Trying to keep track of the finances when you’ve suffered a mild TBI and have so little coming in is particularly difficult.

I’ve spent a lot of time this month and put in a lot of effort trying to keep the bank straight as far as outgoing payments are concerned. I’ve been whittling away at the outgoings for months, off and on, and have now cancelled <em>all</em> non-essential items. I even went to cancel my little health cover policy last week on the basis that it reimburses you part of your expenditure for things like the osteopath, but as I can’t afford to go to her anyway….  The company were really good about it and have a “two months free” arrangement for people in financial difficulties.

The energy company have put their disability team onto my case to try to help me to find ways of paying the winter quarter bill which is still outstanding.

Because of the thorough analysis I did earlier in the month I knew that today was going to be tight, very tight, so I spent time yesterday getting every last penny into my current account so that the Sky payment (tv, phone and broadband) would go through today. I even transferred the last 6p (about a dime) from my budget account into my current account and, after I’d been to the Jobcentre yesterday to sign on, paid in virtually my last 60p in cash, just to keep things right.  I almost forgot, of course, and was nearly back at the car when I remembered, so had to trudge all the way back up to the bank, which is near the Jobcentre, to do it. 

The car, which will be off the road at the end of the month, was working on fumes but I had worked out that I had a little bit of space on my credit card as I had made a couple of monthly payments on it and hadn’t used it recently.  That, I thought, will give me some diesel.

When I left the bank I went to the filling station and put £20 of diesel in the car,which might just last until the end of the month.

Today I get a text from the bank telling me that I don’t have enough in my account for the payments that are due ! What ?!

I, of course, thought that it was the health cover payment (which would have been due around today) so I rang them to check it, but they confirmed that they weren’t asking for any money this month.

When I rang the bank they said that there was a £20 payment in the pipeline which was the reason for the text.

What £20 payment ?

Then it dawned on me, of course… I’d used the wrong card at the filling station !

I do everything I possibly can to try to keep things straight under the most severe financial pressure and <strong>still</strong> I manage to screw it up.

Last month the Sky bill bounced because there wasn’t enough money in the account.  I had <em>tried</em> at the last moment to make sure there was, but the transfer of the last of the money from Amanda’s account didn’t go through until the following day.

The bank, being the money-grabbing bastards that they are, have very kindly said that they will waive the £10 charge for that… but… if I agree to that they will not allow the waiving or refunding of any further charges for the next 12 months.  One used to be able to negotiate these things on a individual basis but now, of course, they want to protect their ability screw us.  I didn’t commit to that offer.

I’ll need to reappraise the situation after the weekend and when my pathetically small Jobseekers Allowance has gone in.

This is wearing me down.

Update:  We hunted around in various places and managed to just about scramble £20 together which we then took down to the bank and paid in. That’s the food money gone until Tuesday.

Seaweed lettuce and egg porridge

Yes, strange title for a blog post.
It’s almost a year since I last posted on here, but such is life.
I was only thinking this morning that it’s about time I started putting my thoughts and experiences down in writing again and then, lo and behold, the perfect opportunity (reason) presents itself.
Things have been somewhat difficult lately so a quick summary of the past 12 months may be appropriate to help set the scene.

Last September I went over to China again and brought Amanda back to stay full time in the UK. We arrived back on the Friday and on the following Wednesday the company I was working for went into liquidation. Great !
Neither of us have been able to get paid work since then although Amanda has been on a voluntary placement for the past couple of months which, we hope, might lead to some money coming in.
In the meantime my claim against the woman who ran me over was finalised out of court in October, not to my satisfaction but to the extent that no more could have been got without going to court, and I wouldn’t have been up to facing four days of that.
Needless to say that, having paid off some debts and having had to live on very limited income ever since, all the compensation money has gone. Our plans to use that to allow us to move to a larger place, even to move out of the area and back down south, went the way of all plans.
I keep going round the loop of trying to get my Disability Living Allowance reinstated, so far without success, but at least this time I have the help of the Welfare officer at the housing association so things are looking a little more hopeful, although the appeal hearing for that won’t be before the end of October…
Amanda’s spousal visa allows her no access to public funds so we are having to try to survive on my Jobseekers Allowance and pension. That was almost sustainable while I was getting the Contributions Based version, but after 6 months you get changed over to Income Based and, because I have my pensions coming in, it is adjusted to ensure that I get no more than £67.50 a week total income.
That has to provide for two of us.
That isn’t enough to survive on.
By the time we have paid for the essential bills (when we can) there is virtually nothing left for food.
We live very close to the sea so for months now Amanda has been subsidising our food with a combination of seaweed, sea snails, the occasional crab, and whatever we can pick from the wild; things such as garlic chives and dandelions. I can vouch for the fact that dandelion soup has a very bitter taste.
With the spring flourish now mainly over we have been struggling to work out what else would be available until this morning when Amanda was visiting a friend locally and spotted Sweet Pea plants in her garden. A quick leaf stripping exercise (followed by an even quicker cookery lesson for her friend) has provided us with a tub of tasty soup for this evening.
Lunch today is a different matter and is the reason for this post.
Over the past few weeks Amanda has been serving up the occasional porridge dish, usually with a spattering of garlic chives or similar mixed in. We have two types of “porridge” served in this house, the British type made with oats and the Chinese type made with rice.
I was in the kitchen while Amanda was about to start today’s lunch and she waved and shook the porridge container (in the picture) to show that it was about to be emptied.
Realisation, shock and dread !
For those who have no understanding of the effects that a mild TBI can have on a person I ask you to consider the following…
Until that moment I had no idea whatsoever that the porridge Amanda had been serving up over the past few weeks had been coming from the plastic container on the top shelf of the cupboard.
I had not made any association between the food that I was eating and its source.
My porridge container is my “emergency reserve” for when I am on my own and there is nothing else that is easily prepared. You will see that it has the instructions taped to the outside because, even in the depths of winter when my porridge intake is at its highest, I can never remember how to do it.
My porridge reserve is gone.
We’ve been eating my porridge reserve… and I had no idea !
You can sit me down in a small room and run as many of your standard tests as you like, but they will never tell you what it is like to have to live with not being able to associate one thing with another on a daily basis.
Confused ?… Of course… I’m always confused.
It’s how I live.

Not just in writing either… in bold letters !

In a medical report commissioned by my solicitor and produced by
“Dr ##########, MBChB, MPhil, MD, FRCPsych
Consultant/Part Time Senior Lecturer in Neuropsychiatry & Psychological Medicine”

…on balance of probability it is more likely that a mild traumatic brain injury occurred.

Hallelujah !!! Those four words at last.

Yes there are other factors in his report, all of which are perfectly valid and with which I concur, which relate to other circumstances surrounding the accident and my “self-cognition” (is that a word ?) of the resulting symptoms and, as he puts it, the mechanics of what is happening, but his comments in those respects are perfectly fair and reasonable and are indeed helpful to me in focussing my mind onto some form of potential recovery strategy.

But not only that; he criticises some of the other medics and their diagnoses (the same ones I would criticise), and he makes it quite clear that I have not received a clear diagnosis of my condition which would both be of benefit to me, and give (me) some explanation as to the cause of (my) symptoms and provide adequate reassurance.

Now I have something to build on.

Now I can say mild traumatic brain injury without fear of contradiction or belittlement.

Now, taking the whole of his report into account, I can start to move forward with a more positive outlook on the future, with a much greater hope for (possibly) an almost complete recovery, and in the knowledge that he has identified ways in which NHS Fife can get off their fat, useless butts and actually start thinking about ways to help with that recovery.

See that ?… Recovery….

I never thought I would be using that word….

Thank you Dr ##########

The only area of contention would be when he states (and the emphasis is mine, not his)…

Such mild injuries have been the subject of considerable medical controversy but over recent years has been greatly helped by the World Health Organisation’s excellent systematic review of this field. Essentially injuries of this severity do not cause any cognitive impairment and do not cause long-term cognitive consequences. It can however cause transient symptoms a) in the immediate aftermath and b) sustained for up to 3 months.

This is in direct opposition to so many schools of thought I have discovered (and then lost the link to) on the internet where experienced, professional individuals and organisations have risen up against this point of view to state that it is indeed becoming apparent that such difficulties can, and do, persist in some cases for many years.

If you can point me at any good, authoritative reading on this matter which would back up this (and my own) assertion then I would be very grateful as, due to my long-term reduced capabilities, I am unable to work out where I might have recorded the links to such material.

Thanks for reading, and do stay safe.

Find out how by visiting her blog !
]]> http://whileithinkofit.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/sweetie-the-marathon-running-hamster/feed/ 0 honorarynewfie Sweetie - the marathon running hamster http://whileithinkofit.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/sometimes-it-all-gets-too-much/ http://whileithinkofit.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/sometimes-it-all-gets-too-much/#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:30:13 +0000 honorarynewfie http://whileithinkofit.wordpress.com/?p=210 ]]> Well it’s been a while since I posted on here, but I just need to get this recorded and off my chest.

Last weekend I lent some friends of mine (S & A) £20 as they were running short just coming up to his pay day. It was a struggle for me to do it because things are very tight for me too just now, but as A promised faithfully that I would get it back by the middle of the week (Tuesday was S’s pay day), I agreed.

I went over to their place on Sunday to give them the money and while we were chatting A explained that they were going to be having workmen in on Wednesday to fit a new boiler and to do a load of other work to the heating system.  The workmen were going to be there from about 8:00 in the morning until 9:30 at night.

She asked me if it would be possible for them to bring their dog over to my place, and I assumed she meant after I got home from work.  It turned out she meant all day, and that they wanted to leave him alone for a lot of that time.

Eventually (see below) I had to say no as, love him as I do, I know he couldn’t be trusted not to get his nose into things where little doggies noses aren’t wanted.

——

I have been struggling since the end of last week to work out how I am going to organise my finances so that I have enough money in my main account to be able to make the monthly transfer to my budget account this weekend. Things have been looking impossibly tight. I made a bit of a boo-boo earlier in the month by putting the £200 deposit for my new glasses on my Debit card instead of my Credit card, and that has left me very short.

——

On Wednesday evening I rang S after the football had finished to swap notes on the evening’s events (a great win for my team). The first thing he said to me was “When do you want us to bring that money over ?”, to which I replied, “Oh ! That’s why I’ve been short of cash ! I’d forgotten I lent you that.”
We agreed that they could bring it over on Thursday while I was at work. (They have a key).

——

For the past couple of months we have been getting paid weekly at work because we are about to be taken over and, if it all went “tits up” the management didn’t want the staff to be left being owed money. Yesterday (Thursday) my boss at work was having a chat to us all about how we wanted to get paid for April, on the basis that the takeover is all-but signed now. The general consensus was that we all wanted to continue with the weekly payments for a while longer, and I even made the comment “I need every penny I can get at the moment, and as quickly as possible”.
When I got home the £20 was sitting on my keyboard waiting for me (thank you S & A) and I had a look at my bank accounts online and juggled what little I had left into the right places so that the normal end-of-month transfers could take place. Then I continued wondering how I was going to survive until Friday (pay day) of next week.

——

Today we got paid…. just like every other week !

——

Next week I will get one of my monthly pension payments, just like every other month.

——

How did all this confusion arise ?
Under normal circumstances, monthly pay, my money comes in to my current account and a standing order transfers enough into my budget account to pay my normal monthly outgoings.
Since we went on weekly pay I have been transferring one quarter of that amount each weekend into my separate “Contingency” account so that I have enough in there at the end of the month to be able to transfer it all back just in time for the standing order.
Quite simply because I made that mess-up at the start of the month that left me very short until the next Friday, and also meant that I couldn’t put anything aside into the contingency account that week. Subsequently I have been putting extra away each week to try to make up the difference. It all makes perfect sense…..
… until we get to the end of the month and I forget that I will be paid again this week, and I forget that the pension will be coming in. Both of those are good news, but how can I manage to forget them ?

——

They are symptomatic of my condition.
Earlier on I mentioned that I would add a footnote to the dog question.
What I didn’t say back then was that after A asked me the question I took about 15 minutes to give her an answer and, during that time, was fairly much oblivious to anything and everything that was going on around me (S & A talking to me, their kids running around the place pestering the grown-ups). Trying to work out the pro’s and con’s of them leaving Zak at my place took so much mental effort that my brain couldn’t really register anything else.
Add to that the “straight-line thinking” problem (as in “I’m going to be short of money at the end of the month”, so my brain ignores the obvious and holds me onto that thought) and is it any wonder it all gets too much ?

——

That’s probably the most disjointed blog post you’ve read in a while, but at least I can understand it…. just !

How relevant is any pre-existing condition that the injured party may have ?

We are talking about brain injuries here, concussions, and the way that the psyche of the injured party may influence their recovery.

To cut to the chase, in a sarcastic manner, I maintain that if her insurance company didn’t want my recovery to be (possibly) affected by my emotional state then they should have advised her to be a little more circumspect about who she chose to run over.

This has been highlighted to me by two posts that I have read in fairly quick succession.  Firstly one from patientanonymous in which she poses a number of questions relating to the interaction between the parts of the brain that perform executive function and the parts that process emotions, and secondly one from the brilliant Kara Swanson who reaffirms her belief that “your recovery from a brain injury begins with the broken heart.”

As each of us is physically different so we are mentally different. Our brains function in subtly different ways because we are all “made” differently.

Putting these two posts in context from my own perspective, I am gradually becoming aware that I am expending too much of my mental energy on trying to be “the person I was” rather than just accepting the limitations which are now imposed on me. If I were to [be able] to do that then apparently the perceived wisdom is that my recovery may be quicker because I would be putting less strain on myself, less “emotional” strain maybe, and the healing process could come to the fore.

I haven’t yet recovered from the “broken heart”; still haven’t accepted what happened. I still yearn for the life that I had mapped out for myself in those few weeks before the accident; the new job (whatever it may have been) or the chance to do that Degree, the little cottage that I had pictured myself renting, the “space and time” to recover from the years of torment in that previous relationship, and the chance to find out once and for all “who I really am” deep down inside. “Peace” had finally arrived in my heart just two days before the accident, and it was torn from me on that pedestrian crossing.

Being an individual with a history of emotional difficulties it is quite natural for me to feel angry, betrayed (by life), frustrated, disillusioned and bitter about what was taken from me, and to have similar emotions both about my inability to cope with the after effects (including the emotions themselves) and with the medical and legal professionals who seem to trivialise the effect “they consider” the accident should have had.

Patientanonymous is quite right to ask “Are too many emotions too much to handle ?”. I totally see her point, and I do recognise that I am expending a lot of emotional energy in trying to come to terms with what has happened. I don’t necessarily want to… it’s just the way I am. It’s just the way I am made. I’m sorry, I’m not strong.

So the questions are:
1. When assessing the damage caused to someone in a personal injury claim, should a pre-existing condition be considered a reducing factor when assessing the amount of compensation in relation to the perceived effects on them ?
2. Should the after effects on that individual (or more precisely their inability to cope with them) not be taken into account ?

For sake of argument, if it were possible to initiate identical injuries to two different people, one of whom had the capacity and fortitude to just “dust themselves down” and get on with their life, and another who just couldn’t handle it, should there be identical compensation for each of them ?

I’ll leave you to ponder on that.

Thanks for reading.

My solicitor had phoned me the other day to say that he wanted to arrange a video conference with myself and my appointed Advocate in the court case against the woman who ran me over.  He suggested a date and time for next Tuesday afternoon, to which I agreed because (as far as I could remember) the only appointment I had next week was with the osteopath on Wednesday.  I subsequently realised that next Tuesday morning is my long-awaited dental appointment at the hospital (I consider 11 months to be a long wait) when I will be having at least two teeth removed.

During our telephone conversation he had also mentioned that he had received the OK to arrange a report on my condition from an expert.

1) The (slightly) good news.

The letter that arrived today confirmed the date and time of the appointment for the video linkup next week and the fact that he had made an appointment for me with our new “expert”, although it will not be happening until the middle of May !

It also said that the court hearing date had been fixed, at last, for the end of November.  This fits the time scale that he had warned me about so I am pleased that, at least, I now know when that will happen.

But attached to the letter was a copy of the Record outlining our case against the woman and showing the initial defences offered. Two good points come from this.

Firstly, the other side are admitting liability.

Secondly, along with a list of the major symptoms I have been suffering, is the statement “He has suffered post concussion syndrome.”.

At last !  That can only have come from the medical report prepared by the Psychologist I was seeing, so at least I can now talk about my condition with some certainty, even if the expression “Post Concussion Syndrome” is a bit wooly and something of a “cop-out” (You hit your head, things aren’t right now, but we don’t know why). I still maintain that, because of the symptoms I experience, it is actually Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, but that’s by-the-by.

However…..

2) The bad news.

The other letter was from the Benefits Agency informing me that they have withdrawn my Disability Living Allowance.

Bastards !

Are they f-ing nuts ?

I have great difficulty with form filling.  The application form that I had to fill in to renew my claim at the end of last year was 38 pages long ! As I cannot always understand the direct meaning of a question (I will see ambiguities in questions and try to answer all possibilities) and am somewhat verbose in the way I explain things I wasn’t able, in most cases, to fit all I needed to say into the space available.  So, as with my original application, I submitted a “supporting statement” in which I detailed my responses to the questions asked and in those cases I put “See statement” in the box on the form.

Judging by the fact that my application has been rejected on what appears to be every count, I can only assume that the application form has been looked at without any reference to the statement being made at all !

The letter says that I do not need help with these matters…

Under “Guidance or supervision”

• with asking or following directions
• because of anxiety or panic attacks

and they say that I do not need guidance or supervision when walking outside on unfamiliar routes. (I rarely go anywhere unfamiliar for fear of getting lost !)

Under “Preparing a cooked main meal”

• plan a meal
• motivate myself

and they say that I do not need help to prepare a cooked main meal for one person. (Is cake and biscuits a cooked main meal ? I have cooked one meal this week and that was pre-packaged, stir-fried veg which I was forced into cooking because I was ravenous, was struggling with the motivation to cook, decided to call the local take-away only to find it wasn’t answering the phone !)

They say that I do not need help to communicate or to take part in social activities. (I pointed out that I have virtually given up any social activity because of the strain it puts me under, and so rarely ever go out !)

They say that I am aware of common dangers (I am shit scared of crossing a road !) and not at risk of self neglect. (Huh !? Self-neglect was one of the main themes in the statement !)

They tell me I have one month from the date of the letter to telephone or write to them if I think their decision is wrong, or one month in which to appeal.

Perhaps I should just point them at this.

It’s not a proper letter though is it ?  It’s just my brain emptying itself somewhere so that, maybe, the shock will have a chance to set in.

Telephoning is out of the question because I cannot think fast enough to be able to hold a coherent conversation over the phone . Actually writing a letter, of any sort, would be a major task at which I nearly freeze just at the sheer thought of it.

Help !

I’ve been suffering with my back quite badly off and on for the past four years with a fairly regular need to visit the osteopath.

When I first moved up here to Scotland three years ago I went to see the local osteopath in xxxxxxxxx to get some loosening-up done and had a few sessions on a regular basis.

A few months later, after I got the flat about an hour’s drive away, I carried on seeing her occasionally but the visits tailed off after I got into work.

Towards the tail end of last year it became obvious that I needed to get a good working over again but, because of my organisational difficulties, could never get around to getting it sorted.  Eventually I arranged to see a different osteopath, more local to work and home, but she really isn’t that good and after six or seven weekly visits I gave up on her.

A couple of weeks ago I went over my nephew’s so that he could do some work on my car and slept the night on his sofa.  Well that finally did for my back.

By the time I got home the next day I could hardly move !

There was no choice but to fix up with “my old friend” in order to be able to walk properly again.  I should have been using sticks, but I seem to have lost mine somewhere…

So a week last Wednesday I finally got in to see her again and she set about trying to put me right.  It will take a few sessions but at least after this weeks session I can now walk without too much pain and it only really gives me aggravation if I need to bend or if I twist my torso.

She’s a lovely girl.  Early to mid thirties, very attractive (very pretty face, gorgeous body), great personality, and very good at her job.  She looks as though she takes care of herself – quite the “sporty” type.

So I was somewhat taken aback by a comment she made during this weeks session when I remarked that she might not sound so happy if she were, like me, on the receiving end of what was happening.  Her response was “Oh, I know exactly what it feels like.”

“You don’t need an osteopath, do you ?”, I asked.  ”Oh yes, I get regular treatment.” she said.

Well who would have thought it ?…  ”Physician heal thyself !”

To look at her one would think that she is the picture of health.  You would think “Oh she probably goes jogging or cycling a couple of times a week and runs marathons for fun.”  Apparently not.

You see, just by looking at somebody, spending a bit of time with them, talking to them, (having them knock eight shades of sh*t out of your back), you can’t tell, can you ?

You can never tell from the outside just what problems somebody might be living with inside… so never pre-judge anybody.

I only ever go on there if somebody sends me a friend request, writes something on my wall, or (for some strange reason) sends me a message there rather than e-mailing me direct.

This week one of my sisters started giving me a hard time on my Facebook wall about why I was even on there if I didn’t like it.  It was just getting to the point where I was going to write something very rude in large, unfriendly letters when she went quiet….

Until today, when I got an e-mail from Yahoo!

So, rather than air any more dirty laundry in public, I e-mailed her…….

———————————————————————————-

Hi Gloria,

Gloria Abcdefghi (Gloria)

would like to connect with you on Yahoo! so you can easily share each others’ Updates

So what does “share each others’ Updates” mean ? … Exactly the same as Facebook !

You seem to be missing something here babe…

Signing up to Facebook is not something I’ve only recently done, I originally signed up to it years ago, long before my accident and well before it was as popular as it is today, and probably because I was trying to trace a particular person.  Having got on there (and found it to be reasonably quiet) I just left my profile there so that anyone who wanted to track me down would be able to.  I very soon found out that all those little applications such as “wipe my dog’s bum”, most of which are operated by organisations outside of Facebook itself, always ask you to enter your e-mail address before you can use them to perform the function your friend has invited you to do.  There is no logical reason for that as far as actually “wiping the dog’s bum” is concerned… so why do they want your e-mail address ? (I’ll let you work that one out).  So I never respond to those things.

Since then Facebook has taken off in a big way with a lot of people who happen to have nothing better to do with their time than scrawl inane crap on their “walls” and poke their noses into other peoples business by looking at their walls. I have no interest, and have never had any interest, in such time-wasting trash. (My opinion, to which I am entitled).

I (reluctantly) leave my profile up there so that any long lost friends can make initial contact, after which I will/would divert them to telephone or e-mail which remain my preferred methods of communication.  I have been thinking about removing myself from it because, despite my very clear written comments, a couple of people seem to find it hard to understand them…. I rarely, if ever, visit Facebook by choice…  I have no wish to use it as a regular means of communication… I have no wish to “wipe anybody’s dog’s bum”.

And in any case, I find the whole layout of the thing to be counter-intuitive and always have difficulty finding my way around it, which is aggravation I do not need !

So anyway, I will not be accepting your invitation to do exactly the same sort of thing on Yahoo, thank you anyway, because I accidentally agreed to that with one person when these new facilities became available earlier this year without fully understanding what it was all about, only to find them pestering me with inane little messages day after day !  Eventually I got them to understand how annoying I find that, but it nearly ruined the friendship because they were not respecting my need for simplicity and a lack of interruption.

Since my accident in particular it has been necessary for me to make e-mail my preferred method of communication.  I don’t mind accepting phone calls, I do still enjoy a chat with people when I can manage it, but would like advance warning if possible (not compulsory) so that I can keep the time clear of other things otherwise I can get confused if interrupted in the middle of something.

The advantages of e-mail for me are that :

1)             it is not “immediate”, so I don’t have to try to think at a speed which may be uncomfortable for me

and          2)             I have an automatic reminder sitting there in front of me (in perpetuity)  to say that I need to respond to whoever it is, which means that I don’t have to make a separate note of it.  If I don’t have a reminder then I will, undoubtably, forget.  E-mails give me that reminder thrown in.

These problems of forgetfulness are nothing to do with “age”. [Gloria has said in the past "Oh, it's just your age, pet"] If they were then that would show up in some of the tests I have undergone over the last couple of years.  Those tests prove that my “condition” is not deteriorating (as it would do if ageing were a factor) although unfortunately it is not improving either, which is a great source of frustration to me, but there’s owt one can do about it.

I almost never go “online” on yahoo as to do so would be the same as sitting on Facebook waiting for the world to chat, and I don’t want that.  I only use it as a “backup” facility should Windows Live not be working properly, and I only use Windows Live (under an address that I keep secret) for camming with Amanda (at pre-arranged times).  I do have a spare address on there which I very occasionally use if I want to be online with anybody else, but then again it is only when pre-arranged as I do have difficulties communicating when alone (something people aren’t aware of when they see me with somebody else).

It’s a bloody nuisance, but things have to be like this for me because I get easily confused, have little or no sense of time, and have enough problems just getting through each day as it is.  It makes a big difference when I have Amanda around because I can “feed” off of her normal abilities to function throughout the day and to plan even a short time ahead.  But for the majority of the time I am on my own and have to “make do” the best I can, and the only way I can do that is by exercising what little control I still have over my day-to-day life by asking other people to respect my wishes with regard to (what I consider to be crap) things such as Facebook.

Most people are understanding enough to comply with those wishes, even if they don’t fully understand the reasons for them.

So anyway, that’s taken me well over two hours to write (because my typing is slower and less accurate than it used to be and I am always making loads of corrections as I go), and on an evening where I would have liked some peace and quiet and a chance to unwind because I’ve had two very tiring meetings over the last two evenings (the timing and locations of which have conspired to ensure that by the time I got home it was far too late to consider food), plus an emergency trip to the osteopath because my back is chicaned, and I always get home mentally knackered anyway after even a normal day at work.  I know I’ve got three important things I needed to do this evening but I can’t remember what any of them were now ….

I probably won’t bother with food tonight either because it’s too late for me to start thinking about doing anything (it takes me so long to do even the simplest thing), and it all started because you were giving me a hard time on Facebook instead of just accepting the fact that I simply don’t like it, and surely it has to be my choice as to if and when I remove myself from it without having to explain myself to anyone.

What time or mental capacity would I have for it anyway ?!

And yes, I know I’ve still got photos to send to you, Tracy, Anne and loads of other people, just like I have loads of other things that I haven’t gotten around to over the past few months….. TBI is a bitch ! [On reading this through in here I realise that I actually wrote "... have gotten round to ..." which might confuse her !]

Not being rude, pet, but I think you’ve used up your “quota” of my time for this week.

Take care of yourself.

Love to all.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Possibly not the nicest e-mail she’ll ever get, but why the hell should I have to angry with her in public (on the wall) when I’ve already made it quite clear that I don’t want to use Facebook as a means of day-to-day communication ?

All that is stated quite clearly on my profile, and gently repeated on my wall just about any time one of  my “friends” tries to start a conversation on there. All I do is e-mail them back or respond by asking them nicely to e-mail/phone me.

But some people can’t take a hint !

She seems to automatically assume that because I’m on there I want to participate in all the shite that goes on (my opinion again) even though I’ve stated quite clearly that I don’t.

And now that’s the whole evening gone by, and I’m even more tired… and hungry….

Yippee !

We made it at last, just a week before the third anniversary of the accident.

It will probably still take another year for the whole thing to get sorted out, but at least a little of the tension has eased now because if the papers hadn’t been lodged by Sunday then I would not have been able to claim at all !

I will probably have to undergo more interviews and tests yet (set up by her insurers), but at least this time I will have some idea of what to expect.

Phew !