Missing it!

I started off my working career as a secretary/receptionist for a firm of Solicitors when I was 18.  I went along to my very first interview straight from the Careers Office in Dorking to the small office in Chessington where I met a lovely lady who was to become my boss.  She reminded me so much of my mum, the way she spoke, looked, held herself that to be offered the job was natural.  I felt like I was working with family!  She treated me like her daughter too.  It probably had something to do with the fact that she was exactly the same age as mum and had a daughter my age, therefore she became my second mum.

The firm quickly expanded and she and I moved to the Kingston Office and I was promoted to secretary.  Over the years things changed, I left, came back left again, came back again and finally worked for the Managing Partner who was such a sleaze bag that when he tried it on with me, I jacked the job in there and then, went to see my second mother to seek her opinion, only to be told, "well you are the Managing Partners secretary, what did you expect, it's what he does!"  There endeth my relationship with that firm of solicitors.  Sadly for him it came to a very nasty end when he was discovered to be embezzling funds from the clients account and committed suicide in a locked up garage somewhere with a hosepipe attached to the exhaust.  I really felt for his family and for my second mother, who had somehow got herself all mixed up in the Company by becoming a silent partner or whatever it was.  I wonder how many times she slept with him to get there!!

Anyway I digress, because my main reason for blogging today was because I went to see a good friend of mine yesterday at her Childrens Centre not far from me.  I use to work with her at my local infant school where I was a Higher Level Teaching Assistant and she was an NNEB.  It all sounds very posh but effectively I was the Governments cheap way to cover supply in schools and she was a Nursery Nurse.  I loved that job, I loved to be able to watch the children progress from not being able to write their name or anything educational to florishing and writing pages of stories, solving mathmatical problems and to know that I had contributed to that success was exciting.

Looking at where she worked yesterday was an eye opener.  She is now an Outreach Worker, working with parents with needs to help with parenting and just every day parenting issues that don't always come naturally to some parents.  She holds play sessions for parents to bring their babies and pre-school children and teaches them how to learn through play in this extremely light, bright and colourful environment full of exciting things for the children to do.  Display boards showing bright and eyecatching information on the topics the children are learning, a sand pit, mud pit, climbing frame for the toddlers, upturned plastic bottles with the bottoms cut off, soil put in and green plants with bright red tomatoes hanging from them, ready for the children to pick and eat.  We had a cup of tea and I sat in her lovely airy office and thought I want to work here. How can I get to work at her Childrens Centre.  I have offered my services..

Due to the Scoliosis and the pain it causes me with working with the younger children, I no longer work directly with the children, I am now a very poshly named 'Schools Communication and Relations Officer', basically I'm now the school receptionist, dealing with the day to day, face to face problems of the parents!  I am slightly bitter that my back has seen to this, my life has changed so much over the past year and i've now been out of teaching for approximately 6 months and to say I miss it is an understatement, I miss the children, watching them florish, answering their questions, dealing with silly childish issues of 'who picked on who!, 'she called me a nasty name' 'oh dear, what did she call you?' 'she called me rude!'  I love it and I miss it.

My goal after my operation is to get back to teaching or into my friends Children Centre and get back to where I belong.

Medication is wonderful!

I have had a wonderful weekend.  It started with a lovely evening out with work colleagues on Friday night and culminated in me and my Hubby redecorating the bathroom.  Friday during the day, I seriously thought I was going to die, my back was really painful, I rested before I went out then endured the agony of curry house chairs with hard backs that don't fit your shape so you find yourself leaning forward all evening.  Night times are getting tricky now too, I can't find a comfortable position to lie in and when I do, it's not long before I start to ache, so about 3am I gave up, grabbed my dressing gown and slippers and made my way down the stairs to the living room where I lay with 2 hot water bottles, one for my back, one for my front.  I took two paracetamols and fell asleep.

I have to confess, I'm waiting for this corrective spine surgery and on June 16 I had my second bout of injections to ease the joints and numb the pain.  Having them also aids me in losing weight as the tablets I am on make me blow up like a balloon.  My consultant has said that he would like me to lose a stone to aid with the operation.  I'm not excessively overweight but I am bigger than I was and definitely bigger than the average 14 year olds who are now generally having the operations to correct scoliosis.  So I was reluctant to take painkillers again.   However Saturday, we were expecting my Hubby's family over for our eldest's 22nd birthday (God, that makes me feel so old) and Hubby thought it would be a good idea to take the painkillers just for the weekend, to help me through the day. So I did and OMG amazing, I felt wonderful, the pain had reduced considerably after the second dose and I was moving freely.  I do actually wonder whether having half a bottle of Spiced Rum and coke had anything to do either it as well. 

I continued to take the painkillers on Sunday (without the Spiced Rum) and on Monday Hubby and I managed to redecorate the bathroom.

so I'm back on the painkillers, let's see what the Consultant says when I next see him. :-) 

Fear of the Unknown

I had a bad night last night...  I saw my first Consultant for many years last January, after suffering with chronic debilitating back pain from June 2013, and he informed me that I would need surgery to correct two quite severe curvatures that have obviously degenerated over the last few years.  Since then I have begun to suffer with panic attacks, especially at night.  My husband is asleep beside and my mind starts really wandering.

This is a picture from the MRI scan I had in January 2014 of my lubar section.  It shows a 70 degree curvature with arthritis and my curve up top is 60 degrees.

I'm due to have two titanium rods inserted either side of my spine from the top to the bottom and then a bridge across to attach the rods to my pelvis as my lower spine has degenerated so much that it would not hold the rods for long. I am scared stiff..  The two surgeons are amazing, they work as a team and have done so many of these operations together that they know what they are doing. However, they have not operated on me or my back.  As with all operations there is a risk, a risk of death, a risk of paralysis, a risk of infection, a risk that this might not work and I'll need further surgery, a risk that the constant immense pain that I'm in now will get worse!  oh please!! and how am I going to be after the op.  I read on another blog that having the rods is like waking up with a table strapped to your back.  I am, and have been, a very active person.  I have danced, jived in competitions, been a Zumba instructor, had three amazing children, run around after them and schools and family since forever, and I work.  How can I go from being active, to being nothing.  How am I going to be after the op, what is the pain going to be like, how will I walk, put socks on...for gods sake, how the hell am I going to wipe my bum...you try it with a totally rigged back!! not easy!

While all this is going round and round in my head in the dead of night, I can feel the panic start.  It starts as a knot in my stomach and tight, heavy knot and I can feel it, it hurts.  The knot grows so that eventually I get a pain in my chest and I can feel and hear my heart beating and getting faster.  The knot is still there too.  It then spreads to my throat which gets tighter and hurts which then radiates through to my ears which are throbbing from the noise from my heart, then it hits my eyes and the tears start.  They appear from the corner of my shut eyes and roll down my face to my ears and they are hot.  Hot sticky tears.  The only way to alleviate all this pain is to roll up into a tight ball and bury my head, and eventually after lots of quiet sobbing, I fall asleep.

I think last nights attack was simply bought on by the fact that yesterday I was made an Admin Assistant on a Scoliosis facebook page.  Not that that really makes any difference to me at all.  I think it was just that the lady that created the page felt that it was getting too big for her alone to be answering the questions and queries fellow sufferers were asking.  Maybe I read too many negative posts.  Everybody is in pain, everybody who has the rods has developed other ailments and pains, not one had a positive thing to say about the ops.

I spoke to my husband this morning and told him about the panic attack, he always gets cross that I don't wake him up, but he does so much for me at the moment, how can I wake him up and say 'babe, I'm scared again!'  No, best to just get on with it.  Anyway I decided today I would add a post to the facebook page to see how many people over 40 there are on there, as most seem to be alot younger than me, and then how many positive comments we can get.

Anyway I'm absolutely shattered today, due to lack of sleep but I'll let you know how my posts go tomorrow.

xx

You will only get the results you deserve!

Today I woke up in a positive frame of mind. I decided that after the 'write off' of a day yesterday (my back was sooo bad, I sat on the sofa all day watching mindless daytime tv and catching up on Emmerdale and In The Club...OMG that show is brilliant.) I would attempt to be a little more positive and push through the pain today.

It is also GCSE day, the day my middle son collects his results.  I have just got home after dropping him at his 'boyfriends' and let's say he didn't get what I imagined he'd get.  I dropped him at the school gates after being told frantically as I approached them, "no mum, don't go in, you can't go in, I'll walk from here!"  Ok!  So I reverse back down the drive a bit (no room to turn, without entering said gates) and park up just outside.  I had visions of him coming towards the car smiling and waving the papers excitedly at me, but not even 2 minutes later he strolled out through the gates, head down, papers clutched in his fist and on his phone! Obviously checking results with mates.

Now, to say I'm disappointed is not a word I generally like to use when it comes to my kids, I am very proud of all three of my children and know that they only ever do their best.  However, where are the B's he said he'd get, or the 'walk in the park' result for English.  To be honest, he only really needs 5 C's to get on the course he's enrolling on later but and this is a big BUT, they have to include Maths and English! He gets a C in maths, lucky! a C in English literature and a D...yes a D in English Language.  How can he fail language when all through his coursework and homework and reports he was doing well..... Or was he!!!

I'm sat here now feeling really guilty and angry, at myself not him.  He hated the school and had a lot of personal problems there which they brushed under the carpet, but maybe I should have pushed him a little harder.  He did revise, at least he said he was revising.  How can you check? the teachers nagged him, I nagged him, his dad nagged him.  There is only so much nagging and making him understand the importance of his exams that you can give or he can take.  Maybe we all nagged too much and pushed him the other way.  He knew that he needed those 2 grades to make the course, well we'll see this afternoon if he can still enroll and retake English alongside.

My work colleague, who happens to be an amazing teacher, told me what she had told her son before his exams...you will only get the results you deserve. I did pinch it and tell my son the same and all I can say now is, Well Son, you got what you deserved!

It's a totally different language!

Well...here goes!!

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing! This is all totally new to me. Yes I Facebook, I can easily message, update statuses, add photos, comment, like and share pages to my hearts content.  I have a Twitter account, god knows why?! I have no idea what I'm doing on that... I also have Whatsapp, what for?! I have a phone for texting.  I don't have however, Snap Chat, Instagram, or a Blog, up until now!

I decided that I would write this Blog, mainly for me as a journal of my impending surgery, but I'm also very conscious that apparently people will read it! I'm not sure who will want to read about boring old me and my back surgery, but hey whatever floats your boat, as they say.

At this point in time, I have no idea how people see this, how to share it with like suffering people, how to change the layout or text but do you know, I'm looking forward to finding out and exploring the site.  I apologise now for any mistakes that I may make or any offence that people take to what I write or pictures I upload, I will be tactful but as I understand it, a Blog is a way of expressing thoughts and feelings and sharing experiences to help those that are interested.

Have a good day Peeps, and I'll try to remember I've created this tomorrow, oh and how to get back on it..tee hee