New year - New Update. Finally...
It has been forever since I’ve posted on my blog. I just checked and it’s been over a year, with a wrap-up post, just like this one. Ooopsss. But it’s a new year, so let’s see if I can keep this up. (Probably not). I daresay 2020 has been a hard year for everyone. I am no different. I just looked at my last post, and skimming it, I was quite optimistic for 2020. Oh boy, was I wrong.
The year actually started out pretty good. Sure, I was on medicine and had physical therapy once a week, but I also played volleyball 3 times a week, table tennis once a week, and got along better and better with the people of my new volleyball team. I did end up fainting once in February after volley the day before a nerve block, and I had to be brought home by three of my friends (I say that now, but at the time I had barely ever talked with one of them, and it was pretty awkward). Two of them, both male, had to help me inside because I couldn’t walk on my own, and it took me quite a lot to convince them I didn’t need an ambulance, but it worked out fine, I worked the next day (much to their shock, lol) and got to the hospital for my nerve block fine, after which things got better.
Then, corona got worse. I was forced to cancel my trip to Australia because my work wouldn’t allow me to go (bye bye money T-T), which in hindsight was good, because I wouldn’t have been let back into the country if I had gone. I was pretty annoyed by it then, because Australia had less cases than Japan and money. Also, they told me I could go, then literally the day before I was supposed to go told me, yeah, no, you can’t. Sport got cancelled too, and suddenly I had a lot of free time. As someone who does not deal with change very well, this was hard on me. But my friends from volleyball got me into Pokemon Go and we played a lot together, right until the corona regulations got worse, and one of our friends wasn’t allowed to share cars with people anymore by her work.
Still, I played a lot of Pokemon Go, and would often run into other people I knew playing it, and we would talk, and thus we became better friends. (Heck, I once ended up talking for so long it became light again… Thank god it was during the weekend). Around that same time, I got the news that my grandmother, mother and grandfather had caught corona. To be honest, it freaked me out. If something happened to all three of them, what was I supposed to do? How could I be there for my little brother, who would have only me left? (He’s only 2,5 years younger and completely self-reliant, and apparently was worried about the same thing, how could he ever be there for me if our mum died.)
Things were bad. My grandma was hospitalized for a while, and against better judgement got to go home. (She hates hospitals). She wasn’t doing better though, and one night I got a call from my mum, saying they’d probably call me again later at night, to “say goodbye.” When I got this call I was in the back of the car of one of my friends (right in front of my house, but we’d been talking for close to an hour xD) after playing Pokemon Go (Pokemon Go has played a big part in my life this past year xD). My mum complained that she couldn’t see me during our video call, because it was too dark, but I figured that was better than explaining I was in a car at one at night. (I think with no posts, she probably won’t read this, but if so, hii, yeah, I wasn’t actually at home, or alone, surprise). It was pretty awkward, hearing horrible news when you’re not alone, though it was probably doubly awkward for my friend, who had no idea what I was talking about in Dutch.
I didn’t sleep, and around 5 in the morning got another call. My grandma looked horrible, and for months, I couldn’t get that image out of my head. (And still, it’s hard for me to remember her without thinking about that.) Her last words to me were: “I’m happy.” I don’t think I even managed to say anything, and just burst out sobbing. (I’m actually tearing up writing this). I had to go to Morioka for my visa the next day and I kept tearing up/crying all throughout the busride, which was extremely embarrassing. My brother called me while I was waiting for the bus back, and we both ended up crying during the call, which, with me being at a nearby station where former students were was, again, very embarrassing.
I was a mess for quite a while. I couldn’t really talk about it. Didn’t want to think about it. I asked my family for space, because I needed to process it on my own. I was quite literally sick with grief (I had a fever and was nauseous). My family on the other hand struggled to give me the space I desperately needed (which is because they love me, I know, but it was still hard). Getting messages made me feel ill, and that made me in turn feel bad about my own reaction as well. The one person actually accepting me and my way of grieving was (to my surprise) my little brother. Which was also why he was the first person I could reach out to myself. He told me he was only able to leave me alone because he got updates from my mum, and also told her to message me less and that I would reach out when I was ready (and with her getting updates through my brother, that helped). It would still take a long time until I was ready to face them, and honestly, I’ve only recently gotten more comfortable with it. Eventually some people at work found out (because some asked me about the situation in the Netherlands and my family and I don’t lie) and it got spread a bit, and people were really nice to me.
My mother and grandpa thankfully recovered fully. You’d think my year could only go up from there, and so did I, but, nope. My physical condition got worse throughout the year. In June I had another appointment for a nerve block. I was already resting a lot (straight out of work to bed/ only doing my lessons, none of my office work, etc.) in the weeks leading up to it. One day, I had to get groceries (as you do), and because my friends were going to play Pokemon Go near the supermarket, I asked if someone could pick me up (I didn’t feel up to driving). Turns out I wasn’t up to doing groceries either.
I managed to get my groceries and get back into the car, and just laid down in the backseats. My friends finished their raid, then noticed me and got super worried. The friend who had driven me insisted on driving me home right away (while I insisted they could continue playing, I was fine waiting). They talked it over and he came back saying they were done playing anyway, so he’d drive me home. I couldn’t walk very well, super dizzy, my vision going black, and only got to my living room (with several rests). He wouldn’t leave me there, and eventually the others called what was taking so long (since they were still playing after all), and they came to my house as well. Two of my male friends ended up carrying my mattress to my living room, and tried to move me, but simply touching my neck made me pass out in pain, and they gave up on that. Eventually they had to leave, of course and I spent most of my night in pain, on the floor, next to the mattress. Which meant I didn’t sleep.
I called in sick to work the next day, still unable to move. That scared me quite a bit, because until then, I had always been able to walk/work/be sorta fine even after passing out. Just moving my head would hurt so much I would black out. I did somehow manage to get myself on the mattress, but everything was spinning and I was basically crying from pain the whole day. I had never been this dizzy while laying down and worried as I was, I googled. It said if you were dizzy for three days you needed to go to the hospital. Thinking about that, me, being unable to so much as sit up, or move my head, there was no way I was going to get to a hospital, even if I asked someone to drive me. I wouldn’t be able to get to their car.
So, I decided I would have to call an ambulance if things didn’t get better by the next day. As you might imagine, I had never called an ambulance, especially not in Japan. So I texted one of the friends that had been with me the day before and asked if she could explain to me how I should do that. She got instantly worried, and as by then the gyms were open again and they had just played volleybal, discussed it with the two other friends that had been there. She asked about my condition (still unable to move), if I had eaten (nope, unable to move, nothing to drink either) and called the hospital as well to ask about the best course of action. All three of them came over again, and brought food and drinks as well. Which didn’t help that much as I could sit to eat or drink.
They called an ambulance. I will never ever call an ambulance again. This was the most painful experience of my life, I cried so much during the trip to the hospital, I thought I’d go crazy with pain. My friend was in the ambulance with me and got asked if I had been to a foreign country recently (corona and such), which ofc. I hadn’t. My other two friends followed us in their own cars. Two stayed until about twelve o’clock at night, because they had work the next morning. The other happened to have the day off the next day and stayed with me throughout the night.
The hospital did close to nothing. They gave me an iv drip. And that was it. Whenever they asked me something, and I replied, they’d just not understand me? and my friend had to repeat everything I said. When they wanted to send me home the next morning (after doing exactly nothing, and I was still unable to move) he protested for me. They proceeded to ignore us (even tell me ‘if I wanted to rest I might as well do it at home’ as if I wasn’t in immense pain) and actually called my job. You can imagine our shock when suddenly two people from my office walked in. One of them being our new team leader, that had transferred in in April and because of corona, we hadn’t had any parties, so I had literally never talked to him. Apparently the nurse calling them had told them “I wanted to go home.” … They hadn’t been told I was taken there in an ambulance either. Seeing me, they proceed to argue back and forth with the hospital as well, since I was clearly not able to move much, and living alone, that’s kind of a problem. My friend discreetly left around that time. After about an hour back and forth I was put in a wheelchair and taken home, “since I had an appointment for next week anyway, and my doctor is only there on Wednesdays.”
I lived on drink jelly that my colleague bought for me for a few weeks. I was taken to the hospital the Wednesday after for my nerve block. Again, in a wheelchair. Still hardly able to sit. Gave my doctor quite a shock. I passed out during the nerve block and he had to give up, and he decided to give me a reference to another, bigger hospital, to get a nerve block there.
I tried to practice sitting bit by bit. (from a few seconds to a few minutes, etc). My colleague brought me drinkjelly and drinks (with a straw so I could drink while lying down). Occasionally she would ask someone else to bring me something, and they would forget… Which would result in me having to ask my friends.
The first time it happened, two of my friends came after volleyball to bring me food. They stayed a bit, playing pokemon and talking, when we suddenly heard my door open. Turns out one of them had told another friend they were at my place, so he came over too. The second time was even scarier, because my friend didn’t reply, and I was tired and in pain anyway, so I was just thinking I’d just go to sleep when I heard the door. But my friend would always say: “I’m home” and by now I recognised the way people open my door (It’s a noisy door, and my colleague as well as my friend have different ways of opening it xD). Instead it was super quiet. Turns out the friend I had texted had bought me food, but, because she had to go home right away given the food to another friend to bring it to me. He looked like he felt really awkward in my house by himself though he made sure to get me my food, and even ended up carrying a package into my house. By now, I could sit almost 30 minutes. I remember, because I bragged about it (can you even call that bragging? xD) when I was told I at least looked a bit better.
The next day we went to the hospital further away. It was two hours by car. Then, I had to wait for two more hours. (Appointment times? Who looks at those). As someone who could just barely sit for 30 minutes without being in incredible pain, it was torture. I passed out in front of the doctor, who proceeded to say it was because I must be nervous, prescribe me some medicine and send me home. EVEN THOUGH WE CAME FOR A NERVE BLOCK.
Thankfully, I passed out again before we had even left the hospital, so he ended up having to give me a nerve block as well as an appointment for a better nerve block, for which I had to stay in the hospital for a night. That nerve block was scary AF. With a needle in my neck, suddenly a liquid basically exploded over me and I heard the doctor say “I messed up”. Thankfully it was just medicine and not blood or anything but still, super scary.
I was told I had to be hospitalized for longer during the summer vacation, for 5 days. I was sorta able to work again after that first nerve block. Work-sleep-repeat. My second hospitalization was a rollercoaster. They put a needle in my neck, and gave me a medicine pump. It would constantly anesthetize my hernia which would theoretically stop my pain. This doctor didn’t believe my hernia was the sole cause of my pain and thus told me that this would prove it. If they had me on medicine for longer and the pain wouldn’t go away, it wasn’t the hernia.
The first day, my hands were completely numb and I couldn’t hold anything. It was hell. The second day, my hands got better and believe it or not, the pain went away for a lovely 8 hours. The first time in 12 years. No pain. You can’t believe how much lighter everything is without pain. That night the medicine pump had to be replaced, but the nurse messed up, some cable got disconnected, and because this could lead to bacteria, the whole thing was taken away and the pain came back. The next day in the hospital was completely pointless as I was in incredible pain and no one did anything. I was completely done with everything at that point, and felt incredibly depressed. I expressed wishes to leave the hospital right away since there was no point in just lying there anyway.
This got my doctor's attention, he came to talk to me, and insisted they could help me, and he would try all kinds of things, different medicine, different nerve blocks. He sounded like he wanted to try things. The key word being sounded.
I had an appointment a month later. We arrive. Doctor isn’t there???? Another doctor gives me a nerve block. Says it could have some effect on my lungs (which was true, I could barely breathe that evening). Doesn’t give me different medicine because he hadn’t heard anything about that.
The next month. The nerve block did little. The medicine even less. This time the doctor is there. How about I take double the dose of the medicine that doesn’t work? And nerve block? Oh, I can give you the same one, but it only worked for a week, right? -Well, it’s better than nothing. I had done some research myself, and found that red haired people apparently don’t react to pain medication the same way. The doctor ignored that and instead told me that “maybe I was in pain because I thought I was in pain. I should try and do more, so I wouldn’t notice the pain and it would get less.”
So, I listened. (after clearing with my work that I’d probably pass out soon) I went back to volley. I worked my hardest. After one volleyball training I felt like I wouldn’t last long, barely able to stand on my feet the next day. But I was still going to my own doctor for pain medicine and he did listen to my research about redheads and gave me medicine that supposedly did work for redheads. And it did indeed work. So I managed to go over my limits for another week. Until after 1,5 weeks of pushing myself I felt really bad after volley and went to lay down. Apparently I then passed out (which has never happened to me before). Someone from the other team practicing at the same time as we do “woke me up” and called some people from my own team.
They carried me to my car, and similar to the most unbelievable romance manga I ended up on the backseat of my car, on top of one of my male friends who had helped me in the car. He was unable to move out of the car. I was unable to move. We were driven home like that. They got me in my bed, (which was thankfully still in my living room)warmed me, because I was shivering like crazy, and I was told to call my male friend in case anything happened. They even readied my line so it was just one click.
And although I was determined not to call, I got super nauseous. I was still unable to move, but I had anti-nausea medicine (I couldn’t reach it) and throwing up in my bed while unable to move was very unappealing as well. Just calling was incredibly hard, due to the pain and I was unable to say anything by the time I had called. My brain felt fried and I ended up hanging up after a while, giving up completely.
He came anyway. He got me my medicine, and ended up reading the whole list of my medicine (“You have too many”, checking every symptom in detail and giving me all my painkillers. My heater ran out of kerosene, so he filled it, and got me a bucket in case I did get sick. Even more embarrassing, I had him help me to the bathroom so I could go to the toilet. I almost just fell down on my mattress but he caught me and got me in bed properly, even though I was, after walking, unable to move again. I was again shivering like crazy, and I learned that it is possible to shiver from pain. Who knew.
The next weeks were tough. Having gone well over my limits I sorta managed to work, but I passed out afterwards pretty much every day. Mostly at home. Once as I was throwing out the trash near my house. Another time when I was talking to my friend in the parking lot near my house so he had to help me get home, again. I was told not to go out at night because it was too dangerous if I passed out again. Once when I was at the bakery owned by one of my friends. They actually closed the bakery to get me home. I felt horrible, and super guilty.
But the worst was when I went grocery shopping, during the day, because I sometimes listen to advice, and almost made it home. I sat down near my house but too far to get there. People refused to let me sit there, insisting on calling either an ambulance or people from town hall (like, my work? no thanks). I kept refusing but they still went into town hall, and came back with two random people I don’t know, but who knew my name and where I lived. They forced me into a wheelchair, with the help of some of my students (because I wasn’t embarrassed enough). They moved me into my hallway, and left me there, in the wheelchair.
The (short) trip there was torture. I could cry, I was in so much pain. After a while, my door opened and my team leader (you know, the one that came to the hospital that I even now had barely talked to) and another colleague came in. He offered to help me “at least get inside my house/ to bed.” He failed. Instead of helping me, he dropped me in between the step towards my house and the wheelchair. The drop hurt so much I was again unable to move. I layed in that awkward position for another two hours or so and he came back to, this time, help me into my house properly. So much pain.
The next time I went to the doctor further away was also the last time. He was surprised that his strategy of just doing things hadn’t worked (and that I had passed out this much). He was even more surprised that the pain medication my other doctor had given me worked. With the amount of mistakes that particular hospital had already made it was decided I could go back to my old doctor. Yaay.
Which is where we are now. I’m working, though I can’t do sports. I have okay-ish days, and horrible days on which I can’t do much. I have to rest on the weekends or I can’t work. I have an appointment for another nerve block tomorrow, a new one I haven’t had before, so I hope that will work out well. But the last half month or so I have had numbness in my hands occasionally, and I’m a bit afraid that things are getting worse.
On the positives, my work is still super fun. I looove my students and it’s so much fun. I absolutely love my friends, though I might have been a bit too much this year, especially when we were only getting close this year… I’ve apologized a lot, and given them all small christmas presents as well (with letters thanking them and apologizing again). I hope I won’t lose them over my health, since I really do love them all. I spent new year’s eve with one of my friends and her family, which was super fun as well.
It snowed a lot these past weeks (it’s snowing again now) so I made a snowman during the New Year’s Holiday and had a lot of fun playing around like a little kid. The roads are pretty much ice though, so I don’t dare drive anywhere right now xD Walking is already slippery enough. It’s also extremely cold, -10 at night, which means my house gets to about 4 degrees celsius in the morning, and in the weekends to about 15~16 in the evening and only 14 if I go to work. I can’t get my house heated up for the life of me xD. But I’m surviving :D
Overall, it was a pretty horrible year, and all the good parts were because of the people around me. My friends, my family, my students and my colleagues. I’m thankful I have so many people who are willing to help me, and I hope I can find some way to repay them. (Which, with corona, is kinda difficult atm).
As you can imagine, with all this going on, I have not done anything fandom related at all. I’m completely out of the loop, I know nothing. xD Maybe this year I can get back into subbing again, but that all depends on my health. I really hope it won’t interfere with my work much more, because I really, really don’t want to lose my job.
As always when I have neglected LJ, I won’t be checking my inbox much because too many messages give me stress.
The year actually started out pretty good. Sure, I was on medicine and had physical therapy once a week, but I also played volleyball 3 times a week, table tennis once a week, and got along better and better with the people of my new volleyball team. I did end up fainting once in February after volley the day before a nerve block, and I had to be brought home by three of my friends (I say that now, but at the time I had barely ever talked with one of them, and it was pretty awkward). Two of them, both male, had to help me inside because I couldn’t walk on my own, and it took me quite a lot to convince them I didn’t need an ambulance, but it worked out fine, I worked the next day (much to their shock, lol) and got to the hospital for my nerve block fine, after which things got better.
Then, corona got worse. I was forced to cancel my trip to Australia because my work wouldn’t allow me to go (bye bye money T-T), which in hindsight was good, because I wouldn’t have been let back into the country if I had gone. I was pretty annoyed by it then, because Australia had less cases than Japan and money. Also, they told me I could go, then literally the day before I was supposed to go told me, yeah, no, you can’t. Sport got cancelled too, and suddenly I had a lot of free time. As someone who does not deal with change very well, this was hard on me. But my friends from volleyball got me into Pokemon Go and we played a lot together, right until the corona regulations got worse, and one of our friends wasn’t allowed to share cars with people anymore by her work.
Still, I played a lot of Pokemon Go, and would often run into other people I knew playing it, and we would talk, and thus we became better friends. (Heck, I once ended up talking for so long it became light again… Thank god it was during the weekend). Around that same time, I got the news that my grandmother, mother and grandfather had caught corona. To be honest, it freaked me out. If something happened to all three of them, what was I supposed to do? How could I be there for my little brother, who would have only me left? (He’s only 2,5 years younger and completely self-reliant, and apparently was worried about the same thing, how could he ever be there for me if our mum died.)
Things were bad. My grandma was hospitalized for a while, and against better judgement got to go home. (She hates hospitals). She wasn’t doing better though, and one night I got a call from my mum, saying they’d probably call me again later at night, to “say goodbye.” When I got this call I was in the back of the car of one of my friends (right in front of my house, but we’d been talking for close to an hour xD) after playing Pokemon Go (Pokemon Go has played a big part in my life this past year xD). My mum complained that she couldn’t see me during our video call, because it was too dark, but I figured that was better than explaining I was in a car at one at night. (I think with no posts, she probably won’t read this, but if so, hii, yeah, I wasn’t actually at home, or alone, surprise). It was pretty awkward, hearing horrible news when you’re not alone, though it was probably doubly awkward for my friend, who had no idea what I was talking about in Dutch.
I didn’t sleep, and around 5 in the morning got another call. My grandma looked horrible, and for months, I couldn’t get that image out of my head. (And still, it’s hard for me to remember her without thinking about that.) Her last words to me were: “I’m happy.” I don’t think I even managed to say anything, and just burst out sobbing. (I’m actually tearing up writing this). I had to go to Morioka for my visa the next day and I kept tearing up/crying all throughout the busride, which was extremely embarrassing. My brother called me while I was waiting for the bus back, and we both ended up crying during the call, which, with me being at a nearby station where former students were was, again, very embarrassing.
I was a mess for quite a while. I couldn’t really talk about it. Didn’t want to think about it. I asked my family for space, because I needed to process it on my own. I was quite literally sick with grief (I had a fever and was nauseous). My family on the other hand struggled to give me the space I desperately needed (which is because they love me, I know, but it was still hard). Getting messages made me feel ill, and that made me in turn feel bad about my own reaction as well. The one person actually accepting me and my way of grieving was (to my surprise) my little brother. Which was also why he was the first person I could reach out to myself. He told me he was only able to leave me alone because he got updates from my mum, and also told her to message me less and that I would reach out when I was ready (and with her getting updates through my brother, that helped). It would still take a long time until I was ready to face them, and honestly, I’ve only recently gotten more comfortable with it. Eventually some people at work found out (because some asked me about the situation in the Netherlands and my family and I don’t lie) and it got spread a bit, and people were really nice to me.
My mother and grandpa thankfully recovered fully. You’d think my year could only go up from there, and so did I, but, nope. My physical condition got worse throughout the year. In June I had another appointment for a nerve block. I was already resting a lot (straight out of work to bed/ only doing my lessons, none of my office work, etc.) in the weeks leading up to it. One day, I had to get groceries (as you do), and because my friends were going to play Pokemon Go near the supermarket, I asked if someone could pick me up (I didn’t feel up to driving). Turns out I wasn’t up to doing groceries either.
I managed to get my groceries and get back into the car, and just laid down in the backseats. My friends finished their raid, then noticed me and got super worried. The friend who had driven me insisted on driving me home right away (while I insisted they could continue playing, I was fine waiting). They talked it over and he came back saying they were done playing anyway, so he’d drive me home. I couldn’t walk very well, super dizzy, my vision going black, and only got to my living room (with several rests). He wouldn’t leave me there, and eventually the others called what was taking so long (since they were still playing after all), and they came to my house as well. Two of my male friends ended up carrying my mattress to my living room, and tried to move me, but simply touching my neck made me pass out in pain, and they gave up on that. Eventually they had to leave, of course and I spent most of my night in pain, on the floor, next to the mattress. Which meant I didn’t sleep.
I called in sick to work the next day, still unable to move. That scared me quite a bit, because until then, I had always been able to walk/work/be sorta fine even after passing out. Just moving my head would hurt so much I would black out. I did somehow manage to get myself on the mattress, but everything was spinning and I was basically crying from pain the whole day. I had never been this dizzy while laying down and worried as I was, I googled. It said if you were dizzy for three days you needed to go to the hospital. Thinking about that, me, being unable to so much as sit up, or move my head, there was no way I was going to get to a hospital, even if I asked someone to drive me. I wouldn’t be able to get to their car.
So, I decided I would have to call an ambulance if things didn’t get better by the next day. As you might imagine, I had never called an ambulance, especially not in Japan. So I texted one of the friends that had been with me the day before and asked if she could explain to me how I should do that. She got instantly worried, and as by then the gyms were open again and they had just played volleybal, discussed it with the two other friends that had been there. She asked about my condition (still unable to move), if I had eaten (nope, unable to move, nothing to drink either) and called the hospital as well to ask about the best course of action. All three of them came over again, and brought food and drinks as well. Which didn’t help that much as I could sit to eat or drink.
They called an ambulance. I will never ever call an ambulance again. This was the most painful experience of my life, I cried so much during the trip to the hospital, I thought I’d go crazy with pain. My friend was in the ambulance with me and got asked if I had been to a foreign country recently (corona and such), which ofc. I hadn’t. My other two friends followed us in their own cars. Two stayed until about twelve o’clock at night, because they had work the next morning. The other happened to have the day off the next day and stayed with me throughout the night.
The hospital did close to nothing. They gave me an iv drip. And that was it. Whenever they asked me something, and I replied, they’d just not understand me? and my friend had to repeat everything I said. When they wanted to send me home the next morning (after doing exactly nothing, and I was still unable to move) he protested for me. They proceeded to ignore us (even tell me ‘if I wanted to rest I might as well do it at home’ as if I wasn’t in immense pain) and actually called my job. You can imagine our shock when suddenly two people from my office walked in. One of them being our new team leader, that had transferred in in April and because of corona, we hadn’t had any parties, so I had literally never talked to him. Apparently the nurse calling them had told them “I wanted to go home.” … They hadn’t been told I was taken there in an ambulance either. Seeing me, they proceed to argue back and forth with the hospital as well, since I was clearly not able to move much, and living alone, that’s kind of a problem. My friend discreetly left around that time. After about an hour back and forth I was put in a wheelchair and taken home, “since I had an appointment for next week anyway, and my doctor is only there on Wednesdays.”
I lived on drink jelly that my colleague bought for me for a few weeks. I was taken to the hospital the Wednesday after for my nerve block. Again, in a wheelchair. Still hardly able to sit. Gave my doctor quite a shock. I passed out during the nerve block and he had to give up, and he decided to give me a reference to another, bigger hospital, to get a nerve block there.
I tried to practice sitting bit by bit. (from a few seconds to a few minutes, etc). My colleague brought me drinkjelly and drinks (with a straw so I could drink while lying down). Occasionally she would ask someone else to bring me something, and they would forget… Which would result in me having to ask my friends.
The first time it happened, two of my friends came after volleyball to bring me food. They stayed a bit, playing pokemon and talking, when we suddenly heard my door open. Turns out one of them had told another friend they were at my place, so he came over too. The second time was even scarier, because my friend didn’t reply, and I was tired and in pain anyway, so I was just thinking I’d just go to sleep when I heard the door. But my friend would always say: “I’m home” and by now I recognised the way people open my door (It’s a noisy door, and my colleague as well as my friend have different ways of opening it xD). Instead it was super quiet. Turns out the friend I had texted had bought me food, but, because she had to go home right away given the food to another friend to bring it to me. He looked like he felt really awkward in my house by himself though he made sure to get me my food, and even ended up carrying a package into my house. By now, I could sit almost 30 minutes. I remember, because I bragged about it (can you even call that bragging? xD) when I was told I at least looked a bit better.
The next day we went to the hospital further away. It was two hours by car. Then, I had to wait for two more hours. (Appointment times? Who looks at those). As someone who could just barely sit for 30 minutes without being in incredible pain, it was torture. I passed out in front of the doctor, who proceeded to say it was because I must be nervous, prescribe me some medicine and send me home. EVEN THOUGH WE CAME FOR A NERVE BLOCK.
Thankfully, I passed out again before we had even left the hospital, so he ended up having to give me a nerve block as well as an appointment for a better nerve block, for which I had to stay in the hospital for a night. That nerve block was scary AF. With a needle in my neck, suddenly a liquid basically exploded over me and I heard the doctor say “I messed up”. Thankfully it was just medicine and not blood or anything but still, super scary.
I was told I had to be hospitalized for longer during the summer vacation, for 5 days. I was sorta able to work again after that first nerve block. Work-sleep-repeat. My second hospitalization was a rollercoaster. They put a needle in my neck, and gave me a medicine pump. It would constantly anesthetize my hernia which would theoretically stop my pain. This doctor didn’t believe my hernia was the sole cause of my pain and thus told me that this would prove it. If they had me on medicine for longer and the pain wouldn’t go away, it wasn’t the hernia.
The first day, my hands were completely numb and I couldn’t hold anything. It was hell. The second day, my hands got better and believe it or not, the pain went away for a lovely 8 hours. The first time in 12 years. No pain. You can’t believe how much lighter everything is without pain. That night the medicine pump had to be replaced, but the nurse messed up, some cable got disconnected, and because this could lead to bacteria, the whole thing was taken away and the pain came back. The next day in the hospital was completely pointless as I was in incredible pain and no one did anything. I was completely done with everything at that point, and felt incredibly depressed. I expressed wishes to leave the hospital right away since there was no point in just lying there anyway.
This got my doctor's attention, he came to talk to me, and insisted they could help me, and he would try all kinds of things, different medicine, different nerve blocks. He sounded like he wanted to try things. The key word being sounded.
I had an appointment a month later. We arrive. Doctor isn’t there???? Another doctor gives me a nerve block. Says it could have some effect on my lungs (which was true, I could barely breathe that evening). Doesn’t give me different medicine because he hadn’t heard anything about that.
The next month. The nerve block did little. The medicine even less. This time the doctor is there. How about I take double the dose of the medicine that doesn’t work? And nerve block? Oh, I can give you the same one, but it only worked for a week, right? -Well, it’s better than nothing. I had done some research myself, and found that red haired people apparently don’t react to pain medication the same way. The doctor ignored that and instead told me that “maybe I was in pain because I thought I was in pain. I should try and do more, so I wouldn’t notice the pain and it would get less.”
So, I listened. (after clearing with my work that I’d probably pass out soon) I went back to volley. I worked my hardest. After one volleyball training I felt like I wouldn’t last long, barely able to stand on my feet the next day. But I was still going to my own doctor for pain medicine and he did listen to my research about redheads and gave me medicine that supposedly did work for redheads. And it did indeed work. So I managed to go over my limits for another week. Until after 1,5 weeks of pushing myself I felt really bad after volley and went to lay down. Apparently I then passed out (which has never happened to me before). Someone from the other team practicing at the same time as we do “woke me up” and called some people from my own team.
They carried me to my car, and similar to the most unbelievable romance manga I ended up on the backseat of my car, on top of one of my male friends who had helped me in the car. He was unable to move out of the car. I was unable to move. We were driven home like that. They got me in my bed, (which was thankfully still in my living room)warmed me, because I was shivering like crazy, and I was told to call my male friend in case anything happened. They even readied my line so it was just one click.
And although I was determined not to call, I got super nauseous. I was still unable to move, but I had anti-nausea medicine (I couldn’t reach it) and throwing up in my bed while unable to move was very unappealing as well. Just calling was incredibly hard, due to the pain and I was unable to say anything by the time I had called. My brain felt fried and I ended up hanging up after a while, giving up completely.
He came anyway. He got me my medicine, and ended up reading the whole list of my medicine (“You have too many”, checking every symptom in detail and giving me all my painkillers. My heater ran out of kerosene, so he filled it, and got me a bucket in case I did get sick. Even more embarrassing, I had him help me to the bathroom so I could go to the toilet. I almost just fell down on my mattress but he caught me and got me in bed properly, even though I was, after walking, unable to move again. I was again shivering like crazy, and I learned that it is possible to shiver from pain. Who knew.
The next weeks were tough. Having gone well over my limits I sorta managed to work, but I passed out afterwards pretty much every day. Mostly at home. Once as I was throwing out the trash near my house. Another time when I was talking to my friend in the parking lot near my house so he had to help me get home, again. I was told not to go out at night because it was too dangerous if I passed out again. Once when I was at the bakery owned by one of my friends. They actually closed the bakery to get me home. I felt horrible, and super guilty.
But the worst was when I went grocery shopping, during the day, because I sometimes listen to advice, and almost made it home. I sat down near my house but too far to get there. People refused to let me sit there, insisting on calling either an ambulance or people from town hall (like, my work? no thanks). I kept refusing but they still went into town hall, and came back with two random people I don’t know, but who knew my name and where I lived. They forced me into a wheelchair, with the help of some of my students (because I wasn’t embarrassed enough). They moved me into my hallway, and left me there, in the wheelchair.
The (short) trip there was torture. I could cry, I was in so much pain. After a while, my door opened and my team leader (you know, the one that came to the hospital that I even now had barely talked to) and another colleague came in. He offered to help me “at least get inside my house/ to bed.” He failed. Instead of helping me, he dropped me in between the step towards my house and the wheelchair. The drop hurt so much I was again unable to move. I layed in that awkward position for another two hours or so and he came back to, this time, help me into my house properly. So much pain.
The next time I went to the doctor further away was also the last time. He was surprised that his strategy of just doing things hadn’t worked (and that I had passed out this much). He was even more surprised that the pain medication my other doctor had given me worked. With the amount of mistakes that particular hospital had already made it was decided I could go back to my old doctor. Yaay.
Which is where we are now. I’m working, though I can’t do sports. I have okay-ish days, and horrible days on which I can’t do much. I have to rest on the weekends or I can’t work. I have an appointment for another nerve block tomorrow, a new one I haven’t had before, so I hope that will work out well. But the last half month or so I have had numbness in my hands occasionally, and I’m a bit afraid that things are getting worse.
On the positives, my work is still super fun. I looove my students and it’s so much fun. I absolutely love my friends, though I might have been a bit too much this year, especially when we were only getting close this year… I’ve apologized a lot, and given them all small christmas presents as well (with letters thanking them and apologizing again). I hope I won’t lose them over my health, since I really do love them all. I spent new year’s eve with one of my friends and her family, which was super fun as well.
It snowed a lot these past weeks (it’s snowing again now) so I made a snowman during the New Year’s Holiday and had a lot of fun playing around like a little kid. The roads are pretty much ice though, so I don’t dare drive anywhere right now xD Walking is already slippery enough. It’s also extremely cold, -10 at night, which means my house gets to about 4 degrees celsius in the morning, and in the weekends to about 15~16 in the evening and only 14 if I go to work. I can’t get my house heated up for the life of me xD. But I’m surviving :D
Overall, it was a pretty horrible year, and all the good parts were because of the people around me. My friends, my family, my students and my colleagues. I’m thankful I have so many people who are willing to help me, and I hope I can find some way to repay them. (Which, with corona, is kinda difficult atm).
As you can imagine, with all this going on, I have not done anything fandom related at all. I’m completely out of the loop, I know nothing. xD Maybe this year I can get back into subbing again, but that all depends on my health. I really hope it won’t interfere with my work much more, because I really, really don’t want to lose my job.
As always when I have neglected LJ, I won’t be checking my inbox much because too many messages give me stress.