I spent some time in the hospital recently. It was a renal abscess and severe sepsis. It started on Australia day, when I went febrile. And the fever lasted eight days total. On the second day I was convulsing so hard the paracetamol was shaking out of my hands before I could get it to my mouth. After I came home I found pills on the floor under my bed from that. More pills than I realised I’d dropped at the time. It was school holidays and I had to orchestrate someone to have the girls during the day. I’m such a stubborn mess and insisted on driving the kids wherever they were going with packed lunches and the like.
On day three I went to my GP with increasing stomach pain. He thought Appendicitis and called ahead to have me admitted to hospital. Biting the bullet, asking for help… I called Ian to take me to hospital.
I really shouldn’t have driven myself to the GP anyway....
I rated my pain level as a six out of ten. Why did I do that? It was clearly a ten out of ten. Ian told the nurse I was as tough as old boots and my six was probably more like everyone else’s eighteen. Then I had morphine and it made me hysterical. Particularly as I was on strict nil-by-mouth in case of surgery and I was thirsty as hell. On day six, after another wailing episode, I obnoxiously claimed the Urologist can either send me for surgery NOW or let me eat something. The food was promptly regurgitated. Dammit.
My parents came from interstate, and even FLEW in a PLANE to get here, an inspiring display of determination to help me. They stayed for two weeks to help wrangle the children. I forgot how to adult when they left.
Having been ill with pneumonia… twice…during exams in November, I had deferred them to February. Wonderfully, it was during this week I was in hospital. I have since completed one of three exams but the other two are waiting while the next semester has already started and well.. that’s just one more thing on my plate.
Other side dishes include:
- Discovering my oldest daughter has been self harming. She is eight.
- Nathan proclaiming self-harm is within normal childhood behaviour range and refusing to consent to councelling. (I will now go privately and get her a Mental Health Plan instead)
-Almost completely forgetting how to function because wow. So much stress.
One of many dilemmas is.. As my youngest child is now six years old I have to be doing an “Approved Activity” such as study or work, in order to receive government assistance. But I am struggling to function. I am failing at study and I am continuously getting ill and I am all around not coping at all.
That’s a big deal. I don’t feel pressured to always be a pillar of strength… I just always have been one. Now I’m not and it’s a bit of an awful feeling to be crumbling apart emotionally, mentally, physically too. It’s surreal and I’m watching it unfold from a third person perspective, as both an enthralled spectator and miserable wreck at once.
Time for more Doctors. More appointments. I can apply for disability or assistance or something and get councelling… but really… That’s another thing to pursue. Ironically, I’ll be filling forms, going to appointments, chasing and chasing for permission to stop striving for anything. If I could put in the effort to get that sort of allowance why not direct it into what I’m already pursuing?
-SP
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