It wasn’t down to the NHS to ‘fix me’ - a harsh but much needed truth

Well as I recently read ‘sometimes you have to go back before you can move forward’. So finally I’m returning to writing this blog, as something in my heart tells me I need to. Why? Well so much has happened since my last post on 28^th March 2014. So many lessons I’ve learnt, as I’ve gained the confidence and knowledge to acknowledge that there really is no separation between mind and body, and the harsh truth that it wasn’t down to the NHS to ‘fix me’.

Let’s go back then to where I left off. Reading my last post, I can clearly see I wasn’t in a good place. Back on morphine for muscle spasms in my lumbar spine, I’d been signed off work. I’d only just returned to the world of work after years out due to pain, and there I was. Two weeks into a new job I was off on sick, and as things turned out I didn’t return to work for seven months. 

Full of anger and frustration as pain dictated yet again – or so it felt. On reflection I now know that my spine – which is my stress barometer – was actually communicating with me.  Or rather ‘screaming’ at me. Six months before returning to work I had witnessed the demise of my beloved Nanna Dolly – my rock, my ‘safe’ person. A proud lady who lived to 92 years young, her final few months I would not wish on anyone. A story for another time and place, but let’s just say that following her death I consulted the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman, which upheld my complaint and positive changes happened as a result, all be it too late for my nan who had suffered delirium in her final weeks, and was on a ward alongside people with dementia.

So when I secured a job working for a dementia charity, it would turn out my subconscious mind didn’t think it was so great. Still grieving for my nan, yet surrounded by older people, many who presented symptoms / behaviours I had witnessed, the mindbody (let’s keep that as one word as there really is no separation in the two), thought it would protect me. Rather than acknowledge what was really happening – the mental anguish associated with grief – it started firing off pain signals. A pattern that had become all too familiar, but something that in some ways is easier to deal with. You have pain – you go to the doctor. They give you a pill (or in my case lots of pills), and you wait for them to numb the pain. If you are lucky the pain reduces, though all too often the acute pains remains in the form of chronic pain.

But hang on Emma, how can you say all this with such certainty? Because without knowing it, this scenario had become my life. A traumatic event happened and my back ‘went’. But making the connection between the two – well it was thanks to someone who introduced me to the work of SIRPA and its founder Georgie Oldfield – that was the game changer. I clearly remember taking her book ‘Chronic pain your key to recovery’ on holiday to Scotland in the July of the same year (I was still off work). I could not put it down. I recognised myself throughout the book, but within the pages was hope.

I’d already had a mental ‘shift’ just a couple of weeks earlier, when I had returned to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham to see my spinal consultant. Having come out of the hospital in tears of frustration after the scan results I’d gone for weren’t there, I sat on a grass verge by a stream. My husband Matt and I got chatting about feeling ‘stuck’. As we got back into our car, a young boy maybe aged 2 in the car next to us, said hello. He would not take his eyes off me and he waved as his mum (who was heavily pregnant) drove off. I just sobbed. It was like ‘this is it’ – stop crying as this (a baby) is your future.

Another significant development during the same period happened when during a CBT session at the pain clinic, the word ‘anxiety’ was referred to. Whilst I don’t always agree that labels help, there are times when they do. This was one of them. A label I could relate to – I had anxiety and had actually had as long as I could remember I just hadn’t realised. My ‘fight or flight’ response had become so heightened it was switching on at the least thing. It explained so much, and at least gave me a reference point.  The key (or so I thought) was learning to manage my anxiety.

I then met with Georgie (from SIPRA) and had an assessment re: the causes of my physical pain. We spoke of Adverse Childhood Experience’s (ACE), of which there had been many, and though not a victim I learnt it is ok and necessary to acknowledge how I felt rather than repress down.  Georgie’s approach to the relief of pain once and for all evolved from the work of the late Dr Sarno, who came up with the concept of Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS). In a nutshell this is when physical pain is caused by the repression of anger and other negative emotions. The subconscious wants to protect us from certain emotions so rather than let them rise, it produces pain as a distraction to focus on rather than the emotion.

My employer had kindly kept my job open, and I finally returned to work. But then another curve ball was about to be thrown, albeit a positive one. I had started to feel unwell, but this time it wasn’t my back. It was an intense pain under my right rib cage. I really didn’t want to be ill again – I was just getting my life back on track. I kept putting off going to the doctor’s but on 23^rd December I remembering thinking that the surgery would be closed over the festive period, so I really should go get seen. I knew they’d ask if I was pregnant – they always ask a woman that – and with a history of irregular periods I thought well I’ll do a test so I can assure them I’m not.

Imagine my surprise when those two lines turned blue!!! Yep I was pregnant. 

Off I went to the doctors to explain that I’d just diagnosed what was making me feel ill (note bucks fizz in pic for effect I didn't drink it). And there lies a whole different story – one with a host of ups and downs and even a mobility scooter as my back pain returned, and ultimately took me on a different path. I didn’t realise it at the time but I still had a long way to go in terms of TMS and becoming pain free. Pain had protected me from my emotions for so long, I longed to be pain free but pregnancy and becoming a new mum – there was a whole new wave of emotions to come and not just the ones you’d expect. Until the next time keep safe.

Emma xxx