I haven't blogged in a while, talking on chat and to the penguin mainly, but I am feeling the need to have a really good rant! So here I go.
It will be 5 months on friday since I lost my husband to this horrible disease, since it crept up on us so no one expected it and by the time it was found he had no chance to fight.
I went to see the GP last week as I needed to extend my sick note into the new year, when there were tentative plans for me to return to work. I beleive that I have now got to the point in this grieving process where having no focus, no expectations of me and therefore nothing to do has become counter-productive, so I was gearing myself up for the idea of returning to work in january. no point going back before this season is hard enough without adding more difficult situations and dealing with too many celebrating people. So I explained all this to my GP, and I also explained when asked that yes I do still find it very hard in the mornings, my sleep pattern is very poor BUT I am coping with the day to day much better, I am talking about things that I might do over the comming months, run the 10km for macmillan, enrol to do a certificate in madical education for work. I explained that i realised that going back to work as a doctor in a hospital is going to be really hard, but that waiting any longer now i felt would not help. I wanted to go back to work with limited hours and limited resposibility at work and build up depending on how I cope.
My GP sat and listened to all this seeming to agree, then took a breath and said, He felt I was still very flat!, that he was worried that I was becomming clinically depressed! and that he wanted to start me on SSRI's (antidepressants in plain english). I was blown side ways. Of course i am flat!!! My husband, the man I spent the last 131/2 years with died less then 5 months ago! the man I have spent my whole adult life with! The man I wanted to have children with but never got the chance, I have probably lost the chance now to ever have a family, at 32 years old I am staring into the abyss of a potentially very long life alone, sure I have my parents right now but sadly they will go some day, my sister has her own husband and her own life and hopefully her own children at some point. So I am sorry I I seem flat to you Mr GP but I am having to cope with all that and the flash backs of whatching tha man I love dying, knowing he was dying fighting hard no to but not being given the chance. And the constant reminder that when I feel this sorry for myself, everything that I have lost is nothing compared to what he lost, he lost the chance to live, he lost the chance to see his daughter become a woman, he lost the chance to be a proper dad to the children we wanted to have. He never got the chance to see egypt on the honeymoon we could never take, the place that had facinated him all his life, the trip of a lifetime so close but so very very far away! He never got to celebrate his 40th birthday, insted marked by his loved ones crying and placing flowers around his tree in the cemetary. He lost so much more then me.
And yet it seems that my attempts to carry on are going to be thwated by my GP, who insted of writing a one month sick note and asking to see me again in a month, has written effectively a two month sick note till the end on january. So now I can't start to work unless he retracts it.
My councillor agrees with me that it is time to think about returning to work. I think the GP is actually trying to cover his own arse! He gave me all the shpeel about the responsibilities of our job and I think he is worried he'll get the blame if anything were to go wrong! But much as what I have written here so far has been very low, i am blowing off steam, and I am coping and my brain is functioning and although I understand what he is saying i am not stupid, I don't want to go back too early and cause me to have a full breakdown or miss something in a patient at work (oh no not like they missed the widespread metastatic cancer in my husband for months on end, despite him comming with abdo pain time after time!!!!!). But if it is done right, slow and with limited responsibility for a few months I think I am about ready. To top it off the doctor in the occupational health department also agrees with me! but it is my GP who has the responsibility for my sick note, so i'm stuffed.
Well to show him, and to give me something that a young single person can do, I have joined a gym! Big step for an over weight, exercise phobic like me, but the person I was has to change and has changed. I can never be the same and as I said before I plan to run 10km for macmillan, not till May though.
I am sorry if this has upset people, i needed to rant and blow off steam and emotion.
