Tag: Carer

As a young man I trained for 5 years as a Ladies and Gents hairstylist in Leicester. My hobbies were fishing and Martial arts, i studied the Chinese martial art of Gung Fu and attained a black belt 3rd dan. After a few years I found myself working in Germany which I loved and my wife and children all joined me for a few years. It was on one of the journey’s to Germany that I first became aware of my neck problem, suffering terrific muscle spasms in my neck and shoulders, this continued for many years and the pain levels grew, on our return to England I had many hospital appointments, a CT scan and the diagnosis was “hot spots and irregularities in the C spine” (they gave really detailed diagnosis in the 70’s!). My problem was later diagnosed as Spondylosis or Spondylitis i can’t recall which! I was given Tramadol an opiate based pain killer and other pain relief which helped but did not take away all of the pain.

As the years went by the pain became stronger and ever present as it still is today, I recall myself sitting and crying in pain with my wife’s arms around me on many an evening after I finished work. By this time I had started two new companies away from hairdressing, one a Private Detective Agency the other a Security Company and was working 14/16 hours a day, fortunately I must have a strong constitution as I was always able to go to work and work through or in spite of the pain.

I spent several thousands of pounds over the years looking for alternative pain relief, having tried all the obvious, I went for energy healing and did find some relief and at about this time I also found a magic masseuse called Suzanne who like many are, was not afraid to go in deep, she was able to break up the tightly knotted muscles in my neck and shoulder after about a year of weekly visits, this allowed me to actually turn my neck a little from side to side after many years of not being able to, over the next few years my pain slowly went down a rung or two thanks to the healing and the marvellous masseuse I had found.
Having had “some relief” from pain for the first time in many many years I though that I could perhaps also help others that suffered with chronic pain and trained in Tera Mai Reiki Seichem becoming a Tera Mai Reiki Seichem Master and also as a Reconnective healing practitioner, through which I was over the years, able to give relief to many other chronic pain sufferers (but not myself!) mainly using Reconnective Healing energies which seemed more effective than Reiki.

In my retirement and still in pain 24/7 (and still something of a workaholic!) I caught up with an old school friend on friends reunited, she told me that she had MS of which I knew nothing, some years after this her husband passed away and some months later I was reasonably close to North Wales and arranged to meet with my friend from my school days for a meal, we got on well and I began to learn a little about MS. I started to visit her to help out on occasional weekends and at times when she had multiple medical appointments and seeing what she went through to be able to carry out the simplest little task really had me in awe of her single minded determination, the help visits became more regular and now I am her main carer, staying for perhaps a couple of weeks, enabling her to do the things she enjoys and get regular exercise sessions at the gym, then having a few days break before beginning again.

My friend actually classes herself as lucky, because although she has MS she suffers no pain, lots of other difficulties but no pain for which she is very grateful (but how anyone with MS can consider themselves lucky I don’t know) she has lost the use of her left arm and left leg, and struggles to manage even the simplest task, she has been a yoga teacher for over 30 years and still teaches from her wheel chair having adapted many exercises for chair bound people, she has taken over 700 yoga classes at the Neuro Therapy Centre near Chester and does everything she can to enable her to live an ordinary life. My heart often goes out to her as I see her struggle with a task, but I have now learnt the things that I must let her do herself despite how long it takes her or how difficult it is for her, it’s hard to watch sometimes knowing that I can do it for her, but she needs to do it herself, that was the most difficult thing for me to learn as a carer.

I find it very rewarding that I am now able to make life an awful lot easier for her, and enable her to live a normal (ish) life. I have free run of the kitchen which is great! I’m even allowed to do the washing up, although she says she occasionally has to re wash items!! It’s a man thing how we just leave an item with a stain or tiny bit of food on that a woman’s radar spots from 100 yards and we can’t see from six inches!

Anyway I have missed a bit out as before re meeting with my friend after many years, my masseuse told me on several occasions to ask my Doctor to test me for Fibromyalgia, when I finally got round to it I was given a positive diagnosis which explains all of the additional pain I have been getting over the last few years and the horrible tiredness and lack of energy, waking up feeling like a soggy sack, trying to remember what was a dream that you thought you had. It’s known as ‘Fibro Fog’ which is really weird sometimes, so caring for my friend although very difficult at times (as she really does not understand what pain is and why I can be so down and useless one day and ok another!) but it keeps me busy and I get an awful lot of satisfaction from being able to make her life easier, despite having lost the use of her left leg and arm she is always happy, cheerful and smiling. I find it amazing the way she copes with her disability and (most days) really enjoy being there for her.

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