Memories Pressed Between The Pages Of My Mind.....

I’ve always found it fascinating how people’s tastes can vary so much. You like Spring I prefer Autumn, you’ll have white wine but I always have the red. Opinions, feelings, tastes we all have  a different perspective on so many things. Then there are memories. Haven’t you been to a party with someone and had a fantastic time ,only to find out the next day that they hated every minutes of it, so much so that you have to ask yourself  “ were you even at the same party ?!”

As I get older, I find myself looking back at my life, childhood especially, more and more. Not so long ago , I heard somewhere that our memories may not be our memories  at all , but rather a composite of some real memories, some stories we’ve heard, images we’ve seen in photographs, and some things that we’ve actually just made up ourselves! Therefore however we’ve come to acquire those memories, it’s not surprising that when two people sit and reminisce about their childhood, their recollections should be so very different.

The other day, my sister and I were fondly recollecting our experiences of childhood and the subject of how often we got smacked as kids came up! In this highly politically correct, ultra sanitised, antiseptic world of ours, it will no doubt shock some of you to hear we used to be kept on the straight and narrow in our house, with a sharp whack on the butt from our dads size 9 leather sandal! Though you may be forgiven for not seeing anything remotely “fond” about having ones butt whacked with a leather sandal, the reason I wanted to make this the subject for my blog this week was just that that conversation with my sister, made me realise that though she and I had grown up in exactly the same house, with same family, same values and same upbringing her memories and my memories were very different.

They would be, she and I are different people. She is the eldest child, I am a middle child and therefore we will naturally suffer from the “syndromes” that go with each of those respective  positions! But joking aside, my memories of being that child; second daughter ,one of four children, two boys ,two girls were mainly full of happiness and laughter whereas hers were more sombre and melancholy. Ive often asked myself why this is the case. Did my sister in fact HAVE a less happy childhood than me? Have I just invented a more idyllic one  because I chose to or did I actually experience a happier one?

I can certainly remember that as a child I was the one who was  always in trouble and constantly being  reminded by our mum  of how different I was from my sister. Mum would always compare us. She would praise my sister no-end  because  she could cook and sew and knit and speak to all the aunties and uncles really politely , whereas I together with my younger brother aka my partner in crime , would spend our days doing really  fun stuff like  washing the kitchen floor with a whole bottle of Fairy liquid ……. Loads-a-bubbles!!!!!

But as they say “with the sweet comes the bitter” – “after the bubbles comes the sandal!” And oh yes me and my brother had more sandal sessions than either of our other two siblings put together x10, but I’d do it all again and then some! Though at the exact time of “whacking”  I probably didn’t think it so much , I knew mum and dad were just teaching me a lesson and I dare say they probably had a laugh or two at mine and my brothers antics from time to time – maybe not right away though. And I think that was the key , I somehow knew even though mum and dad felt like pulling their hair out sometimes ,I was really loved and adored especially by my dad, and though it seems totally absurd even though I did get punished so many, many, many, more times than my sister I always felt really good about myself and really confident.

I have one very special memory of a  photograph that’s sadly been lost somewhere now, but it’s of me ,my sister and our lovely Grand dad. It was taken when I was about seven years old and my sister and I were both standing on either side of this towering 6 ft 3” giant  holding his huge hands. Just before the photo was taken, I  vividly recall thinking “ I don’t need to hold anyone’s hand !“ and so I let go of my Grand dads hand and I stood tall next to him, in my mind, I was standing next to my Grand dad shoulder to shoulder! That memory has never left me , though now I am an adult I often need to remind myself of  the strength I felt that day as a little girl with my Grand dad at my side.

So why do I  have more happy memories of childhood? I think it’s because I just concentrated on being ME rather pleasing others. I may have been in trouble a lot, I may not have done what my mum might have wanted me to do all the time. But at the end of the day,  I still learned how to cook and sew and knit and talk to aunties and uncles but in addition to all those things , I feel blessed to also have so many  precious memories of lots of wonderful things  like helping my Grand dad mix cement for a pathway he was building years ago or racing down the hill in front of our old house in Huddersfield on my sisters old tricycle at what seemed like 90 miles an hour ,with my brother standing on the back and feeling the wind on our faces  !

Therefore my message dear friends, especially to the young ones  is  - LIVE YOUR LIFE TO PLEASE YOURSELF NOT TO PLEASE OTHERS ! That way you will create lots of  happy memories too . Enjoy your life and then like me , you too will be able to sit back, examine your knees, look at your battle scars with glee and say boy did I have FUN getting these !!!!!


Listen to the song by Elvis Presley:
 Memories Pressed Between The Pages Of My Mind..... 

Living with Vertigo

Remember when you were little, did you ever play that game where you spin and spin and spin in one direction and then STOP! The whole world seemed to whirl and swirl around and your head with it! You couldn't walk at all and you would fall about laughing like a giddy fool with no direction and no bearings. How fun that game was. But the sensation only lasted a few minutes, before normality and balance returned – but just imagine feeling like that all the time. Imagine, if like me, that had been your reality day after day for an entire year!

How it all started…..

I suffer from a condition called Migraine Variant Vertigo – bit of a mouthful, so we'll call it MVV. I believe MVV is a fairly uncommon form of the illness and certainly one I had never heard of before. It started last July after what had been a pretty typical day at the office, you know the sort I mean phones ringing non-stop, clients calling to rearrange meetings you'd moved heaven and earth to arrange in the first place, a to do list that was growing by the second and the half eaten remains of something which should have been filed in the nearest trash receptacle in the first place! Around early evening I began noticing that strangely I was seeing smoke. Though there was no smoke around me, through my eyes it appeared as though every room was filled with a hazy cloud. Naturally I assumed this was due to tiredness and decided to have an early night and THAT'S when it all started!

Having not been a migraine sufferer before, the head ache I developed that night was so severe that I actually thought I was going to die. Anyone who has ever had a migraine will know exactly what I'm talking about. The muscles in my neck, around my scalp and face were getting tighter and tighter which made my head feel like pressure was building up inside ready for an explosion! I wasn't able to open my eyes, couldn't speak, and couldn't move. No-one could help me, no-one could comfort me.

I'm not sure how I managed to sleep that night, because none of my normal pain relief tablets had worked, but by morning, thank God, the head ache had gone. However, I did notice that I was feeling slightly dizzy, but returned to work regardless. No sooner than I had got back into the bright office lights , computers screens, people talking and lots of movement all around me, the "slight dizziness" immediately escalated into a major earth quake and I was back in the playground age 6 spinning and spinning and spinning totally disorientated , confused and knowing something was very wrong indeed.

Time to Call the Doctors……..


I went to see my GP straight away. I'd had a couple bouts of vertigo before over the last 10 years but those had been caused by ear infections. On full examination my ears were fine, blood pressure was fine, there was no fever and nothing to indicate any other cause for my symptoms. Yet I still felt dizzy and as the hours went on so the dizziness was increasing. My GP prescribed Stemetil a drug I'd taken before. After a few days of taking Stemetil and feeling even worse, my GP referred me to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist. Luckily the ENT specialist that I was assigned to happened to be one of if not "the" MVV specialist in the whole of the South East, a Consultant Neuro-otologist called Dr Surenthiran. By the time I saw Dr Surenthiran , which was 4 days after I'd had the migraine, I had gone from feeling like I was a little tipsy to feeling like I was in a tiny boat sailing on a very very rough sea. By that stage I was in a pretty bad way . I wasn't able to drive at all , I wasn't even able to walk unaided. I couldn't stand without holding onto something or someone otherwise I would sway violently. I couldn't sit without my head being supported otherwise it would literally bob up and down uncontrollably.  My eyes would catch every single movement around me. I couldn't bear bright light or loud sound, even lying in bed I felt as though I was moving. I was exhausted from all the movement in me and around me and yet all I was able to do was SIT! And this is how it was from morning till night, day after day after day!


Dr Surenthiran immediately diagnosed me with MVV. He explained that what had happened, in very simple terms, was that the migraine had caused damage to the nerves between the balance system in the ears and the brain. My brain was now no longer trusting the messages it was getting from my eyes, ears and muscles regarding the position of my body resulting in total confusion and zero balance. After an MRI scan and a whole series of Vestibular Function Tests he was able to assess how severe the problem was and decide on the best plan of action.


The Treatment …….

Dr Surenthiran was great – the first thing he told me was "this is probably going to get much worse before it gets better!" Don't you just love doctors? But he wasn't trying to scare me, he'd seen hundreds of patients like me before some much worse, what he was doing was PREPARING me.

Straight away he:

• Took me off Stemetil

• Put me on a special diet that cut out things like caffeine, dairy products, citrus fruits, chocolate and red wine (this was going to be tough!)

• Started me on daily Vestibular Rehabilitation exercises three times a day.

• Prescribed a drug called Nortriptyline.

Dr Surenthiran also told me that I had to eat regular meals and get PLENTY of rest. He explained this condition was not easy to treat and that I was going to have to be patient, but in the early days I didn't quite realise what being patient really meant and quite what he was asking of me when he told me to take it easy!



Six months have gone by and I'm still off sick!....

Picture The Scene – Christmas had been and gone. I'd been off chocolate and red wine for a long time and was not a happy girl! I'd been taking Nortriptyline for months and was up to maximum strength plus taking another medication on top. I still wasn't driving, I'd been house bound for what seemed a life time. I'd feel better for a week and then have an attack which would wipe me out for three . This would result in a dose increase in my medication which meant I'd get another week or so of feeling OK and then WHAM another attack! It was like being on a terrible "illness roller coaster" I was really feeling desperate by this point and having promised my boss I'd be back at work in the New Year, I felt like I was letting everyone down by just not getting better. I was seeing Dr Surenthiran every 6 weeks and thinking "this is NEVER going to end!" Then during one of those appointments I finally had a breakthrough.  My consultant told me that I had to stop putting unreasonable demands on myself that I had to JUST LET GO!  He said that I had to accept I was no longer able to run around cramming a million and one things into my day as I used to before and that, for now, I was just going to have to focus on GETTING BETTER and not on GETTING BACK TO ANYTHING! That suddenly made so much sense. Having always had zero patience, my body was now making me stop and teaching me patience. The lesson I was learning was that the harder I was kicking myself to get better fast, the more I was actually prolonging my recovery because I was not giving myself time to heal.


Finally Getting Real…….

It's now been just over a year since this started. Thankfully the acute attacks that used to last 2-3 weeks are under control with my current medication, which is combination of Nortriptyline and another drug called Topiramate. The vertigo has not gone away but has now become rather like an old friend that I've gotten used to. The medication is very strong and very sedating and because the dose of both drugs is so high, the side effects do have their own problems but you do get used to that too. I feel very tired all the time and sleep like a log but that's not a bad thing. The dizziness is still there, but it feels like I'm sailing on calmer waters now. I still need a lot of help from my family and friends who deserve medals for keeping me sane through all this.  However, even though I try to stay calm and try to be as realistic and kind to myself as possible, I still find it difficult to answer people when they ask me "how come you still haven't got better!" Dr Surenthiran warned me about this too. He told me that vertigo is a very disabling illness, more disabling even than having one leg! But it's an illness that's not well understood and no one realises what you are going through because on the face of it you look perfectly healthy and normal! Though this has been a very difficult year for me in so many ways, I am still thankful for what it has taught me and that is that I'M STILL STANDING (it may not be straight - but I'm still standing!)

I'd love to hear from anyone who is suffering from Vertigo and needs someone to talk to.  I know only too well how crippling and isolating this illness can be, so if there is anything I can do to encourage and give hope that there are good days and light at the end of the tunnel, then I am here and happy to help.

For further information on Vertigo:

Radio 4 programme by Dr Mark Porter Aug 25th 2010 - Balance Disorders


Lucy Atkins Guardian 2008 - Spinning out of control

The Mystery Of Love

Hello everyone and a very warm welcome to my  first "Sur's World" Blog!

Each week I will be sharing with you something wondrous that has caught my imagination , moved me to tears ,made stop and think , made me scream and shout or just plain made me think . All in the attempt to share with fellow souls something of interest and more importantly something of use, so that we can ALL move forward in the Universe and also on our own personal journeys.

This week was an amazing week, this week I learned about LOVE! I learned that most of us quite wrongly and habitually chase love externally . What do I mean by this - well we look for love "outside" ourselves from other people. Most of us grow up with the notion that we'll grow up , meet the man or woman of our dreams who'll "complete us " and together we'll live happily ever after! This kind of love must therefore be earned . We are unconsciously telling the mind, that without it  we have no value , no worth and so once earned  we will gain all these assets and  finally be the happy and contented person we are meant to be . However, when we pursue this kind of love , which the majority of us do , it does not take long before problems begin to start . The pursuit of this kind of love is basically ego driven with one obvious major flaw  - how can another person possibly KNOW your value and worth in order to give it you unless YOU do yourself ?
The result of this is that many people are left feeling undervalued and ultimately unloved and the relationship ends in  heart break.

Therefore , the reason why the majority of people are not happy and not in loving relationships where they feel totally and utterly "in-love" all the time is because they go into their relationships with the totally wrong mindset!  And until this mindset is fixed , they keep making the same mistakes again and again and again.

CLEAN UP YOUR HEAD!
A spring clean is great around the house - well its fantastic inside your head too! Especially where love is concerned. Life today is extremely busy , however we must STOP and invest a little time in ourselves to make a shift in our mindset and constantly remind ourselves of how wonderful we are . We need to get rid of old baggage and replace it with positive messages of how we deserve love  because we ARE love .  Basically, true love cannot be given or taken it just is  . Why is this ? Because love like any other form of energy cannot be created or destroyed - its just physics . And love contains no wanting whatsoever its amazing , therefore when you feel an abundance of this "internal" love you are never "needy " or "overdemanding." Where does this amazing true love come from ? It actually come from within .It lives with us all, right from the moment we are born and stays with us all through our lives, our job is only to recognise it and then to uncover it! Unfortunately , most of us are experts at finding and pointing out our faults yet feel unequipped to uncover this love simply because we do such a good job of hating ourselves. This is why chasing external love, which is normally doomed to disappoint us in some way or other, is far easier for us digest.

Therefore dear friends  in conclusion, in order to grow and prosper in love , we must look within and be complete ourselves rather than look to others to complete us. If we are able to love ourselves as perfect, beautiful BEINGS, then the love we are able to share with others will  indeed be true love and that love is PURE LOVE  a love that JUST IS.