Struggling

NB, I wrote this post on Saturday and never got around to sharing it with you, before we sadly lost our lovely Merlin on Sunday Morning, it was very sudden and we are all still in a bit of shock as he was doing so well.  He was my constant companion for almost 16 years, keeping me company through the darkest days of this illness, I read in a magazine once  'If you have ME get a cat it will keep you company, snuggle up with you while you rest.'

So I did, I got the wonderful Merlin, my lovely, bonkers, hyperactive, bass jumping, crazy boy who lived life to the max at high speed, not quite the kind of ME friendly sleepy cat companion they meant but I wouldn't have swapped him for the world.  

Merlin 1999-2015. 

 

********************

Hello............ It's fair to say I've been struggling a bit lately, there just seems to be no energy in the tank and this relapse of my illness has really taken a hold.

I find myself it a tricky situation, it used to be simpler at least before I had a diagnosis, for years I was told you have ME/CFS.  Then about eight years ago that changed to, well it might be Chronic Lyme disease, and now well, who knows, one things for sure no one seems to know.  Things are getting worse and with no real diagnosis, we don't even know where to start. 

Currently I find myself in Limbo, with phrases like, it's maybe endocrine based, or it's seems autoimmune, it's getting really complicated, for sure it's not like ME, it's a grey area of medicine, all being banded around.

So my GP, has given me two weeks of steroids as a experiment, to see if they help, there is a risk they will make things much worse, if I have Lyme Disease so it's a case of weighing it all up, I've decided I'm not doing anything until after my birthday, I really can't face the prospect that things might get even worse.

So what to do I'm trying to stay positive but the simplest tasks leave me exhausted, with all my symptoms in full on mode, even writing this post is a battle as my spelling and word finding skills  are in a right pickle.

So apologises if my posts lately have been few and full of spelling errors or have completely the wrong words, placed where they should not be, the random word things been happening a lot.  I also apologise for not getting around to visit all you're lovely blogs as often as I should and would like too.

At least someone has been bouncing back well though, lovely Merlin gave us all a bit of a scare the friday before last, we are still not really certain what happened to the old fellow (he's 15) but we found him sat in the middle of our pond in the reed baskets, with one pupil not reacting and on three legs.  

Three trips to the vets later and he's back on his game, after magic jab number one he was back on four legs again, although a bit wobbly, Jab number two the next days (Saturday), saw his walking improve and his eyes starting to recover.  The vet said it was something neurological going on maybe a stroke or something.

By Monday he was back to his normal self leaping (his favourite trick)  off the summerhouse roof and onto the garden wall, there is no keeping a good cat down, so instead of staying in at the vets for investigations, given his age and his level of recovery we decided along with vet not to risk a anaesthetic for such a elderly cat. Fingers crossed he stays on the up.

I don't know what was in those jabs, but I'm thinking of asking the vet for one.

*****************************

Merlin woke us at 2am on Sunday morning, having lost the use of his back legs, we passed the early hours of the morning trying to comfort him, keeping him calm, warm and as comfortable as could be, after his first stroke he bounced back to full on all action Merli mode for one last week, he was even still charging around the house at midnight on Sunday before going to sleep, but this time a clot had blocked his Femoral Artery and cut off the blood supply to his legs and there was nothing to be done.

Rest in peace my lovely boy.

Clare xx