I started this blog in 2010 because I thought I'd like somewhere to write about all my maxfax "woes". But unless you're one of those types that likes to live out car crash relationships through Facebook status updates, the whole 'LET ME SHARE HOW SHIT MY LIFE IS' urge doesn't really strike as a natural feeling.

When I've been in pain and depressed, my natural instinct hasn't been to blog about it. Few people have borne witness to the true horror of the last few years (I'm not exaggerating, it's been an absolute ballache), but I've wanted those private things to be private. I had a startup to launch and family and friends to stick around for, so I had to 'get on with it' as best I could...even though there have been terrifyingly dark days where my patience had seemingly run out.

When I last wrote (July 2011), I had just started seeing the pain management team at RSCH. The pain clinic is a fabulous service run by their top anaesthetists. I'm not sure if all hospitals have such clinics yet, but they're getting that way after the CMO's Annual Report highlighted the need for major investment across the NHS in chronic pain 'support' as...to quote the report... "chronic pain reduces quality of life more than almost any other condition". (It really bloody does).

I was really hopeful that my nerve block injections (which I wrote about here) would provide significant relief, but unfortunately things got progressively worse. One in particular on the left side of my skull had a spectacularly bitch-fitty reaction. Any initial relief subsided within weeks and as the sensation came back, things deteriorated to worse than they'd ever been really. And whilst I don't think the injections specifically made things worse, they certainly didn't stop things from getting worse. By August I had some pretty bad episodes which affected everything from talking to walking. Yeah. That was terrifying. Squeezing in press appointments and business meetings around MRI scans and emergency hospital visits wasn't exactly easy. Somehow the social network version of WIWT got launched in time for London Fashion Week, but my residing memory of the summer was of hospitals. (And of lying in the back of my Dad's car like a pathetic overgrown baby - literally relying on your parents for everything isn't nice, but my parents and sister are luckily the awesomest. Especially Heather actually, she's an AMAZING carer).

I had an emergency appointment with my pain consultant and effectively said I couldn't (and wouldn't) be seeing my 25th birthday if something didn't change soon. I had no interest whatsoever in that being 'the rest of my life', I wasn't being defeatist...just realistic. I was put on neuropathic painkillers to take at night alongside my usual day to day dihydrocodeine cocktail. I took them for the first time on a Friday. I didn't get up again til the following Monday night. It *may* have been the best weekend of my life. I quickly realised I couldn't get out of bed (let alone run a blaaaddy business) if I stayed on that dosage though (as blissfully blissed out as I was) so I tinkered about til I found a dose that allowed me to sleep AND get up the next day. I was very confused for the first month or so on them. I am now terrified of being elderly having experienced genuine 'confusion'. I used to get off the train in random places and wave at strangers and cry in public places because I suddenly wouldn't know where I was or why I was there. It was funny when it wasn't scary. My conversation skills were RAD.