Just when things can't get any worse.

So, my hip is not better and hilariously now other joints hurt. My hands mainly but also joining in are my wrists, elbows, knees, lower back and left hip. It started with the hands about four weeks ago, all of a sudden it hurt to lift anything or grip anything - ever so slightly trying when trying to count out someone's change at work or rolling and shaping baps. 

Mornings have become joint bingo. I gingerly climb out of bed trying to work out where hurts and then grading them in order of which hurts the most. 

Hurt, it's such a non word. The pain equivalent of 'nice'. What I mean by hurt is ache. A real solid nagging ache like toothache with additional sharp shooting pains when weight is put on the joint or there is some kind of movement. Along with the pain, I have a variety of other lesser symptoms, nausea that comes and goes, fevers, no appetite. The no appetite one is particularly hard. The last four weeks I've lived on cereal with the occasional meal thrown in. I LOVE FOOD. CEREAL? JESUS FUCK. I love everything about food, preparing, chopping, sautéing, boiling, steaming, roasting, basting, eating. ALL THOSE THINGS. Now I struggle to hold a knife. My roast dinner that my father-in-law cooked for me? My husband had to cut the chicken up for me because I couldn't. 

Doctor's appointment four weeks ago; I explain my aches and pains and how my hands don't really work and the fact I've googled my symptoms and ask if I could have Lupus or Fibromyalgia. I get told no and get referred for blood tests to test for rheumatoid arthritis. Two week's wait for blood test, week's wait for the result (which was negative), referred for further blood tests to test for Lupus. *sideways look to camera* a week's wait for a blood test, a week's wait for the result. This is where I am now. 

I told my husband today that if he wanted to sleep with someone else he could. I can barely walk up the stairs so there hasn't been much in the way of conjugal rights going on. Not that I really want him to sleep with someone else obviously but what if this gets worse? What if my husband has to help me get dressed? wipe my bum? That is the kind of stuff that must surely end any kind of romance. 

Oh have I mentioned my sleep, or lack of it? The pain either keeps me awake for hours on end or if I do get to sleep at a reasonable time, then I wake up when I roll over or catch my hand on the quilt and there I am for hours. 

Non of this is even the worst part. My youngest son is nearly three and now I struggle to look after him by myself. My husband was offered an overtime night shift today. Six pm to Six am. Of course he takes the overtime but I can't really lift our son in and out the bath or keep up with him when he's running about the garden so I had to call my mam to come and help me. Every time I look in to his beautiful face I do an inside (sometimes outside) cry because he is so full of life and energy and when he shouts 'chase me' and races off ahead and I hobble walk behind him I feel he deserves a mammy who can chase him properly. 

Pass the painkillers.

About 5 years ago, my right hip started hurting. After a couple of months I trotted off to the doctor who diagnosed trochanteric bursitis. I was a super fit type person then and was told it was probably the repetitive action of running that had caused it. Stop running for a bit, take Ibrupofen and it should get better I was told. 

On that occasion the doctor was right, it did get better but it has always come back. This current attack seems to have lasted forever but in actual fact is probably about eight months. So here's the thing, pain is BORING. I'm so bored of it. I hobble about like an old woman, it's like toothache but in my hip. Nagging and relentless with the odd sharp twinge that makes me laugh and say swear words out loud. If my brain were a pie chart, imagine 90% of that pie chart coloured in red and labelled 'Pain' and the other 10% coloured yellow and labelled 'Everything Else' and this is what my brain is occupied with ALL THE TIME.  Sometimes, it can drop as low as 70% and very rarely I will have the odd day with no pain at all and then I get lulled in to a false sense of security, thinking that it might be getting better. But no, it always reappears like the utter wanker it is. Painkillers don't really make much difference, but Tramadol are nice in that ooh I feel a bit off my face way, so I take them. I drink to excess at the weekend just so I can guarentee myself more than two hours unbroken sleep. (The very most fun thing about my hip is that if I roll on to my right side in my sleep - which is the side I've always slept on - the pain wakes me up) 

I thought I would write all this down to try and re balance my brain. I'm sooo bored of thinking about pain all the time, it drags me down, my mental health suffers and I get terribly sad and feel really sorry for myself. I try and tell myself that others are much worse off than me and I should be grateful for having two arms and two legs and three out of four of them work really rather well. 

So that's it, I don't have a pithy ending to this post, I've seen an orthopaedic consultant and am waiting for an appointment for an MRI scan. Somewhere along the line I'm hoping they'll give me a big steroid injection which won't cure things but should give me some relief for a bit. For now, it's a Sunday night and am on my second glass of wine so a good night's sleep beckons. 

Just another Mother's Day blog.

Mams, annoying buzzy, stripy, stingy bastards the lot of them. 

Hang on, no that's wasps I'm thinking of and they are all of those things. Mam's on the other hand, if you're lucky are people that nurture, support and love you no matter what. My mother has been an inspiration to me my whole life. She trained as a teacher while I was still a baby and my sister was five and by always working herself gave me the best example on how a mother can work hard but still be there for her children. Recently she told me how she had to give up work for a couple of years because I didn't settle with the childminder she had found for me after she had qualified which must of been hard for her but she said the decision was easy because her children always come first. 

Now that I work a million hours a week she is supportive in practical ways. She cares for the two year old every Thursday  even recently when her dad was ill she looks forward to her day with Logan. This Thursday began as any other, my husband out the house at half five, me up and ready to bake bread at seven and my mam, bright as a button on my doorstep ready for a day of fun with a two year old. Now my mam is a tidier. Before she gets Logan up at eight, she has some breakfast then organises my house. When my phone rang just before eight I thought it was mam asking where the dusters were or some such trivial thing. Instead it was my mam in floods of tears because she had just been told her dad had died. Worse than that, my mum was bothered because she knew I'd have to shut the shop and come home. Always thinking of others, that's my mam. I, of course left everything. Bread half baked, dough half kneaded and rushed home to my poor mam in floods of tears. Between sobs she was telling me that dads are meant to last forever. 

This wasn't meant to be a blog about the death of my lovely grandad, it was meant to be a pithy paragraph about the funny things mothers say to their children, inspired by @LuxePain's tweet about what she would be greeted with when visiting her parents. 

"You look tired/thin" is my mothers favourite. Or expressing suprise when my house is tidy or my ironing is done. 

So feel free to tell me about your mam or her very best sayings #mumbingo