More than just a bag lady

I’m back in hospital. If you don’t count the 1 day I spent in A&E in Cornwall I’ve managed to stay out of hospital for about 8 weeks, which for me isn’t bad. But all that changed on Tuesday.  I’d been getting really bad pains since Friday and when I say bad pain, I mean like 10/10, take your breath away kinda pain. I’m used to being in pain and like to think I’m pretty good at dealing with it but those few days were absolutely awful and completely floored me. The pain was different to normal though and I was hoping that it might stop as suddenly as it started so I spent the weekend gritting my teeth trying to just get through it.  The only way I can describe the pain is to say that it was like having labour contractions; the pain came on, it’s absolute agony and is so intense and then it goes off again. It can last a few seconds or minutes and the ‘contractions’ can be minutes apart or two or three can follow in quick succession. When they come I can’t walk, I can’t talk a...

 When I got back from holiday there was the usual pile of post on the doormat that needed sorting out. But in amongst the bills and the take away menus was an A4 brown envelope. Anyone receiving benefits knows that brown envelopes strike fear right into the very heart of you and this particular letter didn’t disappoint.  Oh joy of joy! It’s time for my PIP review! PIP, or Personal Independence Payment, is a benefit paid out to anyone with a physical or mental disability, regardless of whether or not they’re in work. It’s designed to mitigate some of the expenses of being disabled in an ableist world. For example, if you’re unable to use public transport as a result of your disability you might need to get taxis to appointments or to the shops and obviously that costs more. So you use your PIP money to help with that.  But as is the case with any benefit you apply for the hoops you have to jump through are ridiculous. The forms you have to fill out are very long, repetitiv...

I made it to Cornwall!! To be honest there were times that I didn’t think I would be well enough and there were other occasions where packing all the medical supplies and sorting my feed out all got a bit too stressful and I just wanted to stay at home. But I didn’t. I went and we had a lovely 2 week family holiday.  I would love to say that I was well the entire time but we all know that’s not real life and probably never going to happen in my world. There were a few days each week where I stayed at the house while everyone went out for the day because I was either completely exhausted or just not feeling good. But I just tried to w joy the good days and do as much as I was physically able to do.  Unfortunately I did see the inside of Truro hospital again. This was my worst fear and driving down through Cornwall on the way to St Ives we drove through Truro and past the hospital and it was a little bit triggering to both me and Hubby. We had really hoped I wouldn’t have to go ...