Today is turning into a nightmare and one that means I will be keeping this post short. Yesterday afternoon I suddenly started having problems with my broadband, it kept dropping out making scheduling all my tweets pure frustration as one second it was fine, the next I had no connection at all. When I go up this morning and switched everything on, there was once again no connection. I couldn’t be sure, but I decided that it might be my router and as I had all the pieces to replace it after the issues we had about a year ago, I set out to do the work and get it all switched and working. Everything seemed to be going well and I had the modem up and running a what appeared to be a clean connection. So I started on part two, installing the router, then the issues started again, there it was, intermittent signal showing up on my PC and the router, but as I was halfway through I decided to complete it all and just get the job done once and for all. Suddenly all the lights on the router went out, it was totally dead and there was no life what so ever, it was totally dead. As I bought it over a year ago, there is nothing I can do about it as it is now out of warranty so along with a bad connection online, I now don’t even have a new router to add in when I get a good service back. Mind you it looks as though there are no issues with the old on, so I may just need to switch it back. My stress levels are rising by the second and there is nothing I could do other than phone my provider, something I wasn’t looking forward to, after all I know all too well how call centers work having run one for many years.

There it was, as soon as I rang the number there was the first layer of automation and I hate all that button pushing , when you can’t see the numbers clearly and keep hitting the wrong ones, I just wish when I was programming those monsters that I had foreseen the issues they cause for some people, I might have worked harder on the user friendly issues. This one though has been refined to the ultimate frustration levels, it asked and asked again for a mobile number for them to call me on, mobiles aren’t a lot of use to people like me, being housebound, well, think about it. After it’s third attempt to get me to give what I don’t have, it said test would be run and I should call back in an hour. Knowing just how difficult that things can be when trying to get through to companies is the reason that I didn’t call them yesterday, I was hoping that it would all be fixed overnight as most IT departments have diagnostics that run either continuously or at least nightly when the system is quieter, I was hoping that it would be picked up and just fixed. Right now it is spending more time down than up and all I can hope is that once I am finished writing, that I will get a window in at least which I can get this posted and a few tweets sent.

When I woke this morning I felt a little bit brighter but so tired, the sort of tired that just felt like I needed several hours more sleep, but nothing worse than that. Now, well the pain is through the roof and that is after taking all my normal meds and a booster, sometimes companies have a lot to answer for, but there is never any comeback. I know that it would be unreasonable for companies to work on the bases of the worst and or illest customer they could possibly have, but I honestly do think that they could make things just that bit easier and more user freindly. I know that I am lucky in that if I were totally floored that I could ask Adam to deal with this sort of thing, but I really shouldn’t have to, nor should anyone else. It is actually one of the really hard things to accept, the loss of the ability to do what should be easy. For some reason that I can’t quite fathom it is the dealing with outsiders and companies, that is the hardest thing to accept. As I said yesterday, I needed Adam with me when we were having the settees sorted out. These days he does all the phone calls and yes I could have waited until he came home this evening, but me without my internet, is like me without both of my arms, I couldn’t live that way.

I still don’t fully understand what it is that makes me so scared of dealing with people, outside of Adam, my daughter Teressa and my friend Jake, I do everything I can to avoid speaking to anyone. Part of it I know without a doubt is because of my memory as there isn’t a single conversation that I do have outside of them, be it delivery driver or even the postman plays around in my head for hours after. I am double checking everything that was said, just to be sure that I didn’t say or do anything that I shouldn’t have, especially if that conversation has been with a doctor, I always forget things until it is too late. I have spent so much time in the company of others in tears, stuttering and slurring my words whilst forgetting what I was even trying to say, that it has turned into a total fear of opening my mouth. Talking on the phone is even worse, it should be easier, but it isn’t, when someone can see me, well at least then they can see I am having difficulty in finding my words and I haven’t been struck dumb permanently. It is so wrong that I or anyone should have to, but I find myself having to tell total strangers about my medical condition, just so that they will slow down to my pace and allow me to actually talk rather than being in tears and lost somewhere.

I just made my one-hour call back to see what is happening over my report re the internet, there is a fault, they are working on it but it may take 72 hours to fix. Having said that it has been steady for the last 15 minutes, so I am going to strike while I can and get things posted. I guess there is one good thing about automated systems, they don’t hear or see what is happening to the person who is trying to deal with them.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 5/03/13 – Remind me please

With the bulk of the shopping put away yesterday I thought that I would stick one of the garlic baguettes I had bought into the oven, well there is nothing as nice as hot garlic bread. I am one of those who doesn’t like to cut it up into neat slices, I like to tare of chunks and enjoy it. So here I was happy with my days routine complete and playing an game while eating my dinner, the start….