[7] Two Weeks, Twenty Doctors
While I was signed off, I went to stay with my Dad for a week or so. Partly so that he could look after this poor kid who couldn’t see anything, and partly to give my fiancée a break from having me there to worry about. She would still worry, I was sure of that, but at least she had some space.
My eyes were worse, I couldn’t see anything properly, I
couldn’t follow what was happening on the television; it was like looking
through a tiny window, and way off in the distance, something was happening
that I couldn’t really focus on or understand. I couldn’t recognise characters
on whatever show I was watching, even though they popped up every minute or so
in a different scene, I couldn’t remember who they were or if they were good or
bad. I just couldn’t hold faces, features or storylines in my head for that
long.
My Dad retired a year or so ago, and he was enjoying his
retirement – at least, he probably was until his 28 year old son arrived half
dead. He made it his full time job to try to figure out what was wrong with me
and went the rounds of various doctors near his house. He led me in to an
opticians, which I don’t remember, and they said everything was fine with my
eyes. One morning, after a particularly bad night, we decided to go to A&E
again. We explained the eyes, and the dizziness, and the sickness and
everything else, and the Doctor was convinced I had labyrinthitis - or
Legionnaire’s Disease – a thinning of the fluid in the inner ear which makes
people dizzy as a spinning top. She prescribed stemetil, which thickens said
fluid and makes you altogether less wobbly. I took it. But still I wobbled.
I even saw a chiropractor, who told me that his silk tongue
and snake oil would cure me. It was true to say I had nagging tensions in my
shoulder and neck from a youth spent diving around in a muddy football goal,
but I couldn’t get on board with his miracle cure of spinning my head right off
my neck every couple of days for two weeks. Still, I tried it because I was
willing to try anything that would make me feel better. Goodness knows how much
my Dad spent on those sessions.
Each evening I would call my fiancée and blub down the phone
to her about how much I loved her and how much I missed her and all sorts of
other odd ramblings. I did love her, and I missed her terribly. I also hated
myself for putting her through all of this.
I was reduced to going to bed just after speaking to her
because I was so tired and because everything ached and I felt exhausted. I
woke up at 8am and couldn’t get downstairs before nearly nine. I would put eye
drops in my eyes continuously in a desperate attempt to stop them spinning and
itching. More often than not, within ten minutes of getting in to bed my
breathing would quicken, and the world would turn in to an awful and menacing
place. It was dark and sad, and I saw no light in the world at all. Faster and
faster I would breathe and I would begin to shake. My Dad would come in to calm
me down, but I would keep shaking and crying uncontrollably. I would cry so
hard I started to make noises like some kind of angry sheep; it would have been
hilarious if I wasn’t so despairingly bleak. The shaking would get worse; it
became a violent shuddering that came in waves and left me completely
exhausted, only to be hit with another wave a minute later.
It went on like this for almost two weeks. Then it was time
to go back home, and back to my original doctor. My sick note was coming to an
end, and I just knew she wasn’t going to sign me off work for any longer
without a fight.
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