First meltdown of 2021

It all got too much for me this evening and the pressures of not knowing, trying to work, worrying about treatment, future plans all boiled over resulting with me in a “small” heap.

I’ve not had anything particularly difficult to do at work in the last 2 days but I’ve struggled to achieve anything yet, my mind is all over the place and I cannot focus so even the simplest of tasks are taking a long time. The biggest worry is if my treatment is working and this is taking over my whole being currently. I have to know, I need to know. Try as I might to focus on anything else and without fail my mind will come back to this one subject.

I’ve had a headache all day (first in months!) and this sapped my energy. I’ve had a call with registrar for Professor Pandha this afternoon who confirmed we’re carrying on as planned into the “maintenance” stage of treatment on Thursday. Again I cannot just accept it’s working. What if it’s not! Why is my life saving not available to book on the NHS? I hate Covid.

She asked how I was feeling. Physically I’m “ok”, I have aches in my chest still during deep breaths and my back and legs are really achy but nothing major, so physically I’m much better than I was in September. But mentally?! thats a different story. Mentally I think I need a tight fitting jacket and a nice quiet room with padded walls.

I’m proceeding with a request to get my CT scan done privately on Bupa. They’ve confirmed it will be covered but there’s all sorts of reasons this isn’t a great idea. Not least being that in an ideal world my subsequent scans would come from the same machine to ensure consistent results. I don’t care. £100 Bupa excess? are you joking? I’d pay ten times that if I could get a scan and ease this worry.

Assuming I get the go ahead to get a private scan it’s still not likely to happen for a week or so so this lingering worry isn’t going anywhere soon. It is physically draining.

People try to sympathise and “understand” what I must be feeling and I get that but there’s no way they can really understand how I feel. My life is at risk and I don’t know if my treatment is working.

Think about that. You had a target that by the end of 2020 you’ll know if everything you’ve done, all the pain and aches and time and treatment are working or not. But for no fault of yours or anyone else’s (well apart from the “covidiots” not wearing masks or ignoring the rules) you cannot find out. Not only that but no one knows when you will be able to find out. This isn’t a case of a new car being delayed, a holiday being postponed. This is life and death.

Maybe I’m being overly dramatic but its how I feel.

The headache put me in a dark room this evening, I’ve not been hungry due to excessive worry and I think just the lack of energy, tiredness, aching, feeling particularly down got too much and I needed to let it all out. I hate crying but I’ve done so much the last few months it seems normal to me now. I don’t like people seeing my cry as I feel so vulnerable (I don’t seem to have a problem writing about it though!)

I’m tired of the stress and would do anything to just be normal old Steve again. Anything!