29/05/2011

Dear Diary,


Where do I begin? The drama is still happening!!!


I have not written to you in a while, this is because I have been extremely ill.  Following my 12 hour journey back and forth to London I have been in agaony with my legs, my hip, my back and my kneck.  Also the stress it all caused me both physically and mentally left me ill too as with Fibromyalgia the more stress you have the more ill you become which is why if someone is causing me too much stress I just do not keep putting up with it any longer I let them go!


So it took me from the 17th May till the 25th May to recover I had been on my strongest pain killers morphine, they make you soo disorientated, you lose time, I could not get out of bed the whole time, could not be touched so that someone could help me to bath, every time my carers called I was out of it, I had to transfer to the bathroom or toilet crawling on my hands and knees, because I could not hold myself up with crutches.  My poor son bless him he was soo helpful to me, but even he was like "Mum you need to have a bath!" The one thing I am proud of is that I was able to wake up to not let my friend and collegue down in supporting his Breakfast Show once I did my segment I was gone.  Even he was worried and had been telling me that I didn't sound like myself.


Thankfully my mother was so concerned that she came to stay with me, she has her own little catering business so we were able to set up a nice facebook page for her 'Mamma Barnes'.  So I have been teaching her how to use it, reluctantly she started to come out of her whole "mi no like facebook" phase, and then it happened....the drama....her first taste of facebook drama.  First of all let me say I do not believe facebook is the issue and it causes too many problems as alot of people say, it is the people behind the pc who control the accounts who bring the drama, as they also do in real life!


That same 'frenemy' which is what I am going to refer to her as disrespects my mother for the whole world to see on facebook...I WAS LIVID!!!  So in total this 'frenemy' has dissed my son 3 times, and not content with that has now dissed my mother...heck no....it was time to take out the earings!  I sent some texts to put that person in their place.  later I realised one thing, when I am on medications I am not myself this person happens to be on certain herbal medications (if you catch my drift) which I believe causes them to behave in an irratic manner.


The same day I send the text, because I am so irrate about the whole mess, my carer comes out to give me a bath, I am worked up in a frenzy and the time which we have for my morning call is just going by.  She states to me whilst I am in the bath that she only has 10 minutes remaining for her call and so I tell her I am still feeling like vomitting, with all the meds I am taking I suffer with stomache and bowel problems so when I am stressed it goes straight to my stomache so to speak.  So she asked if there was anything she could get me and brought me some bio yoghurt to help settle my stomache and left me sitting in the bath, on my bath board.


As i am trying to get out of the bath, the board gets stuck to my one leg, slides on the ceramic bath top and I fall into the bath, hurting my hip, my right buttock, and right arm.  At this point I am unable to pull myself up because my hand rails are all on the right hand side, I am in soo much pain and I cannot for the life of me get out of this bath....

16/05/2011

Dear Diary,

 

It has been a long time since I last wrote to you soo much has been happening but I know where to start!

Thankful to God because this time 14 years ago I was blessed with a 7 and a half pound baby boy, his birth was not difficult but very easy, I remember waking up about 5am thinking I had wind, so I drank a cup of herbal tea. Then about 8am I had a shower and still felt in pain still thinking I had a tummy upset I had another cup of herbal tea, and thought I will have a sleep, but every hour the pain kept waking me up. At about 1pm I was watching my favourite soap opera at the time 'Sunset Beach' I wanted to find out if Meg was gonna realise Ben was not Ben but an evil twin brother. Still the pain kept going on and on and my belly was going a funny shape, I talked to my baby and was like 'what is up lil man? Why you causing mamma soo much trouble? I already knew the sex of my baby cos I asked, however I never went to any of the baby classes as I was ashamed to go alone!

As I got up from bed to make myself another cup of tea about 2pm I saw a small puddle of water, I remember thinking grrrreat now on top of everything else with pregnancy, one swollen ankle, a hairy belly button, and not being able to see my la la, I have lost control of my bladder and wet myself, as I am cleaning the water up I notice on the tissue and it is not yellow but clear, I remember thinking hmmm this is strange, so I go to my neighbour's house and knock her door to ask her a question, 'Anne, Anne are you there? What does it feel like when you are in labour?' She answered 'Why?' I explained what happened to me and she said in her St Lucian accent 'Child you are in labour!!!!'

At that point I was freaking out, OMG! OMG! Anne called an ambulance and CJ's Dad who came with half a head of hair done as he was in the middle of braiding his hair, it was hectic all systems go, we get to the hospital at 3pm, and I start to think OMG!! I didn't go to the toilet and I need to go cos I had heard about how people have poopy accidents on the labour bed and mm mmm mmm that was not gonna happen to me, so I go to the bathroom and start pushing like c'mon baby coming here hurry up and go to the loo, the nurse starts to knock the door and say 'Miss Nation, Miss Nation, I know you feel like going to the toilet right now but it is the feel of the baby's head engaging and if you do not open the door you will have a baby drop in the toilet..' Oh Lord with that I come out and pop back on the trolley bed and I am breathing and crying cos it is hurting, my baby Daddy was not there he is parking his car I'm alone with only the hospital staff.

As I enter the labour room, the nurse says can we examine you and I place my legs up on the stirrups and she is like 'Annika you are fully dilated you're ready to have this baby, can we change you into a gown?' I was like 'Nope it hurts I just need to push please and get it out, I wanna push' but my baby Daddy is nowhere to be seen he was parking the car, I was sooo scared and tired. Finally the nurse said 'C'mon Annika not long now if you don't push the baby may go into distress, and we may have to do a c-section!' So I give one last push and bam at 3:28pm he is born, I remember holding his straight cat like hair lol, navy eyes and he was not brown but he was as light as an Asian baby lol he smelt like honey and was beautiful, with cute lips he started looking at me a little and I was like 'Hey lil man welcome to the world' at that point his Dad walks in the room in shock like 'You've had the baby..that's a record?

Now 14 years later I have to say as easy as he came into the world helping his Mamma, he is still doing the same, and easy child to take care of very helpful and supportive God bless him.

So the beginning of my week was crazy my carers from the social services came to me on Sunday to help get me ready, then the nurse came to administer my medications, and a nurse assistant came to take me to church, as CJ and I are getting ready to go into her car she says 'Oh, I can't take your son with us because it is not in the care plan and when I went to a client before I was not insured to carry the friend they had with them' I was great what is going on she then says 'I can take you on your own' I thought leave my son alone, yea right, I respond, 'We have been having care for 7 weeks now no other carer has said what you are saying now, so she calls the office and they say they are not able to take us to church…' I was broken. When she left I cried and just went to bed then I get a phone call in the evening to cheer me up my son has a brother by another mother, he always spends his birthday with his brother as they are born on the same day only 2 years difference in age. She has booked a Go Karting session which is great so we arrange for me to that he will spend the weekend together, the only thing to arrange is how he will get there, either his Dad will collect him and return him, or I will go with him on the coach. I have carers take me out every Wednesday , Thursday and Saturday so that is when I am able to buy the ticket. Unfortunately I cannot do this online as you know with Fibromyalgia you suffer with 'foggy brain' and an 'Adjustment Reaction Disorder' makes you forgetful so I have lost about 3 bank cards in the last 2 months.

So the Tuesday comes and my nurse comes out to administer my medication, as she is leaving she says 'Do you think you will feel better later to be at the planning meeting?' I had no clue what she was talking about 'I said 'Hopefully..' This all started to make sense my social worker had been asking me to sign consent forms for the last 3 weeks about talking and discussing my care plan with other agencies, but I was not happy to do this, consent from with my Consultant Psychologist. To know that sooo many people were going to be discussing me without being invited, a planning meeting that means my social worker, the care managers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, G.P and any other agencies involved in my care all making decisions with no one representing me or even inviting me it just made me soo angry and feel my privacy was being invaded. I was so stressed out because I was not well enough to attend I stressed myself out for the whole day.

Wednesday morning, my social worker calls me to advise me that her and the panel have decided they can no longer take me to church on a Sunday, this decision was made during the planning meeting, I broke down in tears and just cried, church is all I have to help me have positivity. The same morning, I had my social call, so that I could go to sort out things at the radio station, it takes 30 mins to get there and 30 mins to return, sessions are booked, so if I am going to be late there is no point me going, my nurse assistant to take me out is supposed to be with me by 10:00am so that I can have a 2 hour call from 10am-12pm at 10:20am she was not with me so with all the stress of being ill, hearing this news I just cancelled the call! I hate having to be dependent on people for help, having a disability really leaves you without control of your own life a lot of the times, sometimes because you are physically unable to decide things or control your day to day duties and partly because people just don't understand or refuse to.

Thursday comes along and I am just stressing about this planning meeting I am bed ridden and cannot eat, I am shaking all over, feeling quite sick the carers come out and call the G.P I am having a reaction to the Morphine, all day I am the same vomiting and cannot function, so I have to cancel my social call again which is frustrating because I am panicky if I am this ill I may ruin my son's birthday and not be able to take him to London, what can I do?

Friday comes along, yes Friday the 13^th I get a distressing call in the morning, a call from someone I had considered a friend making some really personal comments about me, it hurt me and I am just feeling the pressure, I don't know how much more I can take?

In the evening my son kindly takes me into town to go to the bank as I have lost my card and need to withdraw money, on the way back we use the bus. The bus driver refuses to lower the bus and pull out the ramp he states you can have one or the other, this is the first time I have heard this and I am just in shock, my son is already struggling to help me, it is not easy for him wheeling around his Mum, he strains his arm to lift me onto the bus and then when we are getting of the bus the front of my wheelchair gets damaged. This is it for me I feel done now how much more do I have to take.

I just ignore and try to think about making my son happy for his Birthday thankfully we get our day return coach tickets which cost us £64.00 he gets to see all his sibblings thankful to the hard work of his step-mother they go Go-Karting and he has a great time.

However bring on the drama again my mother receives a call from this friend who makes unwarranted accusations, they also take it upon themselves to discuss the situation with my 13 year old son soon to be 14. I just see this is a plan to get me to lose it, so I just think, spend some time alone in London for a couple of hours watching the world go by and think. There are two weaknesses in my life my Mum and my son when people mess with them I just lose it, in order to keep my cool I decide it is best for me to just keep my distance from this friend because she is getting out of control, and we cannot resolve this issue as when I try to discuss the issue with her all she does is talk and not listen, you know when you are trying to say something to someone and they keep interrupting you, so you forget your chain of thought and have to go back to the beginning, in the end it is just pointless you have to leave them to time either they will realise what you were saying or they won't, I am guilty of loving to talk and not always listen but working in journalism teaches you to talk and listen not just talk.

To add to another situation I lose my purse with my money in and my other card in so bam that was the end to a great weekend I could not wait to get home and just sleep 12 hours of a journey too much drama but my son had the best time and that's all that counts.

The silver lining to all of this was I got to catch up with a dear friend from the BBC and they gave me the scoop of some gossip for my new segment on www.newstyleradio.org.uk on the breakfast show with Dean Alexander and that went to a great start, I just think it is best to surround myself with positive people and loved ones anyone else anything else I cannot let it concern me negative things will happen you can't stop it, negative people will be in your life you cannot avoid it, bit how you deal with it, is what makes the difference!