Tears and reality – 17th May 2013

Finally I am crying and cannot stop. Finally Mr Hs has shown his anger with me and has stormed off.

What started it; I asked for the fan on the fire to be tilted a bit because I feared the light hitting it. Sharp flashes of light sets off a migraine for me and because the sun has moved round in the season it hits the shiny turning blades of the fan with a strobe effect.

Mr Hs just blew! He started talking about the fan not working properly if it is not facing outwards. ‘So it is ok for me to get migraine?’ I finally commented. He simply repeated that the fan only works as it should facing outwards. He then went on to say how I am going on and on that nothing is right; ‘it’s too warm’, ‘it’s too cold’. He then copied how I fan myself at night when I get a hot flush.

‘What’s wrong with that’ I ask, “I never say anything, I don’t complain, I am just fanning myself cooler?”

However, it didn’t matter what I said, he was going to be angry and would find something that was irritating him to justify it. He said he ‘wanted to argue’. What can I say to that, when I do not.

So I cried and cried. I cried with the futility of my anger at having the disease. I cried with the unfairness, I cried because there is nothing I can do to stop it. I cried for the loss of my life later on, I cried for Mr Hs having to deal with me with full dementia. I am guessing his anger was for the same reasons.

I don’t blame him for his anger.

I am so sorry Mr Hs, I wouldn’t have put this on you had I known before we met.

It felt like a glimpse of my future, with Mr Hs getting irritated by my Alzheimer’s because he is angry and I am no longer able to stand my ground, and I cried for my helplessness and his helplessness.

He got dressed, left the boat, and busied himself with filling the tank with water, bringing the bag of soil for my pot plants and generally pottering about. When he returned later, the anger had dissipated, but the air was heavy with the words already spoken.

But he had thoughtfully sprayed the shiny blades of the fan black.

Later when we had got into bed he kissed me goodnight healing the words of the day.

Fibro body day

I have fibro body this week, my right shoulder is painful when I bend my head forward, I have pain in my wrists, my lower back and the end joints of my middle fingers. All of my fingers are beginning to hurt when I bend my fingers into my palms, and the bend gets less as time goes on. On a scale of 1 to 10 the pain is 8.5. I have been very tired and have been asleep by 10pm then waking only once at 3.30am I slept heavily till morning, but when I wake up I am still tired, the night has not refreshed me. On Wednesday I found Hydrotherapy too painful and left the pool early. I think that I am having an extreme bout of Fibro at the moment but it will subside.

Last night Mr Hs said ‘We will get up early and go out to Birmingham Today we are going out to the Museum and to the camera shop’; Mr Hs would like to treat himself to a new camera when the boat sells. It will make the difficulties of saying goodbye to an era that was his life-saver a positive thing to do. However, this morning when I said we were going out, he asked me where we were going. I find it hard to tell when someone is joking or not, and I especially do not ‘get’ Mr Hs’ dry joking sense of humour at times. I wish people wouldn’t joke that way because it confuses me. I think this has been a lifelong problem for me because it is a Dyspraxic train trait only now it feels more of a problem. I encouraged him to think about it – use it or lose it; and eventually he said Birmingham, then that we needed coal. If he is not faking not remembering then we have a problem between us because it would appear that his memory is worse than mine!

I am finding that as I write I cannot remember what I have written before, I don’t remember the details, the words, or the subject. This means quite possibly and probably I may be repeating what I have already said because it would be ridiculous to re-read everything I have written each time I write some more.

Playing around with my photographs reminds me I need to lose some weight!

Snow days…

24/01/13 Thursday

The past few days I have not taken my Fluoxetine because they are upsetting my stomach, and my head continues to have pain on the right side. On a scale of 1 to 10 the pain is about 8 at times. I was trying not to take painkillers on a regular basis because previously it had become too regular and can induce headaches, but now I simply cannot bear daily headaches.

The day is very grey, heavy with the promise of more snow. The bird table still hangs in the window, empty and incongruous whilst we discuss possible places. Can we somehow hang it outside the window inbetween the boats, would the birds find it so far away from the bank and trees? We had chores to do today; the tap was not frozen so we would fill with water, at the same time put the washing machine on. Mr Hs went to empty the toilette cassette and I dumped the rubbish bags in the skip. I also used the shovel and cleared the snow from the pontoon from our boat to the car park. My back and wrists were hurting but I continued because I felt I needed the exercise. I took a few photos, but there was nothing that came out particularly stunning.

22/01/13 Tuesday

It did not stop snowing on Sunday and it would have been silly to have gone out. I feel sick; I have felt dizzy for a couple of days and had the mother of all headaches. My stomach is hurting and I think that the replacement fluoxetine tablets are making me ill. When I collected my last prescription from the pharmacy the factory TIVA had not got any so they gave me another brand that had no lactose in. I have had a look online for information for Lactase – for people intolerant to lactose, and think I might try some so that I can take the medication amitriptyline which is for my Fibro pains and sleep.

Yesterday we went to Lichfield; the cathedral looked beautiful with its blackened stone with the contrast of snow clinging in the crevices of the carvings. The roads were clearer than I thought they would be, but I think that is the microcosmic world of the marina giving me that impression. We bought a plastic and wire mesh hanging bird table some bird food because the snow still lays thickly on the ground and on the trees and has been for some days. Mr Hs put it together and we hung it up on the brass curtain rail and set to thinking where the heck we could put it outside!