So, it’s been a very difficult few months and I’ve been promising to do a blog post where I explain all that’s been happening to me, so here it is. I’m not sure if what I write will come out correctly, as I’m still dealing with some on-going issues but I’ve taken some time to try and collect my thoughts and explain as much as I can, here goes…
In the beginning
Last year was a strange one and I don’t think any of us would say that it was an easy year to get through but for me it was extra hard. The year started out well and I remember going to a family do and seeing my grandmother there which was very special as she had been living in Poland and didn’t get to travel here to the UK much anymore due to her own health problems. I didn’t know it was the last time I’d see my grandmother back then, but this was definitely the last time I felt really happy and stress free.
As the year went on and the pandemic set in I felt crushed. I’d been feeling better in myself the last few months before it started but when everything began to get heavy and the lockdowns began I just didn’t cope well at all. It wasn’t anxiety over the illness that got to me though, I don’t think I’ve ever been afraid of covid (I don’t know why), it was the actual lockdowns, the locking up and giving up of freedoms that made me feel worse. I felt claustrophobic staying at home, probably not helped by my noisy and grumpy neighbours, and the on-going stress from all of that really hasn’t helped my health over the last year.
At the end of the year something really bad happened and my gradmother ended up heading to a care home in Poland while another family member of mine had gotten a diagnosis of cancer that was terminal. Despite lots of health problems most of the people in my family have lived long lives and to get two bad things happening in one month was horrible.
The new year getting worse
I started to struggle more at the end of last year and through to this year. My body hasn’t been well for a while but it turned out that I was a lot sicker than I realised. I started to have difficulty in keeping certain foods down and had to start eliminating more and more foods until my diet was pretty restricted. This in turn made me feel miserable and also fatigued.
In January my grandmother had seemed herself again and was actually getting better. She had been very sick for a long time and seemed to finally be okay until suddenly she wasn’t. She was rushed to a hospital in Poland where the staff didn’t do the best job, they literally just left her in agony for hours on a trolley (again because covid fears), and later she, sadly passed away. Her death and the way she died really upset me and my family, even moreso when we found out the care home that she had been in had actually been responsible for making her sick, and we found it extra painful to grieve because we couldn’t go to Poland due to the lockdowns and restrictions. Even if we could have been allowed to there was too little time before the funeral with quarantines and stuff.
I don’t think my grandmother’s death is the only thing that affected my health but the stress of it didn’t help. And it still is a source of stress because Poland is a hugely bureacratic country and dealing with my grandmother’s estate has been very hard, and is something that is still on-going. The bureacracy, is painful and silly and makes me grateful for some of the bureacracy in this country as it’s no where near as complicated (and tha’ts saying something!).
The final straw
With all the fatigue I’ve been living with, I started to struggle to keep up with book reading and reviewing. Up until recently I’ve managed okay but the last month or two were very difficult because of something drasitc that happened. I woke up with an infection, a bad one which affected my central body and legs and had to go to the doctor and later the hospital to deal with it. This was scary for me and I remember crying as it was super painful and up until now, I hadn’t had anything requiring antibiotics for many years. But soon I was prescribed the strongest dose of antibiotics and they made me severely nauseaous. This made it hard for me to literally eat anything at all as I could easily vomit what I’d eaten if I didn’t eat carefully and slowly.
It took a two week dose of the strongest antibiotics to finally rid me of the infection and I’m grateful that it didn’t get worse as it could have turned very dangerous if it hadn’t been treated quickly. Actually what added to the panic and worry was that at the first sign of something wrong in my body I called my GP surgery who made me wait a whole day to get hold of a doctor, even though I had called early. The GP receptionist’s now triaging patients when they don’t know what’s truly serious and not (not a good thing that has happened due to the pandemic!). Going to a local A&E wasn’t possible at the time and I couldn’t help but feel a little angry that the constant fear of covid could have resulted in something that I don’t even want to really think about.
More revelations
Though I don’t know what caused the infection it turns out that the infection was probably more severe by the fact that I have apparently been malnourished for some time. I’d lost some weight over the last few months but hadn’t really thought much of it (only pleased to fit into my jeans a bit better!). But it turns out that my whole body has been struggling to cope, having an eletrolyte imbalance as well as nutrient (and generally food) deficient.
I’m not out of the woods yet. Although I now know what’s been causing some of my problems at least it’s something that I can start working on, and I have. In the meantime I’m still suffering some fatigue though the spring/summery weather makes me feel better on certain days. Some days I feel so tired that I can’t be bothered to do much but sleep and on others I’m all focused and full of energy, at least for the good first half of the day!
My issues are on-going at the moment and although I’m sure I’ll be fully healthy with time and help, it isn’t made easier by diabetes which is honestly, not that well controlled at the moment, and GPs who are acting like gatekeepers and stopping me from seeing the specialists that I need to see (especially diabetes!). There are some pretty severe life alterning issues with the electolyte imbalances that I only now discovered are diabetes related due to the treatment of diabetes and it’s something I plan on posting more about in a future diabetes post, but for now I just wanted to fill you in on what’s been happening with me and what I’m going to do about my blog.
Blogging schedule
So, posting five times a week is not that easy for me anymore. Sometimes I really do have the energy and time to post five different posts, and sometimes I feel so tired I am barely able to write more than one post for the whole week. As a result I’m going to try and keep to a consistent three times a week and hopefully that will take the strain off of things for me at the moment.
I am woefully behind on reviews I’ve promised publishers and I can only hope that they will forgive me as I work to catch up, but I am managing to catch up now, albeit very slowly, and I know what is wrong with me and am working together with a doctor to help improve my health after such a long bout of problems so hopefully I can get back to the organised and on-time me I used to be before all this started.
I hope you’ll want to still stick around and want to read my blog posts when I put them out. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much recetnly and I know I do sometimes forget to say this often enough but I really do appreciate you all, those of you who have sent messages, those of you who have commented and even though who just read and follow. Thank you all so much for reading what I write, I hope this post hasn’t been too long for you and hopefully in the next few months I can catch up and bring The Strawberry Post back to its regular posting schedule! In the meantime I hope you have a wonderful June! :)<3
How have you been doing the last few months? What are you looking forward to doing in June? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
The Strawberry Post 
Sorry to hear you’ve had such a bad time lately. I hope you start feeling better soon.
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Thank you so much ❤ Things are getting better, just very slowly but the summer is the best time to recover (love the warm weather). I hope you and your family are well and enjoying the warmer weather ❤
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I always feel more hopeful in the summer and thankfully it’s finally arrived!
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I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad time, and angry on your behalf about what happened with your Grandmother. I wish I didn’t understand what you mean about the GP thing, but considering the hastles I’m having with dealing with my own surgery, I’m not even the least bit surprised, which is a bad thing really, isn’t it? I’m glad you did finally get the help you needed though, and are seeing specialists to improve your health. You have nothing to be sorry about: your health comes first, and if people can’t understand that then that’s their problem. All you can do is your best, and people need to accept that. Thanks for sharing. *hugs*
The thing with GPs acting like gatekeepers contributed to my Nan’s death too. It took so long for someone to do anything that it was too little too late when they finally did. It was caused by existing health issues, but could have been avoided if you could actually get to talk to someone when you need to rather than several days later. She died alone in hospital, because the limited visits they would allow my Dad (and those only when they knew she wasn’t going to make it) didn’t allow him to be there at the right time, and nobody else was allowed to see her at all… It’s only both of them being Covid-free and him being her official carer as well as next of kin that they grudgingly allowed him the bit of visiting he got with her at the end.
I’m finally seeing real improvement from my reaction to the jab. I’m still getting headaches, but they’re just worse versions of the stress headaches I used to get now. When I FINALLY got to talk to a doctor, they checked everything, and it seems the only lasting issues are the worse headaches, and fact my asthma is now worse, so I’ve had to go on stronger inhalers. Part of my problem though is that I apparently have a compramized immune system. At least, the doctor is hoping that’s the worst of it. My platelet level is lower than it should be. If we caught it at the low end of its cycle, it just means a compramized immune system, but if that was the high end of the cycle it could be more than that. I’m having it checked again next week so they can hopefully catch it at the other end of its cycle to see which is the case. On the bright side, switching to being fully vegan apparently agrees with me, since all my other bloodwork came back looking good. There were concerns the jab had triggered issues with my pre-existing kidney problems, but even those aren’t as bad as feared. Doesn’t stop me having a really bad UTI right now though…
Like you, I’ve never really been scared of the virus, but have struggled with anxiety and mental health throughout the pandemic. The thing is, it’s not that the virus isn’t bad. It’s just that the thing that scares me more is the way people have been behaving, the way we were all locked up and restricted, and the way we were being encouraged to report neighbours breaking any of the rules. We fought for freedom. Our ancestors died for that freedom to be granted to us. And now we feel much too close to losing it again. That, on top of the issues I was dealing with because of the landlord who forced us to move twice in six months – and during a pandemic too – have made it next to impossible for me to control my anxiety, depression and I have walked hand in hand a lot during this past 15 months, and even writing has been a struggle at times (story writing hasn’t been able to happen at all) though I did at least manage to write enough poems to finish off what I needed to publish a couple of new poetry collections, both of which have a hint of the pandemic appearing in them – one more obviously so than the other.
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I’m so sorry about your Nan and the fact that the doctors acted like gatekeepers there too. 😦 The way hospitals and care homes too have been have really made me worry about ending up there (hospital) which was a possibility when I got the infection, as I’m just so scared of the idea that there are no visitors because of covid panic. I’m glad your dad managed to see her a bit before the end though, although I know it must be difficult to think about her and what happened.
I completely agree with the lost freedoms and especially the reporting of neighbours. It’s scary how the virus has turned people away from each other when as a society we really should be coming together and learning to accept and love each other as human beings. Somehow it feels as if, if this was happening in the 90s it just wouldn’t have had the same response from the public, it just feels weird how a generation later and everyone seems to have forgotten the freedoms we got from the war and the importance of keeping it.
I’m so sorry you’ve been struggling with your health so much, but I’m glad you’re finally seeing improvement. I hope it is just a blip for the platelet thing, although if it is a low count, it’s something that’s happened to a few people taking the jab, I think there are things you can do to help improve it, including taking some vitamins and minerals if you aren’t already? I don’t know if you are but I’ve felt better after taking multivitamins in the past and there’s some vegan ones out there which I’ve been looking into getting myself with my recent nutrition problems.
I hope your health improves including the asthma and that that nasty UTI clears up too. Big hug, it’s been a rotten year for us but hopefully things will be getting better and congratulations on publishing your poetry 🙂 ❤
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I can’t help agreeing that things would have been different a generation ago. *sigh*
No. I don’t take any vitamins. And I’ll only change that if it becomes medically necessary for me to do so. I can see why many people do so, but prefer not to do so myself. Although, as I said, I will do so if it becomes medically necessary for me to do so, like if it becomes clear I’m not getting enough of something in my diet after all.
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No problem 🙂 I’ve been looking into vitamins myself as I know that the recommended amounts that the NHS put out are usually much lower than we need. They do that out of precaution so people don’t over do it but the numbers are often much lower than are bodies need, especially if we’re unwell, plus whenever you body’s a bit out of sync it’s often missing some vital nutrients like mine obviously is! I’m not sure my own doctor would ever recommend any vitamins to me, lol, but I know they’ve helped me in the past to stabalise all sorts of problems in my body which is why I suggested it. But no worries, just didn’t like the sound of your platelet count being down and I really hope your next blood test comes back with a much better result. It’s been so unfair that you’ve had to deal with such horrible side effects of the jab. 😦 Take care ❤
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If you’re struggling to keep your levels up, and think vitamins would help, there’s nothing wrong with taking some and hoping they do. And, if you do that, I do hope they help. It’s just sometimes not necessary. Most of the time the supposed recommended amounts of things are listed as lower than they need to be, but sometimes it’s actually the opposite, so you can often get plenty of everything from eating a balanced diet. However, that’s not true for everyone, so I see nothing wrong with taking supplements if you’re concerned.
I had the blood test done on Friday (by a nurse who I swear was wielding a large knife rather than the tiny needle she was meant to be using, judging by how much pain it caused, and how much it still hurts even now) so will, in theory, find out in the next couple of days what the results were. In practice… Well, you know what doctors are like. But officially I’m meant to be able to call the surgery and get the results tomorrow afternoon.
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Aw, I’m sorry you had to have such a painful blood test. They’re never nice but they’re not suppposed to be that painful 😦 I hope the results are good. ❤ 🙂
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So sorry you’ve had to deal with all that. I fully understand about not being able to post as much as usual, writing a blog post can take a lot of effort, especially if you’re low on energy. Anyone who manages to post once a week is doing well!
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Thank you ❤ At this point I feel that once a week makes for a good effort. 🙂 I'm trying to post more often but I've decided to be more flexible with the days I post and not get hung up if I'm not able to, which makes me feel less stressed thankfully. 🙂
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I am really sorry you have been so ill, Cat. I am pleased that you are now getting the care you need and are responding well to it but of course, it will take some time to get better after being so very ill. You will continue to have my support and love and I hope you will only post as often as you can without compromising your health and recovery. I don’t post very often these days and can’t always find the time to read posts every day so I’m often quite late in commenting.
Take care xx
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Thank you so much, I really appreciate it! ❤ ❤ Sending you lots of love and support too, it's been such a difficult time for everyone, I hope you and your family are well now that we're heading into the summer months?
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Thank you, Cat – we are all fine. ❤ ❤ ❤
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