Major Life Changes

Rosyrain

Rosyrain

Veteran
Joined
16 Nov 2014
Local time
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943
Location
Washington, USA
Well, this has nothing to do with cooking, and I mearly wish to know how all of you cope with major life changes that you did not expect to come into your world. If the major life change was something negative, how did you soothe your emotions and your soul? I am going through a major life change/crisis at the moment and would love to hear your stories and how you worked through your major life change.
 
i have had a blip in my life just three weeks ago,
for many years i have exercised to extremes ,i run swim,and cycle
i mean i had ridden 28 miles the day this started in a time of 1hour 30,most weeks i ride over 180 miles all year I'm not fare weather rider
i live a life with no excesses ,and have just been diagnosed with Atrial fibrillation (AF) it may be a quick fix,may be a blip but i can't understand. why me?,
i am carrying life as normal except exercise ,i am being prepped for a procedure,with thinners and other drugs, i am angry and can't sleep,my doctor has given me sleeping tablets its got that bad,and i am going to see a councillor to talk to ,I am told its all normal ,but you need to talk about your feelings with a trained councillor ,i feel I've lost a big chunk of my life at present, my fellow riders can't believe it either and people that know me don't get it either
my consultant has sped my procedure along,so 7 weeks from start to procedure and thats enough time for the drugs to get me ready,but i don't do illness,and i hate it
 
For me there have been many major changes in my life. The latest one happened on the 5th November last year. Until then I had cycled and cycled and cycled, I had swum, walked and you name it. I have cycled more miles than I had driven in 2014 (+6,000 miles cycled between Jan and Oct) and was commuting 3 times a week on a 22 mile each way commute.
I used to climb mountains, swim every lunch time and not bat an eyelid over walking 27 miles in a day, and getting up and doing the same thing the next day and the next. A holiday for me was the chance to get out and walk or cycle a long distance. My last holiday was a 700 mile off-road camping tour by bike in the UK. That was last September.

Then I put the telephone down and went to walk away, in my own home. Sometime I do quite a lot :laugh: only this time it did not happen. I put the phone down, went to turn around and ended up on the floor in agony where I lay for the best part of 2 hours before I could move to my bed where I have been ever since other than the odd visit to hospital by stretcher because I can't sit. I can't weight bear on my spine. A disc shattered (not ruptured) in my spine at L5-S1 which is basically the lowest disc. It shattered as though it was made of ceramic rather than plasticine which is how they are meant to be. Overnight I lost the use of my right leg and most of the feeling as well.

To cut a very long story short, my spine can't now weight bear. For me to ride my recumbent trike (bought since this happened and it is the only way I leave the house without an ambulance!) I need to have a double dose of morphine, single dose of paracetamol and a large dose of pregabalin which suppressed nerve pain. I need the same to walk anywhere (100-200metres) with crutches and can't walk without crutches at all. I have had surgery which has recovered 2/3rds of the use of my right leg and most of the feeling, but not all of the control. I have also had another procedure which didn't help at all. I still can't sit up in a chair normally and haven't done other than my physio (8-10 times a day) since my back went. My new surgeon thinks that my spine did not develop properly and had anyone who knew what they were looking at seen an MRI of my spine, they would have seen this coming. The next disc up is sound but misshapen and is a wedge not a disc - hence the probability it is a birth defect and was always going to happen, it was just a case of when. I go in for major surgery on my back on Monday, in a hope to reduce the pain I am in, the pain meds I am on (I have been on morphine since it happened over 6 months ago and am now on time release morphine capsules as well as oral morphine and various other meds) and a hope that fusing the spine will allow me to sit up again. I have had to purchase one of those horrible riser/recliner chairs, I have a frame around the toilet and we are considering moving into a bungalow if this surgery does not work. I don't know if I will ever be able to drive a normal car again!

So life has changed a touch recently.
 
Berties said:
i have had a blip in my life just three weeks ago,
for many years i have exercised to extremes ,i run swim,and cycle
i mean i had ridden 28 miles the day this started in a time of 1hour 30,most weeks i ride over 180 miles all year I'm not fare weather rider
i live a life with no excesses ,and have just been diagnosed with Atrial fibrillation (AF) it may be a quick fix,may be a blip but i can't understand. why me?,
i am carrying life as normal except exercise ,i am being prepped for a procedure,with thinners and other drugs, i am angry and can't sleep,my doctor has given me sleeping tablets its got that bad,and i am going to see a councillor to talk to ,I am told its all normal ,but you need to talk about your feelings with a trained councillor ,i feel I've lost a big chunk of my life at present, my fellow riders can't believe it either and people that know me don't get it either
my consultant has sped my procedure along,so 7 weeks from start to procedure and thats enough time for the drugs to get me ready,but i don't do illness,and i hate it
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hang in there. I know people who have had triple heart bypasses and gone on to complete iron man's. It will get better. I always tell myself I have been worse. I have been. It was 5th November. I am now considerably better than then. I may have been on morphine for more than 6 months, but I am considerably better than I was on the 5th November. I am also struggling with depression as well, but am staying off any more drugs. I need the morphine for the pain management and anything else has to take a back seat because I am a severe asthmatic as well with adrenal gland issues as a result.
 
one thing I've learnt life is delicate and precious,
i have always considered my self indestructible ,i would leave for work on the bike in the morning work all day have ride in the afternoon and then work till late at night 5-6 days a week.always working on a project ,was working on doing fences and hedging at home and bang ,it came on that quick
my feelings of anger are apparently those of bereavement ,
 
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Berties said:
my feelings of anger are apparently those of bereavement ,
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Yep, I know that feeling. I used to cycle to work every day. Swim a lunch times, cycle home again. Have Saturday's off. Sunday I would ride with my husband.
Holidays were winter mountaineering, cycling, walking, hiking... you name it, if it was active and physical.
Then I went off to cycle around the world.
Came back after it didn't quite go to plan and worked on getting my fitness back. 2 years later I am cycling 44 mile commutes 3-4 times a week, cycling +80 mile rides with my husband at the weekend, every other weekend. My BMI was borderline overweight because of muscle and my GP had me down as "fitter than fit" and then this happens. Bedbound overnight, literally.

I have been told I can't compare what I can do now with what I could do then. I have to consider that life gone. I have to concentrate on what I have now. Now I fight to walk 100-200m struggle to walk 750m in a hour. I will be grateful for being able to be taken around a supermarket in a wheelchair now! I can still cycle, but I fight to manage 8mph. I can now manage 20 miles, but it will take me all morning, literally. I can't work, I can't drive, I can't... the list goes on. I have to concentrate on what I can do and work on getting better. It has been 6 months now and the only time I leave the house is on a stretcher or on my recumbent trike. If it breaks down I am up the creak without a paddle literally. I have managed to rig the trike to take my crutches with me, but the truth is I can't even wash myself or dress myself yet!

My other feelings are why me? I'm already a severe asthmatic (despite being very fit and active). I have secondary Addison's disease as a result of my asthma medication and am steroids dependent. That has left me with osteoporosis in one of my femurs because of the use of steroids to control my asthma compounded with an existing spinal injury when I was 20. I have a number of other serious medical complications because of my asthma (like bronchiectasis and tracheomalacia) and a severe, fatal allergy to all dairy products (and by-products).

But all you can do is to keep fighting. Remind yourself you have been worse and concentrate on getting better.
You can't stop fighting otherwise there is nothing left and if you have family and friends around you, then you have to carry on for them. I may be useless, bed-bound and unable to dress or wash myself, but I can still make a mean loaf of sourdough bread -the perfect thing for someone who need to sit down for a couple of hours and rest after a 10 minutes work!
 
I hope all goes well for you guys. Life can change so quickly we must live in the now and move forward. I am well, last year my daughter was operated on for colon cancer, that has changed how I look at life and how I plan to live the rest of my life.
 
SatNav and Berties- your injuries sound very painful and I hope that you recover fully very soon. I have never had a debilitating injury and I hope it never happens, but who knows what the future will hold as I get older. My life change is more of an emotional one and it is taking a huge toll on me. I have hardly consumed 2000 calories in the last couple of days because everything tastes like cardboard. There is something going on with my husband and he is not talking to me about it. He has been acting very strange and he is hiding something. My gut instinct tells me so. I am at an impass and I do not know what to do.
 
Rosyrain said:
SatNav and Berties- your injuries sound very painful and I hope that you recover fully very soon. I have never had a debilitating injury and I hope it never happens, but who knows what the future will hold as I get older. My life change is more of an emotional one and it is taking a huge toll on me. I have hardly consumed 2000 calories in the last couple of days because everything tastes like cardboard. There is something going on with my husband and he is not talking to me about it. He has been acting very strange and he is hiding something. My gut instinct tells me so. I am at an impass and I do not know what to do.
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:hug:
 
Pat said:
I hope all goes well for you guys. Life can change so quickly we must live in the now and move forward. I am well, last year my daughter was operated on for colon cancer, that has changed how I look at life and how I plan to live the rest of my life.
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My heart and thoughts go out to you , I hate it when my kids are ill and how you must feel they are all precious no matter how old they are
 
Rosyrain said:
SatNav and Berties- your injuries sound very painful and I hope that you recover fully very soon. I have never had a debilitating injury and I hope it never happens, but who knows what the future will hold as I get older. My life change is more of an emotional one and it is taking a huge toll on me. I have hardly consumed 2000 calories in the last couple of days because everything tastes like cardboard. There is something going on with my husband and he is not talking to me about it. He has been acting very strange and he is hiding something. My gut instinct tells me so. I am at an impass and I do not know what to do.
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One thing I've learnt is you've got to talk , to each other is a start
Unlike satnav I'm not in any pain or discomfort, that's another thing , mine is ,I can't do what I always have done , and what could happen,and so has done my head in , I'm the one who gets the problems bought to me normally
I can't under stand why me, selfish I know
 
Rosyrain said:
SatNav and Berties- your injuries sound very painful and I hope that you recover fully very soon. I have never had a debilitating injury and I hope it never happens, but who knows what the future will hold as I get older. My life change is more of an emotional one and it is taking a huge toll on me. I have hardly consumed 2000 calories in the last couple of days because everything tastes like cardboard. There is something going on with my husband and he is not talking to me about it. He has been acting very strange and he is hiding something. My gut instinct tells me so. I am at an impass and I do not know what to do.
Click to expand...
I am amazingly lucky when it comes to my husband. He is so understanding and supporting. I have told him that if he wanted to walk out on the relationship he only had to tell me and I will stand aside (admittedly after a dose of morphine but...) and yet he tells me that is not what he wants. It's is not the first time our lives have taken a major change and yet he stays with me, why is beyond me some days.
@Rosyrain it may be something as simple as he does not want to worry you, but does not realise the strain he is putting you under. I feel for you I really do, but you have to just ask him openly. It is all you can do. Tell him you know something is wrong and you are worried about him. Hopefully he will understand and tell you.
 
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