as bad as mine, and then he talked about operating on me. His actual words were...The odds of us operating and us not making your sight worse, are fucking shit! 1 in 500. You know I am going to be that 1 person out of 500 that gets an infection, or the op causes a retinal split, Then there will be no way of regaining the sight I have now.
If you said to me the odds of me winning the lottery are 1 in 500 I wouldn't stand a chance of winning, and it wouldn't change my life. But, 1 in 500 chance that the operation will cause my sight to be worse WILL make a difference to my life isn't a sensible gamble worth taking.
My consultant felt the best thing to do is to leave it well alone, give it three months to see if it moves on its own, he then decided that he would like me to see the top surgeon guy there and then and went off to see if this man was willing to see me at such short notice and with out an appointment. Lucky for me he was and I was marched off across the hospital to meet the surgeon, he also looked at my scans and then into my eyes and concluded the same as my consultant. The operation to remove the floater is a very easy one, however its just too risky to perform this kind of surgery on me, he agreed that it might move on its own and that after a three month period I should return and go over options. In the mean time, go home, take it easy and go to see my GP. I feel lost, I don't feel like I am any further forward, in fact, a hole would have been easier to cope with, if there was a hole I would know what the expectations are and I would be able to prepare for the future. As it is, I cant prepare for any thing, its a waiting game for something that might never happen. Another factor is that my brain might adjust and I learn to cope with it, maybe even sort of see past it. I just don't know, time will tell. The return journey from the hospital went without a hitch, in fact I think from leaving my house in the morning to arriving at the hospital took longer than the whole time I was at the hospital and my journey home! I spent a lot of Friday feeling a mixture of sadness, frustration and anger, anger because I was told there was a hole, I had spent the last three months grieving for something I didn't have, but my CBT sprang back into my head, and I realise there is nothing I can do about that, the fact is, there is no hole, and that is a very good fact so what's the point in getting all crabby over something that is in the past. Put it to bed Lynda, its done, focus on the positive and don't let the negative take control.
So, here we are a week later, the floater hasn't moved yet. At the weekend we decided to drag out the Christmas tree, It was noticeably hard for me to decorate the tree, I got very upset when I couldn't see where the fairy lights needed to be and ended up switching them on so I could get them on the tree, then I got into a massive tangle. In the end I sat on the sofa and watched the girls do something I used to love doing. Its taken a few days to get it looking how we like the tree to look but its done.

We also thought we would open a tub of quality street while we decorated, when we started to tidy up the lid of the tub was no where to be found......

Too dam cheeky x

The Fall

Today I fell...
Not an emotional fall, not the sort of fall that is accidental but the sort of fall that reminds you who you are. Its a very dull day here, warm and windy, but very overcast and grey.
My 'schedule' or job list has been going great and I have managed to totally focus on it everyday, making sure the list is completed. I have had my PJ's on under my clothes once since last Tuesday and I have made sure my hair brush and my hair meet at least once a day. Top of todays list was to make a few telephone calls (which I have been putting off for months), take the dog for a walk and buy Daughter number twos train tickets into college for the rest of this week.
Because I am super organised and a woman who has multi-tasking down to a fine art, I thought I would get ready for the walk, take Ralph with me as I picked up the tickets and then take him over the railway bridge and over the fields where he can run and roll in as much fox poop as he liked.
So, up the steps I go at the railway station and in through the doors to the ticket office, managed to avoid Ralph trying to take a leak up someone's brief case and left through the other door which leads straight onto the platform. In my genius plan I had forgotten to factor in the swarm of people making their way to work and stepped out of the doors into a flood of people. I fought my way through the crowd to the bridge steps. Now, usually I hold the rail and tend to climb the steps on the right side, so use my right hand to hold on and the dog lead in my left, but there were people running down the steps on the right, and people sitting on the steps to the left. Not wanting to draw attention to myself or get in a fight with someone if I asked them to move, I decide to go up the steps in the middle..........VERY bad move! There's two flights of steps before you get to the top and a sort of landing thing half way between them, I recon I had only got half way up the first flight when I felt my balance start to go, within a millisecond of the message reaching my brain to say, 'be careful you need to hold on or you are going to trip', I was face down on the steps, I felt the palm of my right hand scrape on the concrete, my left hand, still holding onto the lead, do some sort of twisty thing and a sharp pain shot through the bottom of my back. The next thing a little wet nose was in my ear and a rough tongue licking my cheek. As fast I went down I was back up, With Ralph jumping up at my side I marched up the rest of the steps down the other side and walked Ralph over the fields.
I was fine until I got home and had a hot bath. Now every thing aches, my head aches, my back aches and I feel like someone has got hold of my shoulders and given me a hard shake.
But, I live to learn another lesson I suppose. 
I am now going to have a little sleep as I feel so crappy, but I am back to the hospital on Thursday, will let you know how it goes x

Demon Depression

Well everyone...Its official, Christmas must be on its way as I have successfully purchased my first Christmas presents!! It was one of those moments when you are standing in a shop and notice something that is a bit beautiful and would be a perfect gift for someone, Christmas shopping was not on the agenda but you know if you leave it on the shelf the chances are you aren't going to get back to that particular shop or you wont see anything like it elsewhere and spend the rest of the year kicking yourself for not buying it!................anyway, enough with the Christmas chatter, lets talk about the last CBT session...
Now, you know I was looking for an excuse not to attend the last session, but my Mum had made me promise I would go, Well, on Saturday I had decided that I would ring on Monday morning and cancel my last session with Steven because of a nasty case of the old 'D AND V' but I wouldn't tell Mum I had cancelled and just tell her that the last session was fine....perfect.
Perfect, until on Sunday we (Mum, Ralph and I) went for a nice long walk to the garden centre, while we were sitting outside the café with our tea and cake, she starts quizzing me on what I expect out of the last session, do I think they will recommend more? and what time do you leave to go to the session?...then, ohhhhh I know, I will pop round for a quick coffee before you go then'....great big fat hairy balls....now I have to go!
So, along comes Tuesday morning, I drag myself out of bed and take Ralph for a long walk, I was out an hour or more and when I got home Ralph took himself back to bed and I went out into the garden to hang some washing on the line. It was so quiet and calm, I stood there for a few minutes just looking at the garden and noticing how every plant changes for winter. Next door had trimmed some branches off of my tree and from my side of the fence there was a big gap, so with out thinking I went to the shed, got out the choppers and began to chop some of the branches off to make the tree look a little tidier. This brought out my Daughter and my partner, firstly to tell me I shouldn't be chopping the tree but when they realised that telling me I shouldn't be doing something is a complete waste of time, my partner just sort of hung around watching, sort of letting me do it but just being there just in case. Which is kind of lovely, and just knowing he was there made me feel happy. By the time I had finished tidying up all the fallen branches and put my chopper away both my daughter and partner had gone off to work so I went inside with the intension of doing a few jobs around the house before my partner came back to take me to the CBT Session.
I decided to empty the bins and was walking into my bedroom to empty my bin into the rubbish bag when I caught the shape of my body in the mirror. I stood looking into the mirror and realised that I couldn't see my self clearly, so I stepped closer. The person staring back at me in the mirror was a stranger....I was a mess, my hair hadn't been 'cared for' in ages, I had been washing it and leaving it to dry so it was frizzy and curly, I couldn't remember the last time I had brushed it, most of the branches I had cut down seemed to be tangled in my mop, then I looked at myself properly, with a jolt of fear I realised that I still had my pyjamas on under my clothes, I took of my jogging bottoms and fleece top and sure enough, there were my PJ'S. How long have I been going out with my Pj's on under my clothes? I cant remember the last time I wore a bra.
I went to the bathroom, ran a hot bath and stripped off my nightwear, how long have I been wearing these Pj's? I got in the bath and sat there, trying to remember....I get up, put clothes on over my PJ's, go out and walk Ralph come home and take the clothes off and put my dressing gown on. Even when I went out with Mum on Sunday, I was wearing what I had slept in the night before under my clothes. How often do I change my knickers? Why cant I remember and why do I think it is ok to do this?
Sitting in the bath I made a promise to myself and to the people who love me, this is a very slippery slope and it has to stop, what has made me stop looking after myself? 
This, folks, is the demon, depression, without realising I had started the journey of self destruction and I was devastated, its far too easy to loose your way, too easy to wrap yourself up and ignore what is happing to yourself, too easy to convince yourself that you can pull yourself up and out of it... and that is the biggest mistake people make, someone with depression cannot just pull themselves out of it.
Still sitting in the bath I began to give my hair a good wash, gave all my bits a good clean, then I found clean underwear, clean clothes, dried and straightened my hair, sprayed a little perfume and then stood in front of the mirror again....ahhh now this is the person I recognise. 
By the time my partner came to take me to the session I was dressed, clean, smelling nice and ready to go.
I explained all this to Steven at my session and when I said I feel like I should pull myself together it stopped him in his tracks, this is what he said.....
People with depression are unable to pull themselves together, telling some one to do that is not helpful, instead we must support them and give them strategies which will help them to find the strength to start to help themselves.
So, Imagine you are driving a car at 60 miles and hour, the sun is shining and the radio is playing a happy tune, the person beside you asks you to drive at 61 miles per hour....How easy will that be? How much effort will it be to increase your speed from 60 to 61? By making very little effort or changes you very gently push your foot on the accelerator increasing your speed without really noticing right? Easy, no problems....NOW, imagine its mid January, its been snowing heavily, the sky is black with a storm, its freezing cold and you are wrapped up under your duvet because of a power cut so there is no heating or light. Your car is parked three streets away because there was no spaces left outside your house, and someone asks you to go get in the car and drive at 1 mile an hour. How easy would that be? Its just one mile an hour, not much effort before but now, well, now you have to get out of bed, go for a wee, have a cold shower, brush your teeth, find some clothes, get a hat, scarf, gloves and wellies, find something to dig you car out of the snow with, and then begin to de-frost your car...how much effort is it now?
For someone with depression, its not keeping going that's hard, its actually starting that's the problem, so its not what you see, its what you don't see if you know what I mean, something that seems so normal and regular for one person can be just simply too much for another.
I made a promise to Steven that I would begin a schedule to help me ensure that I start....Tuesday evening I sat with a big pad and wrote a list of the jobs that needed doing the next day, being careful not to put too may in, one of those jobs is to get washed and dressed, might sound daft to you, but Wednesday was the best day I have had for sometime, I marked off the jobs as I went along and felt incredibly proud of myself, I made sure I looked nice, and I know my partner noticed the difference. Steven had originally told me to put up post notes around the house with one job on and to ensure I get the job done, but I am finding the 'Diary' much more helpful, I know today is only Thursday but I feel entirely different. When everything is marked off on my list, I have time to relax, I am fitting so much more in to the day and it seems to have increased my confidence and decision making, if its on the list I don't even think about it, I just get the jobs done.
Having a focus and a goal is remarkably helpful and is making me feel independent again.
So, don't ever feel like you should be pulling yourself together, be kinder to yourself, depression is not something that can be cured over night, it takes a lot of self belief, understanding and honesty.
The last CBT session came in on perfect timing for me, but not everyone is that lucky. If this blog encourages just one person to seek help for the way they are feeling I will be happy, because, I never would have said I was depressed, I truly never saw it coming.
Speak soon xx

Rethinking myself

Hello everyone! 
Well, Friday afternoon has come around again so quickly and I truly don't know where time is going,  we are already a week into November, Halloween has been tidied away, the fireworks have fizzled out and people are talking about putting up their Christmas trees.

 I have always loved Christmas, but this year I am having trouble getting into the mood, I feel like separating myself from the whole world and getting under the duvet and sleeping until January, but that's not real, real is shopping, shopping is busy...me, shopping and busy are not a good mixture. Do it on line you say, well there is a little problem with that, I just cant seem to concentrate on it for long, I mean, the other day I was checking out Argos website looking for some inspiration, I had to make the screen so big that most of the page disappeared off the screen, and the constant scrolling made me feel sick and my eyes got tired really quickly. Maybe I should have started shopping earlier, but I cant think past my hospital appointment on the 23rd Nov...just under two weeks to go and I hope I can get some of the many questions I have answered.
Tuesday, was a bad day. It started okay but before tea time a black cloud was firmly sitting over my head. 
I think it may have started at 8oclock in the morning at my Doctors appointment. It was just a quick check that I was doing ok and to see if there was anything my Doctor could help me with, To be honest, I didn't really have much to say to her and I didn't really need anything, so stomping down to the surgery at 7.30 in the morning was a rude wake up call.
My doctor was pleased to see that I was looking better than she said she had seen me for a while. We talked about my appointment at Moorfields and then she signed me off from work for another 4 weeks but with the instructions to make an appointment for the following day after my Moorfields visit. This was so we can talk about options and it still gives me a week to organise myself. 
As I walked to Mums house from the surgery, I thought about the conversation I had just had and it suddenly dawned on me how real this all is, and with reality comes fear of the unknown, all the 'what if' questions came flooding into my head as I walked the short distance to mums house and the urge to give up was pounding at the front of my brain. Give up everything and just sit, sit and do nothing, talk to no-one, just stay home and wait for the darkness to come. But what if it doesn't come, what if it takes years to come and then I have wasted time sitting around doing nothing, BUT then what happens if it comes tomorrow and I have wasted time wondering when it will come instead of living for today. All this went round and round my head until I felt sick. How do I prepare for the future? Answer...I cant, because I don't know what it is.
Later that afternoon I had another CBT session, and we talked about panic attacks. I honestly took away nothing from this session, I was talked into saying that a panic attack makes me feel like I am going to die...it doesn't, but it didn't seem to matter and I was then shown why a panic attack will not kill me, even though I know its not! When I am in a full blown attack, I don't think about anything, I don't stand there thinking...ohhhhh I cant breath so this must mean I am having a heart attack and my heart is going to explode and death must be immanent. Yes, my heart does beat faster, yes I do breath deeper and faster, but the very last thing on my mind is death, if anything just the opposite, I think about the quickest way to calm down and remove myself from the cause of the panic. Maybe what I think I experience as a panic attack is NOT what I think it is, maybe people DO think they are going to die, maybe I have got it all wrong. I do know its the most awful feeling and they are usually brought on by putting myself into situations that my brain and sight cant cope with. I had a urge to stand on a chair in the middle of the session and scream...YOU ARE NOT BLOODY WELL LISTENING TO ME, I AM NOT BLOODY STUPID I KNOW I AM NOT GOING TO BLOODY WELL DIE! unless of course I run out of a shop straight into the path of a lorry, but even then it wouldn't be the panic attack that killed me, it would be the bloody lorry! So by the time my 50 minutes was up I was in a proper bad mood, I felt frustration that I have never experienced before, so when He said same time next week? I looked him in the eye and said yes, but I have no intention of going back...that was until yesterday.
Yesterday was a lovely day, Mum and I went on a day trip... I say a day trip because it took all bloody day! We decided to go to Willington garden centre and because we cant drive we took the train and a bus, which was actually really easy and I enjoyed the ride. Then we did Christmas...there wasn't many people about so we wondered around looking at all the beautiful baubles and Christmassy nic-naks, then we had tea in the café, and wondered around again, picking up a few bits, then we did lunch and then wondered around again, then we took the reverse trip home, at some point during lunch mum decided to give me a lecture about continuing to attend the CBT sessions and not to be put off by a not so helpful session, but in my mind I had already decided to cancel the next appointment, but today I took Ralph for a long walk and though hard about it, sometimes its so easy to give up and walk away from something every time you got pissed off. I would never allow anyone I cared about to walk away from something just because they heard something they didn't agree with, so why am I doing that to myself? I think its time I learnt to love myself a bit more and be a little kinder to myself. There is only one of me (thank god) although I often wonder why people like me, I realise its because I am kinda cool, I care, love and think a lot, its time to enjoy being me again.
Have a good weekend everyone...I leave you with a photo of Santa's helpers and the goodies I brought to decorate the twigs I found on Shingle street beach back in October xx

CBT

Hello there everyone!!
I have had a little break from blogging for a couple of weeks, don't think for one moment this means that I have been sat on my backside doing nothing...well, I suppose I need to be sat on my backside to be blogging, so the truth is I have been too busy to sit down!! 
Everything I do seems to take so much longer at the moment, so the housework that used to take a couple of hours now gets spread over two days. My front garden....My front garden was in a incredible state...everything had over grown and was in need of some attention, the lavender needed cutting back and harvesting for winter (I say harvesting like I am some sort of international lavender farmer) what I mean is I need to trim the tops off the lavender, stick it in a envelope and put it in the airing cupboard to make all my sheets smell nice! So I spent a good few hours, while the sun was at the back of the house leaving my front garden in the shade, chopping and trimming, again this is a job that I don't usually think twice about and only takes a hour or so, but now with the change in my sight I need to just go that bit slower. I had a really lovely time (how sad is that!) in the garden, all by myself, just quietly snipping away. The best therapy.
Talking about Therapy, I have now had my third session of CBT with Steven, its going great and I am definitely finding it useful and am confidently putting what I have learnt into practice. We had a conversation about not carrying everyone else's monkeys, I didn't realise how much I do this without even thinking, carrying other peoples monkeys doesn't just refer to listening to other peoples problems and worrying about them as well as my own, but doing things for other people instead of letting them do it themselves, I do this ALOT, I didn't perhaps see how much I do it, not because I don't think people can do things, but I struggle with people not moving as quickly as I do (or as I used to) and I try to accommodate everyone even if it means making life harder for myself. So, I have been learning to say NO, and doing things that make life easier for me instead of others....you have no idea how hard this has been, but the fact that I am sitting on the sofa in the middle of the day blogging, speaks volumes.
I have also been learning how to have a more relaxed outlook on life, which has helped me get back out into the community independently. This week I went to the Dentist on my own!! I took the train to Biggleswade, made my way to Asda, brought a couple of things, went to the Dentist and took the train back home. I used my cane, and no one attacked me!! There wasn't one problem and I felt very proud of myself when I got through my front door without a hitch!
This week Steven showed me this...
NEVER EXPLAIN YOURSELF TO ANYONE! YOUR FRIENDS DONT NEED IT AND YOUR ENEMIES WONT BELIEVE IT....
I have been really struggling with this, I find myself explaining why I do things the way I do it all the time, I even plan the explaining just in case someone asks me why I have done something a certain way. But did you know....KNOW ONE CARES, literally no-one, like it says above, my friends and people who love me know why I do things they way I do them, and people who don't know me or don't like me don't matter, so I will not be (or trying not to) explaining myself anymore!!
All this retraining my brain has kept me busy, and is exhausting in a strange way, so I threw myself into a little decorative therapy for Halloween and made a little display in the porch to greet trick or treaters....

From the things I have learnt from the CBT so far I would definitely recommend it to others, although you have to be prepared to work at it yourself, you have to be able to trust and like your Counsellor, if you have someone who irritates you, you are not going to listen to them let alone take their advise. Its not easy, the hardest thing is to believe in yourself and open up to thinking in a different way, if you can get past those two things the rest is a doddle!

I am enjoying spending more time with this boy...

While my girls are out he is great company, we've been on some lovely walks and he follows me around the house as I do jobs, looking at me like I have two heads as I chat to him about all sorts of things, and when I sit down he is great for a warm cuddle...although he snores like a overweight bloke who has been in the pub all day drinking Guinness.

We seem to have leapt into November and I am now counting down the days until my appointment at Moorfields where I hope to learn what to expect of the future. xx