I used to take life in my stride, it didn’t matter how much was thrown at me, I always got everything done, yet yesterday when the questions came through from the Quote site asking for them back by Monday or Tuesday, I looked at it and panicked for a milliseconds before engaging my brain again. How have I changed so much inside? I always thought that no matter what happened I would still be me inside. In fact, it was and is one of my greatest fears, that I land up locked inside a body that had given up, but with a brain as active and as agile as I always was. I’m sure that if you asked the majority of people would say they were scared of exactly the same thing, but recently my fear has changed and this one is a thousand times worse. I have written before about my loss of memory, mainly short term but also some of my long term memories are vanishing as well, on top of that my reactions to things are changing, I find myself panicking over little things and my need for things to remain constant and unchanged is growing. In the past year, I have noted so many small changes, so many things that make me fear that I am disappearing just as my body control is. They are small and subtle things, things that to write about seems to be escaping me, but it is more than a feeling, I have seen it and I have lived it and I know that it is happening, just as I know that my physical condition is getting worse. I know that they say that people with dementia or Parkinsons are still there inside, but I can’t help wondering if they are or if just like me they have felt themselves slipping away, oh so gradually, but slipping all the same. Strangely right now I am not scared of it, as it is so slight that I know not even Adam could have noticed it, or if he has, he hasn’t said anything. Part of it has shown itself in the fact I have passed over the right to Adam to tell me what to do when I fail to do it for myself, that is the visible edge, inside I have slipped further than just forgetting, it feels a bit like I am forgetting just who I am.

I wish that I could put into words exactly how it feels and exactly what it is that is causing that feeling, but it is like trying to catch a bluebottle, you can see it, you can hear it, but you can’t quite grasp hold of it, no matter how fast you are. Like most things that you know is happening, you over compensate, you try too hard to be yourself and land up feeling like you are just an act. That was just how I felt the other day when Teressa and John were here, I was trying to be the person she knew but I was getting it all wrong. That 20 minutes I spent in the kitchen making lunch was a relief, I sat there on the stool trying to pull myself back together and to find myself again, but once I was back there in the living room I kept finding myself talking rubbish, just to keep talking and I knew with each word, I was digging a hole that said this isn’t you.

I know that I am feeling it more clearly just now because I have opened myself up to both the Quote site, which to be honest I have total control over as I will be writing the piece and emailing it back to be used as is, well I hope it’s as is, but then there is the interview. I now know they will be here on Friday, yes here, no Skype, they are sending someone up from London to interview me and it is knowing that, that has opened all this up. Once I would have just brushed myself down sat in front of the camera and done it all in one take without the slightest fear of what the result will be, now I am worried by it all, especially when it comes to my body not letting me down and throwing stupid spasms, or twitches, or causing me so much pain I have to take a booster as I well won’t be that great if I do. I just want to be able to sit there for one hour and talk like a human being without falling into a jabbering wreck.

It’s now about 2 years since I first noticed the signs of what I now know is COPD, about 4 or 5 months later I started to notice strange little bruises had appeared along my lower ribs, a cluster of 4 on my left side, just as though someone had shoved their fingers into me and a few further round to the front of me, all dark in colour and all once visible never vanish again. If you look close enough there is actually a complete band across the front of me of spider veins, the band is about a centimetre wide and like the bruising there is no external reason for it, no injury nothing, it just appeared. Over the months they have continued to appear and even though I showed them to the specialist he said they were nothing to worry about, but that was 14 months ago now and not one of them have vanished and the first cluster has grown in number, now there are six. The other day when I was drying myself after my shower, I stopped to spread some Savlon onto the skin just under my breasts where they keep sweating and rotting, to discover more of them. Exactly along where my second Hug line has appeared, there are more dark clusters of bruising. I can’t see my back but even if I could, with it being so heavily tattooed I doubt anyone would be able to pick them out unless they just happened to be on an area where there was no ink. I have searched and searched online, but I can find nothing, it is as though I am the only person on the planet who has this, something I know isn’t true, someone out there has just the same, there always is!

Again last night I didn’t manage to make it 9pm, worse still I had two naps one in the morning and the other at its normal time, sleep is taking over big style. That could be happening for a lot of reasons, I do get what I call my sleepy spells, they normally don’t last much over a couple of weeks, but of course this is all mixed up with the change in meds and the times I am taking them, it is going to take time to sort it all out and be sure what is the results of that, a progression or just a phase. More still for me to have running around in my head without answers, I guess a need for answers is a good thing, at least that part of me is just as it always has been, questions are something I have always been good at.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 09/08/12 – Social leper

I am not a great believer in coincidence but in the last 3 days, I have found myself talking to very different people who have suffered mental breakdowns, something I know I can write about as I have been there. I was living in Plymouth and Teressa well she was about 4yrs old I would say. I had by that time already had 4 separate investigations by different departments as to why I was…….