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Thanks, all. The boiler/furnace seems to be working ok. Fingers crossed, since we have been here before. The problem is not the boiler, so much as making an old system shape itself up for the demands of its new Kommandant. Tom says he has tweaked everything tweak able and twiddled everything twiddle able and we should be ok.

dollyvee - I would normally agree with you. The signs of infection were showing before starting the drugs, though. And I have combed the internet for side effects of these drugs. Fever, coughing and racing heart simply do not feature anywhere. Anyway, whatever happens I keep taking the Hep C drugs. I absolutely refuse to end up with drug-resistant hepatitis at the end of it.

Antibiotics are doing precisely nothing. Had some blood taken yesterday in case that sheds some light and am waiting on a prescription of different antibiotics. Thing is, we don't even know for sure this is bacterial so I am reluctant to stuff myself with antibiotics for the heck of it. I will have a chest x ray on Monday.

My husband and I are now trying to find a way to get me into the private hospital. Much will depend on the result of the chest x ray. But I am in a bad way. I know I must eat and wash and move around at least a little bit but I am finding it increasingly hard to do any of it. I think I need to be on oxygen and I think I need nursing care. Simple as that. I think we are going to have to accept that we won't be able to go on the cruise.

 

 

 

I feel so ill I don't know where to put myself.

My Hep C drugs arrived and I have been taking them for a week. I have not had any pains in the liver area since starting them, so that is good.

The trouble is that I have managed to get a chest infection. I started feeling lousy a couple of days before the drugs arrived. I thought it was the Hep C starting to mount another attack and smugly thought it didn't know what was about to hit it.

I have no way of knowing (yet) which of my complaints are side effects from the drugs and which are from the chest infection. I mean, obviously the rattly lungs and crazy high fever are the chest infection. The rather grim nausea I had for a few days after starting drugs is probably due to them. My resting heart rate, which should be low 60s, has been mid 90s. The absolute bone-crushing fatigue is probably mostly the chest infection. At least I hope it is because if I have that for 12 weeks I don't know what I'll do. I literally have to sit down at the bottom of the stairs when I come down, to rest before I plod off to do whatever it was. My appetite has vanished. I ate virtually nothing for 3 days. Food tasted weird and my body just said "no". I can at least eat something now, but only about half of what I should be eating.

Covid test was negative.

I did all the usual home care stuff but the fever climbed. It hit 104 at one stage but that was on Sunday and nothing functions properly at the weekend so no point in trying to get medical care. On Monday it dropped to 100 and I hoped it was on the way out but then went back to 102. So I hauled myself to the doctor. It was a difficult appointment because I was really too tired to go, but the doc can hardly listen to my chest over zoom. And if I say more than 3 words I start coughing violently. So I had to type out the history for the doc to reduce what I had to say. Anyway, she gave me antibiotics. Said they should start working after 3 days max. If they don't then I have to have a chest x ray for pneumonia.

On top of all of this, we needed a new boiler/furnace. The old one was working but 15 years old. We wanted a new one at a time that suited us, not when the old one decided to pack up in the middle of winter, as is usually the case. They're doing some good finance deals at the moment. So we had the guy round to quote on Wednesday, expecting a fit date somewhere in June/July.

Well, as luck would have it they had a boiler and an engineer available on Thursday! Yes, please, said we. Mark turned up and I instantly disliked him, But, whatever. I don't have to like my gas engineer. He finished the job much quicker than expected and seemed in a hurry to leave. You guessed it, the boiler stopped working soon after he left. But it was hard to tell because the house was very hot from the installation and it was not until Friday morning when the house was really far too chilly that I checked the boiler and saw a fault code. So Gareth came that day and gave his opinion.But he was from the Home Servicing and Repairs Department and this was (he said) obviously an installation fault. Mark came round on Saturday bellyaching about having to come out for no pay on his Saturday. He insisted Gareth was wrong but he would do what Gareth said. He could not fix the fault and gave his opinion on what it was. But he did not have the equipment on the van and his supervisor was not working that day so could not authorise the work.

The supervisor of Mark rang on Monday and said he would send Tom on Tuesday. Tom came, disagreed with Mark's view of the problem, identified another one and fixed that. A working boiler. 

Boiler shut down again last night. Tom is coming tomorrow...

I mean, we can cope. We have space heaters for selected rooms and an immersion heater. But the main body of the house is hideously chilly as we are having an unusually cold snap for this time of year. And I am ILL!  I do not need all these workmen around the place. I just need a warm house in which to recuperate.

Because we are supposed to be going on a cruise 2 weeks today. And it's not just being fit enough to enjoy it on the day of departure. The amount of work packing to go on a cruise is huge. I could not contemplate doing any of it right now. Hubby would probably pack but I'd have to tell him what and I have no mental capacity at all right now. I could not tell someone how to butter a sandwich with any cogency! I really need this to be rapidly on the way to recovery by the end of the weekend or I fear for the cruise. Which is a very special one on a brand new ship that we have been looking forward to for a couple of years.

Sorry for the endless tale of woe. But if any of you have been wondering where I am - the answer is - in bed feeling sorry for myself.

My T didn't say, and I didn't ask, but I'm sure that I'm over the half-way mark in processing.

Oh to be so optimistic! I think it is unlikely that I was at the half-way mark then. I wouldn't even dare to guess if I'm there now!

Oh dear. Did you tread on it the wrong way and fill the torso with air by mistake so it suddenly sat up?
 

I don't think there's anything wrong in finding pleasure and benefit from doing the right thing. Even if it is your primary motivator for continuing.

The therapy homework sounds tough. My triggers mostly come from left field and it takes a therapy session to connect the dots. Perhaps an approach to consider would be to think of a situation that reliably makes you extremely mad or sad. And then consider whether it would make anyone that mad or sad. If you uncover a likely overreaction on your part then it is likely from a childhood experience. You may want to stick more closely to the brief, but that is how I would tackle it. Or I'd turn up empty handed and say the dog ate it.
 

I'll stick with the plan, let my T drive, and hope for the best.

I am happy to read that sentence. Because to me it indicates that your therapist seems to be a good fit. Of course it is early days. But she has told you something you don't at all like (the depression and critic may return for a while) and you have not run screaming for the hills. If you are anything like me then the word "trust" is way, way too strong to use at this stage, but it feels like there is something there. I hope I'm right.

You're very brave to be doing this knowing there could be change. I mean, we all do it with the hope of some change because if we were 100% happy as we are what would be the point of going through therapy? But imagining change and the unknown is tough and from your posts it seems like you may find future unknowns particularly challenging to contemplate. Maybe your therapist can help you with that. Mine has been good on that front.

You've started on a road that I hope will lead you to happy things. Go, Slashy! 

That's horrid. I hope you have somewhere cozy and safe, even if it's just bed, where you can spend at least some time to regroup.


 

I have no personal experience of this surgery. So I cannot offer specific advice but I do want to wish you all the best.

I had abdominal surgery a couple of years ago (keyhole surgery to remove my gallbladder). That was done under general anaesthetic. The only tip I can give is to say that general anaesthetic can sometimes make you feel nauseous. They have effective drugs they can give you after surgery to help you if you feel nauseous. So make sure to tell the staff if that happens. It does not happen to everyone. But it is easy to assume you feel sick from surgery to that area and if you don't know they have drugs to help then you might not think to ask.

If you have any specific questions you think I could answer given the surgery I had then I am very happy to help if I can.

I am so happy to read that you have been able to have a conversation with her since your post that was constructive and went well. That is a very positive development and I hope it gives you some confidence that all may not be lost.

My own trauma reactions have always made me tend to cut and run if there is a relationship problem. I fully resonate with the feeling that everything is ruined and there is no point in trying a repair because a repair seems impossible. You have done so well to have the conversation and I am glad things no longer seem so bleak.

 

I don't think you say too much. And I love seeing you round the forum. Although your wife's joke did make me chuckle. Please keep being you. Of course I want you to feel good, and stable, but I don't think that has to come at the expense of you being the Papa C we know and love.

Ugh. That story about your H's sister is grim, Kizzie. But so typical. And I notice that N's tend to be very grabby around wills and estates. I was just visiting FOO and my N mother was talking about a friend who is planning to sell up and move to a distant part of the country. She has some sick relatives there. My mother was saying she could not understand why the friend was moving. The relatives are really very sick "so she won't have them around for company for very long. And they have children so it's not as if she is in line for any inheritance." Charming.

I've been thinking about your dysregulation, Kizzie, when having to deal with an N. I am not sure if I get it when dealing with all Ns. I certainly go straight on alert. But I've noticed my dysregulation moving around a bit recently, in respect of members of my FOO. It seems that I have my boundaries and protections against NM and NF working pretty effectively these days. They still have the ability to get to me, but not nearly so much or so hard. However, NSis is triggering me on a regular basis. Just hearing from her can make anger flare. I think maybe before I was so concerned with the main danger that I simply did not have the capacity to react to her. I dunno. I'm rambling now, so will stop.

I hope you continue to feel good, Larry. A part time evening job could be a great thing to do - especially if it means you get to meet a whole new group of co workers. It's nice to have people to spend time with.

You're right to discuss it with your T. I also think it is probably good that you did not choose to communicate the anger as you were feeling it, but have instead processed some of your thoughts in advance of sharing it with her. Of course a good therapist will be able to handle whatever emotion you throw at them in the moment, but I don't think it is necessarily always the best thing for us to do. My T once triggered me so badly (over a very simple administrative matter) that I nearly sacked her. This was nearly two years ago and I still have not told her about that!

I'm not sure it is helpful to categorise the intentions of an abuser - or even possible. We cannot ever know precisely what their motivation is, in the same way that we can never truly know what somebody else is thinking. Even if someone says what they are thinking, they may put a spin on it depending on the audience. At any rate, that is what my T says, and she therefore makes me concentrate on what I think and we talk about that. At some point you and your T might find it very informative to discuss just why you got so upset at the suggestion that the motivation was power rather than sex. Perhaps not now if you are still feeling raw about it. A big emotional reaction is always something to note and explore when the time is right. Your T has inadvertently touched a raw nerve - but the surface issue may not be the full picture of what is triggering you.