Just keep plodding

So the cortisone injection hasn't made much, if any difference. Despite regularly going to the gym and swimming a mile at a time and/or cycling 20-25km I still can't walk comfortably. I'm having to take Tramadol to deal with the pain. This is having an adverse affect on my mental health, as living with constant pain is wearing me down. I feel like I'm limited in what I do. I'm having to use my crutches almost constantly.

So I was scheduled to have a treatment known as GPS on July 2nd. Arriving at the hospital at 7.30 I was quickly settled into a 4 bay room where I went through the general questions and consent forms that are necessary with any medical procedure.

My left leg was marked up so that they made sure they were doing the procedure on the correct foot. 

Then I was whisked off to theatre. Despite the procedure being done under local anaesthetic it has to be done in an operating theatre for safety reasons. After numerous checks to make sure I was who they said I was, and hadn't hopped off the trolley and smuggled an impostor in, the registrar cleaned my foot with antiseptic and then injected the base of my foot with local anaesthetic. Oh my goodness! The pain of having that done is unbelievable, and all I could do was try to keep breathing and just tell myself it would be over soon. My foot was soon starting to feel tingly and then numb. While the doctor was waiting for the local anaesthetic to work he took some blood from my arm, 30mls to be precise. 

The blood is placed into a special tube, and then placed in a centrifuge machine to spin it around really fast. This separates the red cells from the white cells, and then the plasma part of the blood is re injected into the affected foot. 

This process takes around 18-20 minutes, and so it gave plenty of time for my foot to numb up. The doctor was happy to talk about the procedure, telling me that in 80% of cases it works and the foot pain clears up completely. The plasma is injected because the fibrous tissue in that part of the foot doesn't have a great blood flow and so this gets the healing cells straight to where they are needed. 

Once the blood had been spun, it was removed from the machine. The doctor showed me how the red blood cells were at the top of the tube, there was a pinky coloured substance in the middle which was the plasma, and a clear substance at the bottom. The doctor pulled the red blood cells out of the tube with a syringe, and discarded that into the medical waste, then he drew 3mls of the plasma into a syringe and injected that into the base of my foot. This wasn't as bad as the local anaesthetic going in, as obviously my foot was numb. 

After that had been done, and a sticky plaster placed over the injection site I was taken into recovery, just to make sure my blood pressure and pulse was ok and then it was back to the ward for tea, toast and to be presented with my new best friend, my moonboot. 

The boot is there to keep my foot and ankle in one position. For the first three days I had to keep the boot on constantly for 24 hours, then until the first week was up I had to keep it on 24 hours a day apart from when I was washing. This happened to coincide with the hottest spell of weather that Britain has had for years. Typical. Add the boot to a pair of shoulder crutches for the first week, and I was pretty much set to go home. 

Trying to stay off my feet for 3 days was unbelievably hard. I didn't realise how much I actually moved around. Getting upstairs to the bathroom, or even just from the sofa to the kitchen was a struggle. It's really frustrating when you can't get from A to B faster than a snail. After the first week I was allowed to take the boot off at night, but had to wear it the rest of the time, to give my foot a chance to heal. I noticed almost immediately that having the support from the boot helped immensely. But after a couple of days I noticed a strange feeling in my second and third toe, and it feels as if there is slight nerve damage, with my toes either feeling numb or tingly. 

I'm now a month on from the procedure and followed the instructions the consultant gave me to the letter. Unfortunately, though, despite the procedure and the rest, and the boot I am still in pain. My foot still feels tight, not so much in my Achilles, but my plantar fasciitis seems only slightly improved, I'd say around 20% better. This is really disappointing for me. I had hoped that it would work and by this point I would be pain free. 

I see the consultant again in ten days, and I'm not sure what the next step of the process is. I have read about an operation called a "plantar release". It seems that most cases of plantar fasciitis should be completed cleared by a year in, well I'm around that point now and I've thrown everything I can at it. From stretching and frozen water in a pepsi bottle, to massage and acupuncture, to cortisone and this latest procedure. I feel I'm no closer to running again than I was at the start of the year.

It's had a massive impact on my mental health. It's really hard to watch other people running races you know you would have been in, while you are sat on the sidelines with no light at the end of the tunnel. The Great North Run is in just over a month, and it hurts to know I won't be running this year. Running did amazing things to me, not only helping me to lose weight, but giving me targets to achieve and boosting my self-confidence when I reached those targets, to just having the time and space when out running to go through my mental filing cabinet and deal with the stresses of life. I desperately want to get back to that place. 

I've spoken about how depression feels for me before and how my mental health affects my life. I feel so restricted at times, and that in itself makes me angry. When I'm lying in bed in the morning and it takes all my effort to get out of it, or when I'm stood at my front door, unable to pull on the handle to go outside, when the world goes from glorious technicolour to monochrome, or when everything seems amplified, noise, sound, smells and all I want is peace, quiet and stability, when I'm doubting that I'll be able to ride this wave out, and wondering why I keep trying to get back on the surfboard when life and depression keeps knocking me off, this illness feels like it's mocking me. Telling me that I was an idiot for ever thinking I would succeed. And it takes masses of energy just to keep going. Then I go to bed at night, absolutely worn out from just existing, and lie awake, sleep eluding me, and the more I can't sleep, the more angry about it I become as I know the next day will already be hard, as I'm going to be tired. 

But life is a challenge. This illness, depression and Borderline Personality Disorder will not beat me. 10% of all people with BPD end up committing suicide and I don't want to be part of that statistic. So I keep on trying to just take each day as it comes. One fabulous achievement that I have attained is 4 years sobriety. This year has been an incredibly difficult one. There are moments when I would have welcomed the oblivion that alcohol can provide, however I know I have far too much to lose if I drink and that keeps me sober. However hard things feel at the moment, they would feel 100 times harder coupled with alcohol and a hangover. 

Each day is a journey through life. You can try and embrace it, even with the restrictions of illness, or you can give up. Personally I will do everything I can each day to hit the small targets that I set myself when depression hits, getting up, trying to keep in touch with friends and family, trying to focus on small positives. And that is all that I can ask of myself at the moment.