Me & FND - Mr B

Well I best start at the beginning way before I start to be “different”.

I was a workaholic. I would work everyday for up to 16 hours a day, rarely taking days off or holidays unless there was a music event on or I was instructed to by the now ex Mrs B. I enjoyed life. I would go to the pub with my mates, have fun, drink, dance and do random stuff. 

It was while I was out on late August bank holiday 2016 that I sat down with my pint to listen to some bands when I felt a little twinge in my back, but I worked lifting heavy metal bars I thought nothing of it and it went away within seconds so I carried on with my day of fun. 

The next day I was stood having a smoke, and I coughed as I did. I felt another twinge in my back, This time it hurt and stayed. It didn't go away as it always had before and as the day went on it got worse and worse into the evening. I will skip to the next morning when I woke up in agony but being a sunday I couldn't go to the docs so I “manned up” and waited until the morning to see my GP.

Monday morning. GP appointment “probably just a trapped nerve or strained muscle Mr Bowser” ok I thought go home rest up as instructed back to work in the morning, happens to people all the time, had happened to me but never this painful so take some tablets as advised, deep heat and away we go no worries,

A week later. It still hurts but now my legs are aching as well. GP says “its probably because I'm not doing what I normally do and when your back gets better they will be ok again”. Nope, my legs got worse so bad that it became painful to walk, then to move them so back to the GP we go again he prescribed me my first Morphine, something I wish he had never done as now in an addict! I'm not ashamed to say it as it's true, at one point my need for opioids went way beyond pain control, and took over my life. Thankfully I have it back under control now, but it's always there in the back of my mind. He sent me for an X-ray on my knees to see what was going on. The results said nothing so I went back home and waited to see what happened next. I spent the next 6 weeks hobbling about on crutches as the ability to move my legs slowly depleted. I tried to carry on with life as normal with the words “it will all go back to normal once your back is sorted” playing on repeat in the back of my head, but here's the thing at no point in the 2 months since it began has anyone really looked at my back, done any tests, X Rays, or blood tests to see what was wrong with my back, they just prescribed tablets. So how is my back going to get better if it's not being treated?

New year's eve 2016, Plans to go out are in question. My best mate at the time came round with our tickets, but could I go? Did I want to go? At this point I could only move my feet. People had to hold me up and lift my legs over the door threshold to get out the house. How the hell would I cope going out to a crowded place to not dance to one of my favourite local bands then “Trevor” has an Idea and off he goes, returning 2 hours later with a wheelchair. Now I know he did it out of kindness but my thoughts at the time were different lots of questions like, is that it? is that me finished? is my life now reduced to the bloke in the chair just sitting watching everyone else have fun. Boy was I wrong. That night was fun, people spinning ,me round in my chair dancing, I could still dance and enjoy music, I could even tap my bloody foot. That alongside cider and morphine made for a great night HELLO 2017.

In the next 2 years I constantly had X rays, MRIs, CAT scans, Blood tests for everything I was told I had MS, Arthritis, infections and loads of other conditions, I had electrodes shoved in my leg for an hour of torture and was then told there is nothing wrong with my legs I mean really so why am I sat in a wheelchair then?

Oddly with all this going on I hadn't noticed I was losing time, I would miss things because I was not present I was there but my brain that was off having a day trip somewhere, We would laugh when I didn't get the words correct, once having to say “what breed of foreign” because my brain would not let me say what country are they from it's not something I'm proud of but it happened and I own it. I would forget simple things like taking my tablets only working it out when I was sitting freezing cold, shaking, in a pool of my own sweat because of opioid withdrawal.

Finally after 2 years of asking what is wrong with me I had the opportunity to go private without paying. In my first appointment I found out about FND and what I could expect, what might happen, how my body might fail into nothing but a painful lump of skin and bone. So I went home, shut the door and removed myself from the world. 

I contemplated removing myself completely and if it wasn't for my dog I wouldn't be writing this today. It had taken something from me, something that meant a lot and without it I couldn't continue it had taken my hope and dreams. That one half hour visit to see a neurologist had very nearly ended my life. Those three letters FND so meaningless to the majority of people yet they took everything from me, they had beaten me destroyed everything I knew about life and how to live, they had taken me and left a sack of miserable downtrodden blob of pain, Oh yes the pain, the one bloody thing I had that nobody could take from me. I didn't leave my house for 4 years. I rarely got out of my armchair. I slept in it as laying down was now too painful. All the time people drifted away the phone calls stopped, the texts, the invites, the friends they all went, even so called family, gone as though they never existed. It seemed like those 3 letters were not done with me yet.