This is sort of going backward and forward, as I did a really speedy blog this morning, as I was in that 'shriek' mode. Hospital appointments do my head in [always], but this year has been quite bothersome, to say the least! So - hang in there, hopefully I shall find a way to do this in a proper order. Aphasia is extremely irritating.
So - I AM still attacking my blog! But February is a very difficult month every year. This week I had my bloods taken for my CA 125 check. Even that it is quite frightening.
Last time I had many sticking attacks on both arms…on the fourth one I did get slightly peeved. But the proper phlebotomist arrived and she took my blood samples and it all went well. So last year I had a massive blue bruise all along both arms. Shocking for most, but for all this time, I have sort of got used to it. I always know that it is useful - so the pain doesn't last long! She says…
AND! Bargain - on my right hand side, the feeling is far, far less than on my left hand side. Woop woop! Thanks for one small good thing from having a little stroke.
This year I was so worried [for an entire week] but for some reason I had the most incredible nurse that did my blood. I felt absolutely nothing!
So that was rather an exciting day - off to the local Exmouth hospital, where our doctors work, plus part of the hospital is a Minor Injury Unit. It's completely different to the doctors surgery that I had in Exeter. This is bigger. So I worried about going. Mainly because I have the CA 125 blood test, and [as usual] my blood refuses to be removed.
This time I had the most incredible woman - she did my bloods, I didn't even FEEL it! I told her to note that my blood refuses to be removed. She did it so well that [and I am sounding a bit bonkers here] I didn't actually feel it - at all?? Great.
But - the best thing. For me anyway - she had obviously checked my notes. And apparently she did work in an intensive care unit [ICU]. So she was so incredibly understanding of how I am. It was the very first time that someone really understood what happens when you have a massive brain injury.
Interestingly, [from this super nurse] it can be so much more worse for the friends / relatives when it happens. Because when you have that kind of chaos going on in your head, you aren't there. At all.
Anyway - in the meantime, one of my fingers has a horrendous nail that has been a sort of abscess underneath the finger nail for about two years [yes - gross. REALLY gross!]. So I asked her about that as well. I was feeling brave!
And she sorted that for me too! Yay! I have CHOPPED off my nail and send it off to the hospital for testing. It takes three months [and it is pretty gross] as they make a biopsy to find out what is living in my finger nail! Yuck. Times ten.
Last Friday was a little bit worse, as I had to go up to the RD&E hospital for my breast mammogram. 10 years I have been doing that, since ovarian cancer blah blah. So popping up there is usually simple, even when your #brain has broken.
Trying to be sensible and do my normal blog isn’t really very clever with my mind and my brain going into distress. Hence this one being in the wrong place in the cue.
And the word distress… well even that isn’t quite what I mean. Distress has got nothing to do with how I feel - it’s more like I think I’m just making a big drama. And other people almost refuse to understand.
That nurse did make me cry. She was so understanding because she has worked in the place where you are when you have a coma i.e. you have a brain injury or, like me, a total nightmare in my head. When I got outside I was crying but it was a good type of crying.
She did she did not lie and she understood.
Which is very unusual.
Now I have been for my breast check [waiting for the letter in the post - 7 to 10 days] and for my CA 125. Which is a serious check because last year the CA 125 had gone up. Happily last year I had three checks and it had gone back down again.
Fingers crossed. And I hope to be a little more constructive with putting this page together here.
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