It has to get worse before it can get better

I should have waited till the end of the week before writing about the help I'm getting to treat my depression, because I just can't believe that the day just got worse and landed me up in the doctors surgery on a drip treating the worse migraine ever.

If you want/need to catch up then you can click here to see why I went to the Doctors for help this week.

OK I'M NOT DYING...In fact I do not even have anything officially wrong with me medically, but I'm ill and it's been getting worse.

You see I have a few 'little' things wrong with me. Which on their own are painful and can be an inconvience, but when you put them all together at the same time and chuck in the whole 'I'm struggling to be an expat, adjust to my new life, moved house (again) Dad had a heart attack, youngest has dyslexia and dysgraphia, giving up smoking and didn't get a role at the London Olympics that I'd set my heart on' you'll see why I'm having a tough time and why I've asked for help to treat depression and take Prozac.

So what is wrong with me?

I need oral surgery to stop my teeth falling out and it's linked with diabeties and the perodontist hasn't seen a case this bad, ever, in anyone under 65. My bones are degenerating.

I have chilblains due to poor circulation aka Smoking

I've suffered with migraines since I was a small child

I had viral menegitis in 2000 which rears it's ugly head from time to time

I've had pneumonia on more than one occassion, in the last 5 years

I was a victim of assualt, 15 years ago, and suffered nerve damage to my neck for which I require regular pain killers and hospital treatment

There is a history of high cholestorol and diabeties in the family of which I now have elevated levels and I will be diabetic one day

...and all raising it's ugly head at the same time.

So I left the doctors on Monday with medication for pain, chilblains and Prozac. I had appointments lined up for blood tests, clinical psychologist, pain clinic, diabetic clinic, I forget what else and i go home to a very confused and worried hubby, but I actually felt a bit better, until tuesday morning after the blood tests when a pain in my head appeared from nowhere. It felt like someone was hitting me over and over with a hammer and I couldn't do a thing to stop it, meds, resting, darkened room and after what seemed like forever, hubby got home and took me to the doctors where they hooked me up onto a drip for an hour to administer medication. I could hardly move my head on wednesday and today thursday my neck is so stiff I have to move my entire body to look round. My head feels heavy, yet it's still thumping and it feels like someone is pushing on the back of my neck all the time.

But I have appointments, I'm getting something done about it all, but let me tell you it's not easy, I'm feeling more stress now than I did on Monday when I turned up at the doctors asking for help.

Our medical scheme, Discovery, have a payment gap thingy that I have to submit bills to, to reduce the gap then the med aid kicks back in. It's probably a bit more technical than that but.... and I have to request permission in advance of certain treatments or they'll not pay out or only pay a small amount if the health care provider doesn't charge the Discovery rates. So basically I don't know if all my treatment will be covered until I contact the health care provider and request codes to see if a) Discovery will pay for it and b) if Discovery will pay the full rate.

I now have to find a perodontist who fits the above criteria as the one I was recommended to see by a Dentist who does meet the criteria, will charge me R30,000 and Discovery will only pay back around R10,000.

I've lost count of the number of times I've emailed, telephoned and visited in person at Discovery to say 'I haven't moved from one scheme to another, I've moved from the UK and no scheme, it was free'. I'm also fed up of saying 'I don't know what to do or how to do it, therefore I do not know what questions I need to ask and it keeps costing me money because I didn't know if I said a, b or c, it would've been covered'

So back now to the depression. I'm so angry with hubbies company that the Medical wasn't set up when we arrived, despite requesting it over and over, telling both the company and Discovery 'we don't know how it works, please help us' and being greated with 'here are all the lovely bonus things you can get from us' and 'an advisor will be in the office on wednesday' who then failed to turn up on two occassions.

I can still see the light at the end of the tunnel. My family and friends* are being amazing. It will get better, it'll be different. I can't let go of the crap of the move and lack of support from hubbies company till they say sorry, despite them asking what they can do and us saying 'try saying sorry' There are still a few contractual issues to sort out and they won't rock the boat with the agency that handled and cocked up our house move as they are processing our visa renewals at the moment.

So I guess I need a bit more time before I will start to see the benefits of asking for help, the appointments and waiting for the prozac to kick in...in the meantime I'll leave you with my next trick which is...

things can't get anyworse or more stressful so I thought today would be the best day to smoke my last cigarette.

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