I feel like it's been a while since we last did a Diary of a Spoonie blog post but it's been a while since I saw my specialists between changing jobs and appointments getting cancelled and rescheduled. But I recently had the chance to see my orthopaedic surgeon which finally gave us some much needed answers, although ngl they weren't the answers I'd hope for.
If you've been following my content for a little while now, you'll know that I've been struggling with my right thumb/inside wrist since the injury last year with pain, stiffness and restricted movement. When I went into my appointment, I mentioned that not much has changed, the pain, stiffness, cracking joints when moving and weakness was still there and I was still doing all my physio exercises from last year but it doesn't seem to have gotten past a certain point. I also showed how much my thumb and wrist crunches and cracks when I do small, simple movements. They did a bunch of feeling my thumb and wrist and moving it around to see if any movements made the pain worse, they then decided it was best to x-ray of my wrist as it had been a year since the last one.
I don't know why but for the last 2-3 weeks, there's been a niggly gut feeling telling me there was something more going on than the ligament and tendon damage it was initially diagnosed as. Unfortunately when I came back round from my x-rays, they did let me know that it showed arthritis on the inside my wrist, luckily it's mild and isn't at the point of needing any surgical intervention which is a big relief because I really wouldn't want an operation on my wrist at 30. I am being referred back to my specialist hand physio who I was seeing before I saw the orthopaedic surgeons and I'm waiting for my x-rays and the letter to be sent over to my GP so we can make a plan on how we manage it going forward.
It's been such a hard couple of weeks because for the last 12 months, I've been so desperate for an answer of what has been going on in my injured hand but on the flip side getting this answer which is something I'm now stuck with for life and could end up worsening as I age spiralled me into a dark place mentally and it's been really hard to climb myself back out of it. I have battled with my health anxiety for many years, I'm sure anyone with multiple chronic illnesses can agree it's a constant mental battle in your head and sometimes things just feel a hell of a lot heavier on certain days. I have always been someone who has been fiercely independent and I find it very difficult to ask for help which has also been majorly down to my anxiety so I eventually reached a point where this was just the last straw that broke the camels back and I do feel sorry for my poor GP because I walked into an appointment to discuss the arthritis and I just completely broke down on him because I was completely overwhelmed.
I have recently started medication to try and help my mental health and help with these feelings whilst I wait to have therapy. But I've also made the decision to drop my hours at work to give me some guaranteed time off during the work week to have my appointments with my various specialists as I'm now under several. I am trying to not put any pressure on myself either with work, life, social life, blogging, and trying to focus on just general existing and getting through this latest moment in my life.
At the moment, I'm simply trying to do things if I find some joy in them, at the moment that is creating content and writing blog posts but I'm not trying to overload or put a bunch of pressure on myself. People have said about taking breaks from blogging and social media whilst this is going on but I feel like if I stop for a prolonged period of time, I'll end up slipping into a darkness that'll be too hard to pull myself out of so at the moment it's all about finding a happy medium for myself without overwhelming myself. To be honest it's a constant battle in my head on a daily basis and sometimes things just become too heavy and overwhelming to anything other than get out of bed and do basic human functions. At the moment I'm trying to focus on doing things that bring me joy, focus on important human function like getting myself out of bed every day, feeding myself and drinking water. I'm also planning to start journalling to try and help my journal because I'm hoping that whilst I struggle to physically talk to another person, I hope I might be able to write it down instead.
Have you got any tips that helped your mental health?
Speak to you next time!
