So now, sick of being shoved from pillar to post and being basically bullied into corners, we have decided to go legal….My sister has been an incredible force. There is no way in heaven or earth I would have been able to do all the paperwork and appointments on my own – or at all – actually. She took all of that worry and confusion away from me.
We were fighting for me to have the correct amount of a serious medication called Pregabalin – and I need the most you can take and a little Morphine thrown in here and there, just to keep those pain centres quiet. And I’m like, “Hell yeah! Shut those fuckers down!” Hoping for a miracle and getting as close to that as I could with a lot of the “noise” pain being dampened. I still have severe pain in my back/hip/sciatica and the odd chest pain that incapacitates me too, but certainly not the constant stabs all over the left hand side of my body that was exhausting. And my right eye socket was so incredibly painful I couldn’t open my eye and I wanted to literally rip it out, or smash my head in. I used to pinch the skin next to the internal pain in my chest where the nerve damage is and also dig my thumb deep in to my eye socket to at least change the pain. I know I can’t be free of it at this stage, but at least not have the same gnawing hits. Anyway, I digress…so we go to see this lawyer and he’s fantastic. He’s onto it, he knows what needs to happen, what we need to get or locate etc. This is great as we needed this guidance and the clout that the lawyer gave us. The hardest part – well, there were two to be perfectly honest. The first hard part was actually going to talk to this lawyer – with such a complicated case there is so much information that needs to be assessed. And this is the firm to be doing this, but I was so fragile BeFoRe I left the bloody house! I felt overwhelmed, I cried and had to put my mascara back on – it didn’t help. I think I was in disbelief that after all these years and after all of our struggle on our own, someone was going to listen and possibly help.
Anyway, the second part is this; while you are the client/patient/victim/however you wish to see yourself, people get so involved in the complications of my case that they talk as if I am no longer present.My sister and the lawyer started chatting, I’m on so much medication and in so much pain I lay on his couch with a glass of water as my meds give me major cotton-mouth. So the hardest part of all of this (and it sounds sooooo not hard), but was listening to my sister and the lawyer “discuss” my case which made me feel like I wasn’t even there – and to be perfectly honest, I’m not when I’m on such medication.
But it also didn’t change the fact that I had to listen to how permanent my situation is, that there is nothing anyone can do and it’s just a matter of medicating her, sorting out what help I need and the physio required to “rehabilitate” me – world’s largest joke if that is supposed to be happening right now…because all I have felt is re-victimised, unworthy of help, forgotten and just a number. It’s not ok, the 2 medical misadventures I’ve had, it’s not ok to be abandoned by your so-called insurance company, it’s not ok when someone botches something, that they never have to own up – ever. The guy who ripped my nerves in my chest in 1998 is now the “golden boy” of thoracic surgery….how the hell did that happen? And I often wonder to myself if he would remember me – more than likely not. I daydream about getting an apology – a genuine “so sorry I fucked up” apology. I have waited since 1998 – I can wait some more….