Pain Pain Go Away

I find myself apologising again, I haven't been blogging much lately. I have been a little sad :( So I apologise if the following is a little blunt, honest and negative but hey, why hide what is only human. With the promise of getting my wedding photos today I am feeling positive enough to actually try a little harder at being normal. 

My bag packed ready for hospital along with my brace.

A week ago today I had surgery to repair my medial collateral ligament in my right knee and boy did I have no idea of what I was in for. I had only seen the surgeon for a quick 15 minute diagnosis prior to seeing him in surgery and although I knew I would be off work for a week, I thought recovery would be a little easier! I arrived at Hobart Private Hospital with Alex at 7.30am on Wednesday 6 March 2013. We waited for over an hour in one waiting room and started to get a little concerned that they had taken everyone who had arrived before us and some who had arrived after us but not us. Neither of us are morning people so this was a tad annoying. Finally they called my name, I paid and off we went to level four, on level four we waited in another waiting room, I selected the items I wanted for tea that night and breakfast the next day. A nurse asked me a bunch of questions and took my pulse and blood pressure. We waited some more. I wasn't allowed to eat, drink or apply deodorant that day so I was getting very tired of this waiting game, I felt smelly, yucky and hungry and Alex hadn't eaten either so he was getting a little annoyed. I was also beginning to get nervous. My name was called and off we went into another room, I was given a bed and a robe, things were beginning to get real. Mum visited us because Dad had been admitted that morning as well. A young teenage boy came in with his mum and was holding back tears, he was so scared. They were going to send him in before me, I didn't mind, his fear made me start to get very scared. Scared of waking up from antiseptic in pain, scared of vomiting from antiseptic, scared of everything. I just wanted them to hurry up and take me and get it over with, I may have even had a little cry. Finally the anaesthetist spoke to me and soon after I was off to theatre. We had waited five long nervous hours. I remember laying in the operating room, looking around, a young lady talking to me about drinking and hangovers, the anaesthetist scoffing down some biscuits (god I wanted one of those biscuits), next thing I was drifting off thinking 'wait I want to finish this conversation'.

Me in my robe waiting on my bed, shitting myself on the inside.

An hour later I woke up in recovery, I immediately pulled the oxygen mask off my face, I slowly took everything in, looking around me at the other people recovering, working out that I was no longer in surgery, working out where my legs were. It took me a long time to work out if my knee was sore, my back and hips were killing me and my left leg was bent, I remember I didn't leave it like that before surgery, they must have bent it for me, that freaked me out. Then for some stupid reason I began to cry, the young male nurse asked if I was okay and then gave me pain killers through my drip and told me I have to tell him if something is wrong. I told him I couldn't help it I didn't know what was wrong and that I was just overwhelmed, he told me that the anaesthetic does that to people.  I was just glad it didn't make me vomit.

 My poor knee, I also hate having drips in my hand.

An hour later I was wheeled down to my room and Alex was waiting for me, I cried again. I cried a lot that day. Mum visited me again with flowers and pyjamas, I was a bit of a grumpy bum though and wasn't very grateful. My brother, sister-in-law and nephew visited me too, that was nice, it was nice to know people cared about me so much. Alex and mum both bought me chocolate, yay. I was sharing a room which didn't bother me too much, we were both recovering from surgery on our knees so could relate to each other but it did mean I didn't get much sleep that night. The nurse took my pulse and blood pressure every hour, my pulse was around 120, I was totally jogging on the inside. They put this down to anxiety. 

My bandage being redone on Friday.

The hospital food was pretty good. 

I wasn't allowed to get up until the next day which meant I had to pee in a pan, I had never done this before and with one leg out of action I had no idea how I was going to raise my body up to even get on the bloody pan, if only I was a man.  But I managed, it was horribly terrible but I survived. I drink so much water that I wee weed about six times over the course of one afternoon and one night. It didn't help that at least four of my nurses were all girls I had gone to school with, great I had to pee in a pan with the help of people I went to school with, could it get any more embarrassing. But I must say they were all so professional and lovely and made me feel very comfortable.

Our second more successful attempt at
stopping the bandage from getting wet.

The next day I went home, I received more flowers, yay! The last week has been a blur, I had to get my bandage redone at hospital as it became too wet in the shower, I have been on and off crutches and taking pain killers which have played havoc with my digestive system. Sleeping has sometimes been difficult and very uncomfortable. I was hoping to feel a lot better by now but things haven't improved much lately, the muscle in my leg hurts a lot and I still can't walk very much at all. I was told I probably wouldn't need my crutches after Monday but it's Wednesday and I still feel better with just one. I have to wear my brace for the next six to eight weeks. I am scared of physio, I know that it is going to hurt like buggery. I am supposed to go back to work tomorrow after I get the okay from my surgeon. I can't wait to see him and get some information about what is going on. I feel a little bit like I am failing as I am still using the crutches. I worry that maybe something is wrong or I haven't looked after it properly. I just did not anticipate that it would be this painful for this long.  Right now I don't feel emotionally strong enough to get through much else but I have to try to stay positive and remember that it will get better. 

Okay so I know that last paragraph is unbelievably negative and sad and I know there are plenty of other people in the world suffering a lot worse than I am, but this is just how I have felt of late. Some minutes I feel fantastic and others I just want to cry. I imagine it will be like that for a while. Talk soon.

Psychology

Since being diagnosed with depression I have been seeing a psychologist around every 2-4 weeks. My appointments are slowly getting further and further apart as I learn to cope with things better on my own and my thought processes begin to change. A lot of the things I have been talking about are simple things, feelings of being stretched or overwhelmed and situations with people that I haven't properly reflected on to learn what I can do better. 

One of my major obstacles is my constant comparing and assessing against others. I want to do things right and this need to do things the 'right way' often overrides what I think I should do or what is right for me. I seek approval and justification in everything I am doing. If someone close to me makes a comment on my lifestyle I take their opinion seriously and stress about what they have said until I can fix it. On the other hand if I disagree with them I cause an argument constantly justifying myself. I desperately need to learn to care less about what other people think and say but also without trying to change their opinion. I need to stop judging myself through the eyes of others. One thing a lot of people including myself need to learn is that what works for one person wont always work for others, we should try to stop forcing our opinions on others or give advice when not warranted, we don't know what challenges the person faces everyday and so therefore what we think may make their life better could be wrong. We should care about the people around us and when they need us most we should be there for them ready to help them. If someone is acting destructively we can observe and think we know what would help them but they are never going to change until they are ready so all we can do is be there to help them and in the meantime lead by example.  Understanding this will help me to learn that what others do wont necessarily work for me and that I should do what feels right to me. There is no right way of living life, it is whatever works for you. It will help me to stop seeking approval and justifying myself. I will begin to understand that other people that judge how I live have a problem within themselves as they haven't yet learnt that everyone needs to do what is right for themselves. It will also help me to stop trying to change others and to be a supportive friend, I will hopefully have less arguments with my Dad too.

I know I am not perfect

And I don't live to be

But before you start pointing fingers

Make sure your hands are clean 

To fix my second obstacle of comparing myself to others is quite simple, I just need to be realistic and logical. There is usually some part of every persons life which is not getting the attention it deserves, some aspect is missing out. For example, an overweight person who has a loving family, a well cared for home and a good career isn't giving their body and health the attention it deserves.  While a skinny healthy looking person, with a great career and relationship may have a smelly, dirty, untidy house. All I really needed to do was to confirm what my main priorities are. There is never going to be enough time in the day to have all aspects of ones lifestyle working beautifully and smoothly, something will always be missing out. 


My three priorities for my life are:

• Relationships
• Mental Health
• Physical Health

You're probably thinking 'OMG what about her housework or career' but to be honest as much as these things complement my lifestyle they are not the most important things to me. Although I love living in a clean and tidy home as it settles me and makes me feel at home, I do tend to hate cleaning. I also enjoy going to work and love a challenge but I can't wait to be a mum and a wife one day and know this will be my true calling. For me, one day when I am laying on my death bed I will know that I have put everything I could into the relationships in my life that are important to me. I think a lot of marriages end in divorce because people are too busy to give their relationship the focus it deserves. I look at life and consider it to be pretty crap without the beautiful people around me so I must focus on sustaining these relationships. 

Looking after my mental health will make me a better person with more patience and love to give. This is a pretty fun one to have on my list as it means I can relax or do things I love, knowing they are contributing to better mental health.  And if my house gets so messy that it makes me stressed well then I have to clean it as otherwise I wont be looking after my mental health. 

Lastly, taking care of my physical health will mean I am a generally happier person, with more energy and will hopefully live longer. Who wouldn't want that on their list?

So if you visit me and the lawn isn't mowed or you think I could try harder at work, you know what? I don't really care :P Go mow you're own lawn. I might just be thinking 'well my lawn may not be mowed but at least I have a loving relationship, or at least I am not a constant crabby bum'. Be careful, when you judge others you open up your own world for judgement and no one is perfect.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself. 

What are your life priorities and why?  Have you known these all along or struggled before realising them? 

When Sadness Takes Over

On 28 December 2011 I was diagnosed with clinical depression. This is a scary sentence for me to write but my depression was one of the main motivators for me to create this blog. I am sharing my story because I hope that it will give readers insight into this disorder, I am also very proud of myself, I was very brave and have improved out of sight since my diagnosis. We have all heard the statistics, one in five Australians will suffer from a mental illness at some stage in their lives so it is important that we understand these illnesses as best we can.

Ever since I moved out of home I have struggled with the day to day running of a home and life in general. I have a fantastic mother, she spoiled me rotten and will do anything I need her to do. She taught me everything that I needed to know to maintain a home and a healthy lifestyle but once I moved out, although I had the knowledge and the ability to do all of these things, I struggled with fitting them in around the rest of my life. This would make me overwhelmed and things as simple as vacuum cleaning, exercising or eating healthy were starting to get me down and becoming difficult tasks. I feel very stupid saying this aloud, I work one full time job, have no children yet I still don't have the energy or self discipline to vacuum clean, that to me is pathetic. There in itself lies half my problem, my self talk and judgement. I am also a perfectionist so when I do these tasks they take me far longer than the average person because they have to be perfect. All of this was easy to hide and didn't give me any major problems except for the feelings of overwhelm, anxiousness and laziness. It was easy still to live my life around this one little hang up.

Things became difficult when I had to face other life problems on top of this, as we all have to from time to time. I couldn't cope with much more and work or relationship problems would send me into a crying, bitching, moaning state that I struggled to get over, this would play on my mind 24/7 and steal my sleep. I just could not cope with life stressors out of the ordinary any more.

Although 2011 was one of the best years for me it was also one the worst.  Certain things played on my mind for the entire year and no matter how I tried I couldn't move past them or get over them. I was finding myself reaching for alcohol more often, even when there was nothing to celebrate, I would use alcohol and food as a vice when I was feeling down. As December approached I was feeling worse and worse and I was repeatedly getting colds, flues and viruses that I just couldn't get over. I also had no energy and just wanted to sleep all of the time, I didn't want to go to work any more and struggled to get up out of bed, I just didn't want to do anything except  watch TV or sleep. I was becoming more and more negative, snapping at people and generally hating life. Don't get me wrong, I laughed every day and still enjoyed life, my mind was just in the wrong place. Christmas was approaching and I wasn't looking forward to it at all, I couldn't have cared less about Christmas and that is very unlike me. 

The night before I went to the doctor I had a minor argument with Alex. It was something stupid like me trying to make him go to bed earlier because I was worried about how much sleep he would get, which yes in hindsight is none of my business. But I didn't give up on that kind of thing, it would stop me getting any sleep and in the end he would shut me out and stay up even later all over me sticking my nose where it doesn't' belong. I didn't get any sleep and ended up crying for half the night (this was becoming a regular occurrence), some of those thoughts that you're not meant to think crossed my mind and right then in the early hours of the morning I decided I had to go to the doctor the next day no matter what.

The next morning I went on the Beyond Blue website and read as much as I could about depression and anxiety and realised I had more of the symptoms than I had expected, (sickness, tiredness, nervousness, sadness, loss of interest in once enjoyable activities, irritability etc). I completed the K10 check-list on the website and received a score of 29 which put me at the top end of being at a medium risk of mental illness, one point off being at a high risk. I burst into tears and went and told Alex what had happened and that I had to go to the doctor.  With my family history of depression I knew that if I didn't deal with this now, having children one day would most likely send me into major depression. I booked my doctors appointment and although I was unbelievably nervous I went in and told her, as I swallowed my tears, that I just cannot cope any more and I feel overwhelmed with life. After asking me some questions, she prescribed me anti-depressants and referred me to a psychologist. 

You may wonder why I am sharing this story. I haven't told many people about this, as it really is a hard thing to come out and say and I am so much better now than when I was diagnosed that people think I am joking and can't believe it, especially people that aren't extremely close to me. So for family and friends reading this, I am sorry I couldn't tell you to your face but I am fine, almost 100% better, please do not worry about me. You will be pleased to know that my depression is called reactive depression, not the major depression that you more often hear about. It just means I haven't developed the coping skills to deal with difficult situations, it might appear that I am handling them but on the inside I struggle to move past things. I plan to share more on what I have learned about depression and coping skills in the future.