POLLY’S PYJAMAS… Part One.

[Apologies for the prolonged silence. Life, and events outside of my control have been demanding my attention over these last few months. But I’m back now, and determined to continue writing, thank you!]

Its’ 9am, a Tuesday morning and there are about a dozen people, including myself, scattered silently around this doctors waiting room. All but one are staring intently at the little world in their hands and I can’t help but think to myself, just what did we used to do in places like this, before the mobile phone came along?

The one not staring down into their hands is me; that I won’t be able to concentrate enough I already know. So I’m staring at the screen gazers in turn, trying to guess the reason why they are here this morning. Trying, not at all successfully, to get my mind away from the reason that I’m here amongst them, this bunch of fellow pilgrims awaiting salvation.

I was here about six weeks ago, what a difference that time has made, but this all started, or at least first showed itself, a few weeks before that.

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I had been working on the gable end of Marilyn’s house in Wimborne. I hadn’t done much ladder work for some time and so wasn’t surprised when my lower right leg and particularly the knee started to ache. I’d had cartilage removed from that knee some years back and assumed I had just riled-up an old condition.

It was fun working at Mar’s place. I enjoyed sitting in the sunshine with her at lunchtime, just sharing sandwiches and trying to best a crossword or two. It reminded me that so often the simplest pleasures in life can prove to be the best.

All too soon I moved on to another job, ladder work again, and the aches moved with me. My hips had begun to hurt now and my left knee had started to mimic its twin. In town late one afternoon on a whim I make an appointment to see my GP, “If it all goes away then I’ll just cancel”, but it doesn’t.

By the time I get to see the doctor there is discomfort in both hips, knees and lower legs to my ankles. I’ve also developed a peculiar way of walking, like I’m trying to negotiate the deck of the Titanic in its dying moments.

I’m duly examined by the doc’ and the male student sitting-in with him. The conclusion is that I have probably strained my knees and hips standing and stretching on the ladder for long periods; I must stress here that as of yet everything was confined to my lower body.

I am prescribed strong painkillers and anti-inflammatories and the consensus of opinion is that with these and a bit of rest I should be OK in a couple of weeks.

“Perhaps I’m just getting fucking old” I venture to the doc’.

“You ARE fucking old” comes the quick reply. We all laugh, then, turning to his student “And don’t put that in your write-up”.

I’m lucky to have a good and caring GP, he never rushes anybody through, also he has a very dry sense of humour and I always know that I can speak plainly with him.

I ‘cashed-in’ my prescription and was at the door when a weird intuition came over me and I turned back to reception.

“He’s told to me to make a back-up appointment for a few weeks’ time” I lied, and in a minute or so it’s duly sorted. “If I don’t need it, I’ll just cancel”, if only……

The drugs did undoubtedly dull the aching at first, but I’m never without some discomfort, then as time passed, generally moving about gradually began to become more awkward. By now my knees were really hurting as the aching morphed into outright pain both sides. If fact both legs were hurting from my hips down to the ankles continuously.

 Now too, for the first time my shoulders and elbows began to ache deep inside. That didn’t surprise me really as I was having trouble getting up from sitting and had to push myself upright using my arms; it soon became a real strain.

I now needed cushions when sat down but even with them getting into a comfortable position, just for a short time, soon became a near impossible task.

Another week or so passed. Things were worse on waking I noticed, my body felt ‘thick’ and sluggish and it took time just to get up and get going as I now had to coax my legs out of bed using my hands. As I managed to move around it did ease somewhat but I never was without some pain and discomfort.

Work had now become very difficult and driving any reasonable distance downright uncomfortable. By now it had crossed my mind that all this wasn’t down to any bloody strain, though I tried to ignore the thought.

Isn’t it totally stupid how we try so hard to overlook the obvious when it comes to our health. I didn’t need any intuition now to tell me things were pretty damn far from right and that it was escalating too, but still I was hoping that it was all going to improve soon and I’d be ok.

It didn’t and I wasn’t.

Time passed, sleep had now become erratic and difficult. I kept waking and needing to move, but it was a real effort to have to do so. Then one night I was awakened in the early hours of the morning by a burning in my right bicep like molten metal had replaced my blood, it was absolute agony and it was not long before the left side joined in my torture.

Soon there were other things too. My appetite had diminished and in less than three weeks I lost over half a stone, plus I had weird cravings for foods that I wouldn’t normally ever eat such as pineapple and other fruits, (I later learned that they are all known anti-inflammatories).

Stairs were now rapidly becoming a nightmare to negotiate especially going down, and I sometimes resorted to descending on my arse one at a time. Sitting down on the loo and getting up again was agony personified.  I dared not even risk trying to have a bath, but to shower I had to lift one leg over the bath edge and lean forwards almost falling in; getting out again would have proved a challenge to the best of contortionists.

To get in or out of bed or the car I now had to resort to lifting my legs with my hands. I’m happy to admit, I was getting bloody scared.

I thought of the cancer Elaine endured- the God awful treatments too- all for so very long. She kept a brave face through so much misery and I felt I couldn’t let her down by buckling under, but what the hell was this? Sometimes I just wanted to slip into blessed oblivion.

It was Marilyn in my life that again made the difference. I had someone to live for and I was even more determined not to let her down either by giving-in to this, whatever the fuck it was. I knew she was trying not to make a fuss in case that spooked me even more, but she could not keep her concerns from invading her words or lining her face.

Thank God I wasn’t so far gone as to not be able to appreciate the value that lay there for me.

Looking back I am surprised now that I wasn’t rattling when I moved as I was taking so many painkillers and anti-inflammatories. More than I should have to be honest, though I can’t help but wonder what state I would have been in without them?

Time ticked slowly on, work had thinned out, it was backhanded blessing as I could not have managed to do much anyway. Pain was my constant companion now, day and night.

Lyme’s disease came to mind as a possible cause of this hell. A friend locally had had it and some of his symptoms tallied with my own.  I looked online, possible…maybe, tics are often in the grass around home (the deer carry them). I had been bitten in the past with no problem occurring perhaps this time it had? Though equally perhaps not, as just as many symptoms didn’t tally as did.

Even so I made a mental note to mention my suspicions to the doc’ when I saw him again, the appointment thankfully just a few days away by now.

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Today arrived at last though I’m buggered if I know quite how I got here, and I won’t be forgetting waking-up this morning any time soon either. At first, without any exaggeration, I simply could not move, not at all; it was as if I was totally frozen but without the distraction of being cold.

 Fear gripped my mind and taunted my reason for a good few minutes.

 “What if I can’t move again? What if this is some awful ‘locked-in’ syndrome and I’ve years ahead of this?”

Clarity of mind returned and along with it the ‘Fuck- This’ attitude that grips me when pushed too far.

I manage to fidget and wriggle then roll myself slightly and bend enough to grip one leg and with heavy arms lift it out of bed and place it on the floor. Its force of will pushing through a wall of pain that eventually gets me sat on the edge of the bed. Every part of me aches and burns inside, muscles, joints the bloody lot; I can only liken it to how it may have been for some poor bastard stretched and tortured on a medieval rack.

This is the worse so far. It’s as if it knows I’m to see the doctor today and either wants to stop me getting there or wants to put on a grand display of defiance in spite of the fact.

I sit for a while sweating and already feeling exhausted, but I know I’m the only one that can do this so I force myself up and painfully and stiffly take my first steps of the day. By the time I manage to get myself washed and dressed well over an hour has elapsed since the alarm went off; by now I’m as much miserable as afraid.

I’m not hungry, but unenthusiastically I do chew a bit of toast and swill it down with a couple of coffees. The decision is already in my mind not to take any painkillers etc as I want the doc’ to witness how I am without anything being blunted. I know it’s going to hurt, but it fucking hurts anyway and I just resign myself to it.

I’m not disappointed.

My appointment is for 9am, it’s about a ten minute drive, but I am dreading it. Good job the cars an automatic, there is no way I could work a manual gearbox right now and by the time I park-up I’m swimming in an ocean of pain and discomfort.

The normally two minute walk to the surgery becomes a ten minute agonising, rolling shuffle. Onlookers could well be forgiven for assuming that they are witnessing an inebriated waster lurching in search of his next bottle. Again the fears run through my mind “What if this is permanent? Is this what it’s like to rapidly age through illness?”

Christ! If they can’t help me now, at this rate I’ll be seeing Elaine a lot sooner than I reckoned.

Elaine, what would she make of this? She much preferred being a nurse to being a patient. She’d be concerned, yes, to a point that is, but she wouldn’t broach much in the way of self-sympathy, and I can easily imagine her beside me now.

“Come on, straighten up and step out; don’t give in fight the bastard, don’t let it dictate you’ll get help soon, keep pushing no one else can do it for you.”

‘WE’ make it to reception, I book-in, then lower myself to the temporary relief of sitting down. I’m totally knackered and feeling as if I’ve aged a hundred hard years since I was last here a few weeks ago; I probably look it too.

Now all have to do is wait, please God not too long this time. My joints are silently screaming out for the painkillers they have come to rely on and my muscles are burning through the effort of getting here.

Have to try to take my mind off it all, so I force my brain to take interest in my surroundings and the fellow pilgrims dotted around me. It’s really a hopeless task as my mind is a swirling sea of pain and fear, no doubt as much imagined as real.

I keep checking the time.

9.05, is there somebody with him now?

9.10, will I be next?

9.15, will one of these others go through first? And if so will they be in there bloody ages with every fucking ailment under the sun to discuss?

The aching pain means I have to try to shuffle my legs about. I pretend I’m stretching in case anyone notices my clumsy movements- not that anyone does- but sitting is now really becoming uncomfortable. God how much longer?

I fidget, partly because I need to, partly because I want to avoid seizing up in this chair.

I wish I’d brought a cushion with me, but then everyone would have thought I was here with a case of piles. It reminds me a bit of the chairs we had at school, hard plastic bastards that must have been invented by some child hating sadist.

 After half an hour or so everyone was fidgeting trying to force some comfort from the unforgiving surface. ‘Ass crackers’ we called them and as the long forgotten phrase comes to mind I almost laugh out loud; the condemned man laughing as he cracks his elbow climbing the gallows.

9.20, how much longer for Christ’s sake….a familiar figure appears in the doorway to my right, the man I’m here to see. We make eye contact. ”Come on through” he steps back motioning to me.

Is my salvation at hand?

“Give me a minute, this isn’t so easy.”

And I brace myself to make the monumental effort to stand up.

To be continued…