Showing posts with label Depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Depression. Show all posts

Pulmonary embolism and pain management

 I have an awful lot going on with my health at the moment what with the lung ๐Ÿซ problems and my ongoing other health issues. My Multiple Sclerosis has decided that it wants to make life more difficult and my reflux problems are acute at the moment. I can only seem to be able to sleep sitting in my wheelchair ๐Ÿฆผ . Not as uncomfortable as that might actually sound. I am awaiting an appointment for an endoscopy but as with anything hospital related getting this done has become a comedy ๐ŸŽญ of errors. The original request was made on the 30th of June but that evidently got lost but re emerged Friday last. The fact it was an urgent request is not on the radar of said appointment givers and despite two other urgent requests since I am still not any closer to getting my endoscopy ๐Ÿ˜ฎ 

I’m not moaning but I am frustrated. Heather has the full weight of all these phone calls etc full upon her shoulders and it is gradually getting her down ☹️๐Ÿ˜”๐Ÿ˜ž๐Ÿ˜’๐Ÿ˜ฉ


Update I have got an appointment next Friday! Yippee. Wish me well ๐Ÿ‘❤️

Hello people just talk!

 I am nearly always the one who strikes up a conversation, maybe I just like the sound of my own voice. But with lockdown it’s difficult. I haven’t seen anyone and it’s gotten so as I don’t know ๐Ÿคท‍♂️ if I actually want to see anyone. For me to be like that anyone who normally is a bit shy must be really anti people. I know I can pick up the phone but really the only people who I have called since lockdown have been my family and because lockdown has taken away things to talk about. Now in normal times I don’t need anything to talk about, I once struck up a conversation with three strangers explaining that I will talk to myself lamp posts and stray dogs! The strangers all women of a certain age asked which category did they fall into then one came to the conclusion of ‘stray dogs’ which caused much hilarity. The spoken word can  be such a lift, I used to read poetry aloud to Heather my wife and have only done so once in these lockdown conditions ☹️ I must try harder.

Depression is a thief it steels your sense of fun in life, now that might not sound much life ain’t meant to be fun but if you don’t enjoy life you become miserable. I am sure life was never designed for you to feel miserable! When life is fun you actually smile ๐Ÿ˜† Everything becomes a reason to laugh you smile and those around you smile, smiling is infectious. You might smile to a lady weeding her garden and finding her task tedious that brief smile could lift her spirit and her tedious task becomes a joy. The trouble with COVID is we are all wearing a mask ๐Ÿ˜ท so we are being robbed of simple joys. My personal pleasure is music, l love early rock n roll and music from my youth and the 60’s and 70’s to me music stopped in the 1980s  and restarted when Adele released 19 in 2008 I enjoy all of her albums. Ed Sheeran has become another of my favourites. 

My mainstay of enjoying life in recent years is photography. With the advent of digital photography and then the camera ๐Ÿ“ท in phones photography has be one of the easiest of hobbies to get involved with. I do have a phone but mainly use a camera ๐Ÿ“ธ as this gives me far greater control over the creativity of an image. I am not an artist but sometimes I do venture away from the cameras auto settings to capture something a little bit different. Then after shooting the pictures I have some more fun transferring said pictures onto my laptop ๐Ÿ‘จ‍๐Ÿ’ป or more recently my iPad. Transferring images by WiFi is new to me and as with any learning experience fun and frustrating in equal measure. Twenty years ago I tried using photoshop and was bewildered by the complexities of post production of photo’s I didn’t enjoy the process and on one forum I frequent I use “life’s to short to learn photoshop “  as my tag on each post๐Ÿ˜ƒ

Each of these stages is an escape from reality! When I am engrossed in taking photos or transferring them and cropping and enhancing the images I become detached from my everyday problems. I use photography as a means of escape. I will write ✍️ more about my escapism from depression in future posts. 

Feeling depressed

 I have been a bit low for the last few days and then it dawned on us why. Last Friday we had to visit University College London Hospital to have the Baclofen pump refilled and the dose increased so maybe it’s my body getting used to the larger dose of Baclofen. Drugs have had some strange side effects over the years from hallucinations to insomnia so it’s no real surprise. I have Multiple Sclerosis and recently had an operation to form a stoma a colostomy. So far it has been a success we are just two months in and the nurse has told us to wait three months before getting too excited. 

My depression maybe the drug increase or just dealing with my MS. I cannot walk or even stand anymore so all the pressure goes on to my wife Heather. She is fantastic and deserves far better from life but carries on regardless dealing with everything and putting my well-being before her own. Depression just creeps up on you sneaking in through the cracks and going unnoticed until it has suddenly got it’s feet under the table and is wearing it’s slippers, relaxing and comfortable with it’s surrounding. Currently with COVID-19 restrictions life is super difficult plus it is winter and even if I could get out it’s always bloody raining.

Heather has her work cut out getting me dressed and out of bed. I have to be hoisted on a sling suspended from an electric ceiling hoist. Showers and bathroom visits are done on a commode shower chair which has a mind of its own as to the direction it will take, I am sure it is related to the the wonky supermarket trolleys ๐Ÿ›’ that are abandoned in car parks. I am in an electric wheelchair for getting around but at the moment the furthest I go is downstairs in my through floor lift to sit looking out of the window for birds visiting the garden.  We have several bird feeders an even on a dull damp day like today the birds keep me amused and I am never far from my camera ๐Ÿ“ท . Photography gives me immense pleasure and is something I would recommend to anyone feeling depressed! Digital photography has made everyone a photographer. Phones have fantastic cameras and for anyone who wants to be a bit more serious about taking pictures the range of cameras available is enormous. I will blog more about cameras another day.


Today’s post is about depression and I imagine that we all have off days, feeling a bit blue and cheesed off with the world. It was because of feeling like that on a long term basis that I sought help. My first port of call was my doctor (GP) and she had a nice chat with me before she told me that I was depressed!  It wasn’t much of a surprise I had known for a while that I wasn’t feeling ‘right’. She prescribed an antidepressant tablets and guess what? They actually work. After a couple of months of feeling better I stopped taking them, have another guess as to what happened, yep I started feeling depressed again. I have decided that they are alright and now recon they are the best two tablets I take each day.

I have no simple answers to depression I just know how I have got over mine, and even now I still get off days. What I would urge anybody to do is seek professional advice. GP’s are busy people but they are marvellous people who really want to do the best for you. So even in these strange lockdown times they are available for help, so book an appointment, it may be a telephone consultation but it will be a fantastic one. Do it now!


Mental health problems matter

 I am the first to tell someone with mental health issues to seek help. I have been on antidepressants for years and if for any reason I don’t take them for a few days I can feel the darkness gathering.  I suffer from Multiple Sclerosis am captive to my wheelchair ๐Ÿฆผ or my bed and I can no loner stand so have to be hoisted from one to the other. I am catheterised and awaiting a stoma operation. Coping with all of that makes me depressed I am not saying that as a Top Trump it is just for those reading this to get a little background as to why I have needed antidepressants, if I entered a ‘bad health pissing competition’ I would be a long way from  Top Trump. But I know people will read I have been on antidepressants for years And think why does he need medication to cope.
There I go making excuses for suffering from depression, that’s crazy I will never meet you and you don’t know me from Adam. Yet I feel I need to justify myself to you๐Ÿค”. All I want to say is if you are suffering there is no harm seeking help. Don’t bottle it all up or hit the bottle I can tell you it don’t help. The best thing to do is talk to someone and if that someone is a doctor ๐Ÿ‘ฉ‍⚕️  ๐Ÿ‘จ‍⚕️ male or female all the better. They are trained in helping. I am not as you can tell from this post. I am just a well meaning old man who wants the best for you especially at the moment with Covid and another lockdown about to start. 



Kirsty on Anxiety attacks

 I follow  @KirstyPhoto on Twitter and I also read her blog. Her latest post is how she copes with her anxiety attacks. Now I suffer from mental health problems and I still maintain the best two tablets I take each day are my antidepressants. Have a look at Kirsties posts on her blog KIRSTY BLOGD

https://www.kirstykellyphotography.com/post/dealing-with-an-anxiety-attack


If you would really like to help Kirsty buy some of her photography here is her online shop details 

https://www.kirstykellyphotography.com/shop


#support artists shop indie 



Help depression with photography

I started blogging twenty years ago I posted 100’s of posts some bad most even worse than that, then about four years ago I deleted everything! Five different blogs and all posts I erased fifteen years of work. Why? Because one day I woke up depressed very very depressed. My depression was ongoing I had been taking antidepressants for years but that day I was super depressed! I couldn’t cope and days in bed feeling like crap eventually gave way to feeling slightly less depressed and slowly very slowly I got over things! I am not there yet but I am coping.  My Multiple Sclerosis has taken a turn for the worse and I am a lot weaker than I have ever been. Cheerful ain’t I? Cheering you up yet.

The reason for this post is to help other people and at the same time help myself. Well maybe we can both gain from the words I am feebly trying to get down. I read an article in the amateur photographer magazine today. Yep it was about how photography can help people suffering from depression. I deleted my photography blog on that day five years ago, years of posts hours and hours of blogging not so many photos. My photos look awful even the good ones are bad so maybe no great loss to the world when I hit that delete button! But I suffered oh boy I suffered. All of those posts those dreams the hopes the memories were gone, no more could people read about what I had enjoyed putting out for anyone who wandered world. I had planned to use film cameras made since my arrival here on earth, anyone who reads the amateurphotographer will have seen a regular article about using a different film camera for every week for a year. It was so popular it went on and on finally finishing after ten years and five hundred and twenty different cameras!

Back to you and your depression, anything that can get you less depressed is good! I know about stopping and concentrating on the shot it helps me and it helped the people in the article I read today! The breaking of the norm the stopping the waiting, the looking at something other than whatever your brain wants you to hang up on. I recently heard depression described as like listening to a out of tune radio, it’s always playing in the background, you can’t hear it properly but you listen to it all the time and in doing so you miss out on so much good stuff that’s going on around you. Well that’s me done for tonight, it’s twenty to one in the morning even though this iPad recon it 16:40. One of the many things I need to sort, I only got this on Monday so still on a learning curve. I’ll finish up tomorrow as I wanna add some photos and links and mention lockdown

Lockdown, how has it been for you? In all honesty for me it has been much of the same as normal. Heather has to hoist me out of bed and do pretty much everything for me! I have helped with comments on what to get for shopping ๐Ÿ‘ not always useful. I know many people have been finding it very difficult. There are any different places to go for help and my answer is always seek help. You know it makes sense but the hardest step is always the first one. I am often guilty of leaving things to long, last year I ended up in A&E blue lights and everything with suspected sepsis. I got better with antibiotics! The hardest part for me has been not seeing the family our daughters stop at the front gate and have a five minutes chat but it ain’t the same is it. I know all of you reading this will be suffering your own personal problems and FaceTime is good but it’s not a patch on meet-ups and a chat over a brew.

Is Bruce Springsteen depressing

Is Bruce Springsteen depressing? I am sitting here with the Essentials Album playing on itunes and it is making me want to slit my wrists. is a dream a lie if it don't come true or is it something worse
have go to be some of the most melancholic lyrics. I  googled those particular words and came up with lots of debate on those and the other lyrics from THE RIVER. Driving people to suicide must be big business as Springsteen has been at it for years  and his songs are extremely popular. Maybe it is how I am feeling today? But maybe I am not alone, googling Springsteen and depressing songs it seems others have before me come to the same conclusion! Here is a link to an article in The Telegraph written in 2016 titled Bruce Springsteens 10 saddest lyrics.   As I said maybe it is how I feel today old age and thoughts of a younger me or am I particularly grumpy today ? I have just deleted four old blogs so this post is somewhat of a new beginning, lets hope future posts reflect a happier me!! 
thats Springsteen talking about the track and here it is being performed all seven minutes of it. Fill yer boots

Litter litter everywhere can’t anyone use a bin

 I was in my wheelchair recently passing a paper shop and a man came out of the shop cigarette pack in hand, he peeled the cellophane off an...