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I said in my last post that recently, the best time of day for me is late at night, after everyone has gone to bed. While I am still enjoying my solitude, I cannot say it has been a good night.

The pain is bad tonight. Normally, I avoid painkillers unless absolutely necessary, but tonight has just seen me take my second. For me, that is a lot. For someone that did not click that button for morphine after a hysterectomy, it is a lot.

My body responds differently to pain. Yes, pinch me or poke me and I will slap you, but often, I will only realize that something hurts because I have broken out in a sweat. Right now, I am sitting here, my skin is clammy, I have an intense tightness around my waist and I can barely breathe. I don’t want to go to bed because I know that I am going to sleep and wake up with a different tightness in my muscles resulting in me having to call for help getting out of bed.

This is all related to that problem with my neck. I still have not had the surgery. It was supposed to have happened a month ago and then there was a hiccup with the medical aid. They did not receive a fax, so did not issue authorisation codes in time. The doctor did not want to go ahead without all the necessary paperwork in place, and so canceled it before he went home. Though I was still able to get the problem sorted within an hour of hearing about it.

Long story short, this last month has been spent trying to find someone to do it and getting referred back to this one who canceled and did not want to reschedule. He felt his time was wasted by the medical aid and did not want any more time wasted. He kept us hanging by a thread for the longest time, saying, “Let me think about it.” But we can only wait so long and finally had to push him for an answer. He has decided against it.

I must thank my brother for all his help during this time. Once again, Andrew has been my guardian angel, helping me in my time of need. I really don’t know what I would do without him. Just thinking about approaching doctors and following leads sends my mind into overdrive and makes me more tense than you can imagine. My mind just shuts down.

What I am worried about is what is related to this neck problem and what is not. I can rattle off about a dozen symptoms to you right now. Including, pain, tight muscles, limited mobility, a near total numbness in my right hand, possible blood pressure, mild headaches, tingling in my scalp among other things.

I seem to have a high tolerance for pain, but what is being masked by the pain? What could be going on that I am not even aware of? I know there are risks with this surgery. I know that my brittle bones makes it even more risky, but all I want is the chance to live a somewhat normal life. I don’t want to sit here popping painkillers every day and going to bed after lunch because I am tired again.

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