Tinnitus

The noise that never stops...

Two weeks ago I had a meeting at the local hospital with the Tinnitus Management team. It was great to finally talk to someone who was sympathetic to the suffering of pulastile tinnitus. And who also knew the difference between pulsatile tinnitus and regular tinnitus. We talked for an hour and I was given lots of advice. They gave me a special pillow speaker, but I still need to purchase some sort of relaxation CDs to play with it. The CD's I have are not really conducive to a good nights sleep. They have also order me a special masking hearing aid which I will get in about 4 weeks time. The idea is that it plays white noise into the ear, at a pitch that masks the sounds of my gushing blood and heartbeat. I think it supposed to train the ear to mask our internal body sounds or something. I'm not sure if it will work, but to be honest, if I can listen to white noise instead of blood noises for a while then it will be a pleasant change. I'll let you all know how I get on with that.

From the day after my appointment I have been suffering miserably with the tinnitus. It is always there, 24 hours a day, but at times it gets worse. They tell me its stress that causes it, but I can't see that pattern in mine to be honest. But now, for over a week, I have been miserable with it. The gushing sounds are louder than ever. I can't sleep, can't concentrate, can't have a conversation without struggling to stay on track. And whenever the tinnitus is bad like this, I get awful headaches, pain in the back of my neck, and pains in my chest. Whether these pains come from the lack of sleep, or are caused by the blood flow problem in my arteries, I have no idea.

I joined a forum for Tinnitus sufferers on the RNID website. There I have met other people who also have the pulsatile form of the condition. It's been good to see how others cope with it. This week I have really come to understand why people get so depressed suffering with this. I have been constantly miserable. I am unable to lead a normal life when its this bad. At night I just want to claw ouy my ear drum with a screwdriver, and I have now come to understand why the tinnitus management team talked so much about suicide and depression. On the RNID website I found a link to this real player sound clip. I urge anyone reading this to listen to it. It plays many of the sounds of tinnitus, so that non tinnitus sufferers can understand better what it is like to live with the sound that never stops. You can listen to it by clicking here. Also, worth watching is a youtube video which tries to show what life is like for tinnitus sufferers.

Spot the mini Bree

Can you spot mini me? LOL. I found this photo of my class on facebook. This is the equivalent of P3. I presume we were 7 or 8 years old here. I think. Can you find me? I havent changed all that much.

Third from the left in the front row.

Barney is almost 4

I just adore these two photos that Dan took last week while I was in England (blog post to follow about that soon). Barney will be 4 years old next month. He has decided this week that he wants to be educated at home and has sat me down for daily 'lessons'! He asked me to teach him how to write. So we practiced writing his name. He can now write the L perfectly, and sometimes upside down. This week he developed an interest in the hama beads that have been on his shelf for months. He made so many patterns, entirely on his own, that I had to reorder some more beads as he ran out. This week he has spent every day in the garden collecting spiders in one of my tupperware pots. Today he sold me 3 for £50 !! I still owe him £49.95 of that £50 but with the 5p I gave him he went into the corner shop on his own, queued up on his own and bought and paid for a packet of 5p crisps. He was adamant that he could do it without me, and I heard him chatting away to various customers as well as the shop keeper. Telling them how he earned his crisps by selling spiders. He he. Life is lovely with my Barney.

Back to normality?

Jimmie and Annabelle have gone back to school and life is returning back to it's normal routine again. Except that tomorrow I'm flying to England to visit some old school friends for a few days. I'm sooooo over excited about it. I've been putting off booking it until I could walk again, and somewhere along the line I lost my motivation for it. But now that I've spoken to a few friends who seem very excited to see me again, I've gained some enthusiasm back and can't wait to go now.

Barney is adamant that he wants to start a play group so I am going to have to look into that today. He reminds me every morning about it. I didn't sign him up for nursery school this year so he just stays at home with me at the moment.

Last week I took them all for a walk round Hillsborough Lake. We didn't walk very far due to my foot still healing and it being the first time I'd walked anywhere. Dan also took them to the Aquarium for a trip. We feel as if they had a rather dull summer as I was on crutches and unable to take them anywhere. Here are some photos from those two trips....

Three pics from Hillsborough Lake. Jimmi and Annabelle make a see-saw. The kids are treated to an ice cream (btw I think the pic at the top of Banrey covered in ice cream is just adorable).

A silhouette of them all playing by the lake. These pics were all taken on my phone, hence the less than perfect quality.

And here are some from the Aquarium...