Some background, I have been in my job for 16 years now (well have done different jobs, but all under the umbrella of the RAF), I have two great kids, one of each and in my personal humble opinion I am married to the most beautiful woman in the world! (Argue with me I dare yah lol) Three years ago my wife fell whilst roller blading and damaged her back, two years later we found out on top of all of the spinal issues she also had a fractured coccyx and a year later she still has all of that going on and they have just found a tumour in her leg!
Now throughout all of this frustration, frustration for her as she has lost her life for the past three years, my daughter is 6 in August my son has just turned 10 and for the past three years I have been, father, mother and carer. I may be kicked out of the RAF (incidentally a job I really enjoy and planned to complete my full 22yrs and more if I could) because I cannot meet my commitments to the service, I cannot deploy as my wife needs round the clock care. But the thing that bothers me the most is my wife, seeing her in pain every day is killing me, I cannot do anything about her pain, if I could take it away from her and put it on me then I would do it in a heartbeat with no questions asked. I am getting angrier and angrier as the days have turned into weeks, turned into months, turned into years and we are still no closer to finding out what is causing the massive amounts of pain that she is in. We know what her injuries are, prolapsed discs, desiccation throughout the spine, fractured coccyx and now the tumour. But the surgeons cannot seem to tell us why she is in so much pain, they are quick to tell us that they cannot do any more as they cannot see anything wrong (except for what is wrong). We had one consultant, he was the one that diagnosed the fractured coccyx, he was brilliant. He took one look at her scans and informed us that the disc protrusion had disintegrated so that they were no longer pushing up against the nerves, same thing we had been told by the previous consultant but instead of telling my wife that the pain was all in her head (as the previous consultant had) he examined her again, re-read her notes and asked questions. Then he said “I am 95% sure without a scan that you have a fractured coccyx” and booked her for a scan lo and behold the results came back with a fractured coccyx. Downside that particular consultant returned to Israel and we never got to see him again to even say thank you for taking the time to listen.
Time and time again we go back and forth to the hospital, told one thing at one appointment and then something completely different at the next appointment. To say that it is frustrating would be understating the situation. This week brought around another MRI scan (so that is 6 in 3 years, 1 CT scan and a couple of X-Rays) the idiots at the hospital had her booked in as a walking patient to go on the mobile scanner, now since she has to take stretcher transport to get to the hospital walking is pretty much out of the question so they changed scanners to the one inside, but she had an anxiety attack brought on by claustrophobia so she couldn’t have the scan done. This has brought her mood lower than it has ever been, and her depression is at an all time high (<<irony!) I find myself having to be happy for the both of us, which gets harder as now our son isn’t bringing his problems to us as he sees how much we have on our plates and doesn’t want to add to them (kid genuinely has a heart of gold). It also doesn’t help that because I am so pissed off and angry I am shouting and raising my voice more and instead of letting the small things go I am turning them into big massive issues that have to be dealt with at 2000 decibels of rage. It isn’t fair and it is also like part of my mind goes on a tea break at that particular time. I am in control physically, but mentally and vocally I am being controlled by something else.
Despite all this I stay optimistic, I try and find the good in all situations no matter how bad. For example my wife, her injury has brought us closer together through adversity than we had been in the previous six years of marriage, we have had to learn to cope in an entirely different way and found that we love each other all the more for it (even if I am not the cleanest, house-proud person in the world lol)
Despite everything going on at work, lack of staff, idiots getting done and causing me grief, the threat of my career being over, I still enjoy the job and I work with a great team of people.
I have two beautiful kids, who are intelligent, caring and above all else have an awesome sense of humour (my daughter will laugh for hours over a simple fart, her own gaseous outbreaks will reduce her to fits of giggles). My son’s sarcastic streak is a mile wide and growing, but not in a nasty way he is really funny with it. Josh will see a problem and try and solve it, Jasmine will ignore the problem and solve it. They are so similar yet so different it is refreshing when I actually stop and see the world as they look at it, I love giving them puzzles and seeing what their brain comes up with.
Above all something I read sticks in my head as much as the family mottos do. From my dads side of the family “As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way!” from my moms side “Placid until pushed” my own “From within chaos, comes order!”, this sticks in my head “The great thing about being a pessimist is that you spend 50% of the time being proven right, and the other 50% pleasantly surprised!”
So paternally I learned to be optimistic, but realistic as sometimes things do go wrong!
Maternally I learned that it is okay to fight for what you believe, but try to stay calm and deal with it first!
I taught myself that even when things go wrong, you learn from it and it will turn around.
And finally from those words of wisdom of which I cannot even remember where I heard them, I learned this valuable lesson. It is okay to see the bad in a situation, but it isn’t always bad so look a little harder and instead of being naively optimistic or stupidly pessimistic all the time, try and be optimistically pessimist!
zyonchaos 