Mar 7

 I've avoided work this week. Taken time off. To help with anxiety.

Work has been a constant stream of ineptitude code release wise, panics, bugs and meh. At best it's just full on, at worst it's stressy and anxiety inducing.

I have enough on my plate as it is. I figured getting rid of work for a while would help.

And it has done so.

I am calmer, less emotional, I can't decide if I am coming to terms with Athena, or, the mental meds have me now in a strong calming grip, or ditching work for a while has helped me out a little. I find the idea that I could adult that hard and come to terms with Athena unlikely. And more likely the meds are doing a bang up job of smoothing out the dips. But. I don't know. Perhaps having a plan. Is helping ? I. Have no clue.

Athena has not improved. Well. Kinda. The last couple of days she has been restless. Rambunctious. Legs not working. Slipping, sliding, wobbling, doing the splits, a bad limp. Weird tics. But she refuses to rest. Wants to hobble around. See what's going on. She is bored I think. And fighting. She is, and I guess always will be, Athena. No compromises. Despite being in the greatest of difficulties. I don't know. In one way she is still full of fire and Athena-ness. Her spirit is still Athena. Her body however. Has given up on her. But she drags it along behind her unwilling to let it slow her down. Perhaps. It was always going to be this way. She was born the wrong way around, still born, last of the litter. Dead. She was revived. And ever since then has been the most curious, the most energetic, the most boundless of dogs. Very unlike Ares. A force of nature. But even being a force of nature, it is clear, she is not in a good way. All it really does. Is make that final decision even harder. I wish. I could ask her.

Hazel has been beyond good with her. At times hand feeding her when she can't or won't move. Often spending hours sitting with her. You could not ask for a better doggo nursemaid.

She has also been doing more about the house. Looking after me on occasion too. I wave her away most of the time - I don't want to be a burden. But I appreciate what she's doing. She's doing a hands down fantastic job and I am grateful she's around to help. And I have told her so, more than once. Be grateful of what you have.

I have thrown my back out. Badly. It was inevitable. So many lifts of heavy Athena. 28kg. One of them I pulled my entire lower back. I felt it rip as I picked her up, hurt like hell. Took her up stairs. Put her down, stars dancing in my eyes, little black spots appearing. Oh boy. I slumped to the floor gasping. Thought I was going to pass out. Interestingly this is the second time I've nearly passed out from back pain. I mean it hurts like a fucker. But I don't think it hurts enough to pass out ? My body disagrees apparently. It's. Fascinating.

Since the major back fuckup I have been nursing it. Slowly it's getting better. But I can no longer pick Athena up. So we're having to make do.

I think. I am at peace with losing Athena. I. Honestly don't know. I have mostly stopped crying about it. I am. Stable. Albeit the anxiety creeps in hardcore. I understand that in all probability I lose her in a week and a half. I don't know. Perhaps. I don't know. Some inner bit of me doesn't believe it. Sees her fighting like hell, and doesn't believe she's going to go.

I don't know what to make of myself, or her to be honest. I have no clue.

Take it one day at a time. And see where we get.

In the meantime.

Some of my private medical tests have started coming back.

Severe deficiencies in somethings. I am not sure if this is mostly snakeoil hokum, or a legitimate problem. I had bad deficiencies in B12, a bunch of other things, interestly most of which add up to "bad energy and cause of heart issues".

Hmm.

According to the blurb it's unlikely to be diet related and more likely to be something else, bad absorption, haywire immune system ( ho ho ), or something else.

The GP has recommended a follow up visit to discuss treatment.

Uh huh.

I'll fish the results out and stick em up on the blog when I get round to it.

Hazel spent some time in the morning poring over the results, throwing some out as garbage, and others as a problem. We both dragged ourselves out of bed early because she had a dreaded internals appointment at the docs on the other side of the city. I said I would take her. Not an easy ask for me at the moment. I know she gets very anxious about the docs at the best of times, and anything "internal" pushes her right up to her limits - and can be quite a bad trigger for her. You have to be careful around her at such times. Having a friendly face to pick her up and talk to her helps. Whilst in the car she looked over my results. I did it on purpose. She focused solely on figuring out my results rather than being anxious about her appointment. She only looked up literally as we pulled up at the docs. Success.

On the way back she was visibly relieved, happier and slightly manic. Glad to be out of there.

I felt ill as shit. I slept in the car whilst I waited for her, utterly green around the gills.

She chattered on the way home about what the doc had said - it seems she had a good one this time round, who wanted to sort out a few problems and listened to her. So. That made Hazel happier. It's a sad truth about the NHS that it can be a coin flip over the treatment you get, and when you do get someone competent what a massive relief and difference it makes.

She apologised for chattering on about her internals whilst I was obviously tired. No problem. I was just sitting and listening to her. Glad that she was happier.

I came home and went to bed shortly after.

Been in bed most of the day. Woke up with super black eyes and feeling shitty. Hmmm.

One of my deficiencies causes me to have less oxygen in my blood apparently. Trouble with haemoglobin. Tiredness. Exhaustion. Headaches.

Uh huh.

Maybe there will be something to this deficiency malarkey after all. I won't hold my breath. But worth checking out. And either way. Again. A tick in the box. Checked that. Done this. Did it help ? Next.

A pity this is not the default practice for NHS healthcare and that I have to kick asses to get this done.

Meh.

In a different world, it makes me want to roll my sleeves up, switch fields, and apply a rational, methodical approach to healthcare, learn from your mistakes, and constantly improve, lean on tech to empower your capabilities, and get everyone a better standard of care, and push the field forwards. It's not even a groundbreaking thing, or something that requires leaps in knowledge or discoveries. It's just a case of sorting your shit out and Doing What You Already Have Correctly. The equivalent of sorting out a messy laundry pile into an ordered set of drawers. Come on guys. Do better. I think docs often get let off the hook competence and standards wise. Too used to being the only authority in the room. They need, imho, a little discipline. And a lot of help to do their jobs better - effectively GPs sit in a room on their own, and just pull things out of their ass. Which would be the same approach they took 100 years ago. Yikes. Surely. We can do better than that. Better informational tools. Lessons in procedure. Workflow. Better testing. Yada. Yada. Blah.

Eh well.

Tomorrow Hazel has Yet Another Internals day. Ladies. And the internal gubbins. She is dreading that one even more. She has, in the past, had panic faints from it. She doesn't like it. It's painful to her ( which is no doubt a vicious circle of tensing up, which makes it worse which makes you tense more and blah ), and she often doesn't like the dismissive way such shit gets treated. I mean. If I had to do it. I probably wouldn't like it either. I will do my best to be there for her, get her there, take her home, be a friendly face. It's what good friends should be about in my humble opinion. Support each other. Be kind. I think we can be so shit in the modern world with our social support networks. Our quasi families. The whole. It takes a whole village to raise a kid malarkey is still very true I think. But these days, we try to solo everything. Stupid. It stands to reason that one person is only as strong as their first illness or bad day. Multiple people are as strong as at least someone having a better day than the rest. Groups work. Solo does not. Not to mention the whole mentals of humans being geared towards that social grouping anyway. We are geared towards clannish units. Families. Extended families. The village.

Anywho.