Yesterday turned into a day from hell. The whole day flipped on me at about 10:30 am, until then it was fine and I felt not to bad at all. Then like a piano falling from the sky, I was totally flattened and crawling to me bed. I had just taken the call from the chemist which by the end of I was happy with what they were doing. They have ordered in a different amitriptyline for me and will be replacing it tomorrow, the calcium wasn’t there due to a problem at my doctors end that I didn’t quite get, but I was going to phone them in the afternoon, but that never happened. At first I just found myself yawning, not little ones, but huge yawns that I couldn’t control them no matter how I tried. Then the pain appeared, it was in my left side, not quite from center to spine but almost, running along again just below my ribs and I felt terrible. My temperature was spiking, one second drenched in sweat, but if I uncovered my skin it felt as though it was on fire because it felt so cold. All my nerves were sending mad messages and I couldn’t get control of any of it. Even though I hadn’t completed everything online, by 11 am, I was in bed and very soon asleep. I don’t remember being hit by anything like that ever in my life, it was totally mad and I didn’t have a reason for it. I knew Adam was due home for lunch, so I didn’t set the alarm but left him enough clues in case I didn’t wake, as to where I was.

Things didn’t improve at all as the day went on, I did get up when Adam came home, but just long enough to finish off the things that were still waiting and headed straight back to bed as soon as it was completed. It felt just like I had jumped backward in time to last month. My lungs didn’t fill up with water again, but I kept finding myself breathless even though I hadn’t moved and all without any reason that I could think of. I hadn’t eaten anything that day other than my breakfast, so that couldn’t be it, nor had I done anything out of the ordinary. What got me more than anything else was the speed that it hit and the way it stayed with me despite sleeping most of the afternoon as well. By the evening I was holding on to the edges of existence, well that was how it felt, but I was determined not to let it show. I thought I had lost that battle when I went into the kitchen to take my night time meds, as I felt so rotten that I was just sat there on my perching stool with tears flowing for a few minutes. Luckily Adam didn’t come through so he didn’t see it. I was holding on desperately to the possibility that if it could hit me so suddenly, that it might just leave that way too. Yes, he knew I had had a bad day and that my temperature control was gone again, but I wasn’t letting on just how ill I felt or the pain I was in, booster or not.

I can’t seem to get past this thing about not wanting him to know I am ill. It’s stupid, I know that but after the way he so clearly thought that I was going to die the other week, I don’t want to see him like that again. I had learned over the last few years to be more honest with him at the time, to not hide and just let him read about it at some point over the next few days. I have to break that for a million reasons, but none more than I love him and him me, half-truths aren’t right. Clearly both of us were knocked sideways the other week and it has left us both with scars to deal with. It’s so easy to rush ahead because life goes on and to forget that sometimes we are hurting and need just a little time to catch up. I guess when you don’t feel totally right, taking the easy route, rather than having to sit and explain every detail, just feels easier. Some people like to be fussed over and taken care off, other like me prefer to just curl up, get on with it and wait until I feel better to talk. When you are ill, being part of a partnership is hard to remember far less carry out. Illness is a solo act, chronic illness has to be a double act as every part of it is shared whether we want it to be or not. These flares in my COPD have to be treated like the flares in my PRMS. I don’t have a problem at all about talking about what is happening with my PRMS, but on the whole it doesn’t come with that partner of feeling really ill. Tired, fatigued and in pain, all of them, but I don’t normally just want to go to bed and vanish forever, it’s so different.

Yesterday proved to me that I am still not well and that is why I am feeling so weak, I guess I was racing ahead, convinced that I had to be better because my chest wasn’t full of a crackling wheezing mess. Although I known that my lungs still haven’t returned to normal, I have been kind of ignoring it. If I am being honest, I have found myself mildly breathless most of the time. It settles for a little while then picks up again, often my inhaler doesn’t touch it, I just want to believe that it has. Yesterday’s pain in my left side just made it all the worse as I had no choice a lot of the time to do anything else other than shallow breath. When my PRMS gets into the game, it screws everything up and makes life so much harder. If I had one or the other, well I know that I would cope so much better. Unfortunately, I can’t just switch one off and deal with the other one, that off switch is desperately needed.

This morning, well I don’t feel great, but I don’t feel as I did yesterday, like most days, time will tell. I’m tired, so twitter will be on brief measures, which, of course, won’t show until tomorrow and Saturday, I always work in the future outside of my blog. Which yes, is another part of my cover up plan I put in place. There is always an opportunity to do more if I am up to it the next day, if not, well it goes as is. Fingers crossed, today will be a better a day.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 9/07/13 – Living well, live twice

Sometimes when you look back on your life there is a feeling that there is so little there to bother with, then others the question is more, “How did I fit that all in?” The trick I think is to have two lives, just like Teressa and I both did, she managed it slightly better than I did by not having children from her first marriage, but we both rushed in and eventually escaped to return to being teenagers. Both of us were in relationships that controlled and dictated how we lived, we did what we thought was…….