Fear

Fear

The darkness ensues

With a noose round my neck

And a fog descends

As my limbs go dead

Please just pass by

Do not stay

If you must stay

Do so,

Just a short while.

And be on your way

Let me live

She prays!

It’s incredible how quickly you can fall and start to doubt yourself and who you are, once you find a degree of clarity. All that is required for that to happen is feeling physically unwell and then negativity from people, whoever they may be. Strangers, loved ones……..

Yesterday started with a call to China Airlines. You see I have a flight booked to go to Australia. I was in the thrall of planning a trip of a lifetime as a family. I was due to fly out on 16 March 18 and return on 8 April 2018. Anyhow that is not happening! The Airline refers me to the travel agent. The guy I speak to at Opodo was incredibly insensitive and refused to take on board what I was saying until I asked to speak to his supervisor. Only then did he agree to look into this and speak to the Airline. I have since received an e-mail requesting medical evidence. So that sounds promising.

I then had to have another difficult conversation because by now I have had several messages from a friend. So, by the time I get to use the shower. The water is cold again, no, I tell a lie, it was luke warm for a few minutes. That was the third day running, so now the pressure is building and I can feel it. My stomach is now starting to hurt because everything I ate in the previous 24 hours had passed straight threw me. I put the postcode for the hospital into google maps. Oh, yes where would be without google maps. Off I go and for the first time it’s taken me to a completely different location and I’m talking to my son telling him I’m not feeling great and this isn’t even the hospital. I tell him I must go. I check the postcode and lone behold I had put in the wrong postcode. Great I get to the hospital with only a few minutes to spare. I check and go to get a drink to calm down but they call my name. Brilliant, I think to myself this should be straight forward. I’m listening to my music when the radiographer, I think, called me. He asked me to remove all my top garments, put on a gown and bring my music with me, if I preferred that playing during the scan. I was just getting myself sorted and he’s outside asking if I’m ready. ‘Are you in a rush or something’, I thought, especially as I am paying for this. I follow him into a room and he asks me to lay on a scanning bed and starts to go through the procedure. I don’t like him. He is going to put a drip in to my arm and I ask him for my music, I tell him the room is cold. Oh, he says it’ll just take a minute now. I don’t protest because hey, it must be done. Ah that hurt I say, because I felt the tube go into my arm and I feel its presence. I feel very cold. He then places, what appears to be a tube, into my hand and walks me into another room. I’m now cold, I have tummy ache and my arm hurts. I am asked to lie on this bed faced down at a 20 – 30 degree angle. I must place my breasts into these holes and lye on my stomach for 35 minutes and they will play my music.  The female radiographer places something in my hand should I feel uncomfortable at any point, I could squeeze it. What she didn’t say is you can squeeze it and this is what would happen. Had she told me, I would have known what to expect. I move into the scanner now and I can’t hear my music, all I can hear are the loud noises coming from the scanner. I pluck up the courage to say, can you turn my music up, I repeat myself again and then I realize that I haven’t squeezed the alarm. I’m also fidgeting because my tummy is hurting and I can’t move and the pain is increasing with each breathe. I squeeze and say ‘turn my music up’. He shouts, ‘stop fidgeting’. WTF, is what I’m thinking. I repeat again, ‘put my music up’, I have no energy to say please or thank you. He turns it up slightly and tells me my phone wouldn’t go any louder and he could turn on their music if I wanted it louder. Which bit of I would like my music didn’t he hear but he just can’t be bothered to devote a few extra minutes to making another human being feel comfortable. The scanning carries on and I can’t stop it now, the pain is unbearable and tears are flowing uncontrollably and there is nothing I can do. I felt so helpless. I didn’t know how much time had passed and how long we had left in that tunnel but I got to a point where I could not breathe because I needed to blow my nose. I squeezed hard and said I need to blow my nose. The female radiographer came in first and she’s telling me not to move. I tell her I need some tissues. Then he comes in and starts telling me that I can’t move, they only have 3 minutes to go. I calm down a little, 3 more minutes. If I can blow some of this snot out, then I can breathe and I can try to control the pain in my stomach. I need to blow my nose I say. He shouts again that I can’t move. I’m blubbering at this point and I say, ‘ I won’t move but I need to blow my nose first. I say that I have had an upset tummy for 24 hours and it’s causing me distress. I am having to be assertive at a time when my whole being is most vulnerable. The next 3 minutes or so were excruciatingly painful on my stomach and it took me a while to move off the bed because of the pain. He asks, if I need a hand to move and I say ‘No I just need a few minutes, that’s all’. A few minutes later he asks again, at this point my head was screaming ‘are you not listening’. I felt so upset when I came out of the hospital.

Despite this I did push myself to go and get something to eat and then did some retail therapy and brought myself a nice pair of jeans and a top.

I could see that fear had been building up inside me for a few days and I was beginning to hold back with people about how I was feeling about everything. The fact I didn’t hold back with my doctor showed me that releasing the fears and disappointments, anger, joy and pride, I was able speak to him without the fear he would feel sorry for me. I could let him into my life in a professional capacity, albeit a glimpse of my reality and that returned some balance into my soul. I’m young, I have freedom and independence and I am very fortunate, but not everyone is a fortunate, especially the elderly and those in the LGBT community, so please support your elderly relatives, friends, neighbors and anyone else you feel is vulnerable today.