Hernia update

So after seeing Mr Brown last week and being sent for a CT scan, a hernia has been confirmed.

Obviously after two hernia ops already this year, I’m devastated.

Its behind my new stoma and is sore and swollen, it’s awful news yet again and to be honest I don’t know how to feel about it all.

It just feels very unfair and I’m really cross with life at the minute. But I will pick myself up and plod on!

Im here, I have an amazing husband, I’m blessed with wonderful kids and friends and it could be worse!

Parastomal hernia

What to do next? Well the good news is that it’s not bowel poking through the hernia right now, it’s fat and tissue so though uncomfortable and unsightly, it’s not an emergency.

So I’ll continue seeing my physio, I’m going to try and lose some weight and I’ve stopped smoking so we’ll see how I go!

Sam x

As if I have an 18 year old child!

This week, my eldest bambino turned 18 and I’m still a bit confused by it all, as if I have a child who is an actual adult?!

I had Charlie when I was 19, it was a pregnancy that many family and friends thought a mistake. I’d been with Timm for two years and if I’m completely honest, we were kind of stupid. We worked to go out, went partying a lot, spent our money on stupid things and were silly people in love.

But as soon as I found out I was pregnant, we both got our shit in order, we rented a tiny flat together and made a commitment to do this right, to support eachother and to be the best parents we could possibly be.

It brought out a different side in both of us, in me a deeply maternal animalistic desire to grow this little human and protect him with my life, a nesting instinct to make a home for the three of us. In Timm it was a desire to nurture and protect me, to commit to his career and to ensure we would be ok.

During 20 hours of labour, a labour where the judgement of others hung heavily over us, the midwives seeing this teenager in her boyfriends clothes as we couldn’t afford maternity wear (and also because maternity clothes in 2000 was flipping ugly!!!) and her boyfriend who had skater jeans and no clue.  The comments that I should just have an epidural because I wouldn’t be able to handle the pain. It was a scary and overwhelming time where we both felt like control had been taken from us.

And then he was here. We made a human. And he was amazing. The moment I looked at him, I realised that I was made for this moment, that being a mum was the most important thing I would ever be entrusted with. I fell in love.

Teen mum holding new baby

We went home from the hospital and both just sat looking at him in his basket asleep, we looked at eachother and asked ‘what now?’ We couldn’t believe we had complete responsibility for a baby. We knew we weren’t a typical family but we also knew we loved him more than life itself and so thought ‘fuck it! We’ll do this our way!’ My sister in law told me that we needed to feed him, clean him, keep him warm and just love him more than anything. And so that was our mantra and it didn’t do us bad!

Raising my boy over the past 18 years has been a rollercoaster, I always knew he wouldn’t be a person to fit in a box and go with the crowds. My boy is a rule breaker, a pioneer, a wonderfully weird person who will make his own road through life.

We are so alike in lots of ways, stubborn and headstrong and so sometimes we butt heads, neither of us backing down. But we can be screaming at eachother one minute and cuddling the next. I love him in a way that comes from somewhere deep inside, it’s primal and pure. And though of course I adore all three of my kids in the same way, there is a special bond between Charlie and I.

He was my first, we learnt how to do things between us, he made me a momma! For the first 2 years of his life, he was known as my shadow, we were always together and we’re eachothers comfort blanket. Timm was touring with work and would be away for weeks on end and so me and Charlie were a team.

In the past few years his kindness and patience has floored me, my illness has been hard on us as a family yet Charlie has always been there, laying in bed chatting with me when I can’t get up, visiting me in hospital and making me laugh, loving me and putting my needs ahead of his own, which is no mean feat for a teenage boy!

Mum and adult son in park with a chihuahua

And now here we are, my baby boy is all grown up. 18 years old, ready to take on the world, make his own decisions and move into the next section of his life.

But however old he is, wherever he is in the world, he will always be my bambino and I will always love him, tell him I love him, be there for him and always, always be his momma.

✌?& ❤️

Sam

My depression looks like…

I used to think depression looked like someone crying all the time, someone with a sad face who is weeping and wailing. And sometimes depression does look like that! But not always.

Last year I had a really bad time with my mental health, I hit a big wall and I couldn’t shake it. I struggled to exist, it was a really dark and terrible time. Through talking therapy and antidepressants, I came through that valley of sadness to a place where I could see the light again.

Im still on antidepressants and for me they have been a life saver. But last week I found out that my surgeries haven’t worked and I have another hernia. My stomach is a map of scars and underneath I have adhesions and mesh and pig skin and all sorts of pain and discomfort and it’s hit me hard.

I feel low and I’m struggling, I can’t come to terms with the fact that I’ll probably never be better, that I may always struggle with pain and I won’t be physically fit and healthy for the rest of my life.

And it got me thinking about how my depression looks and just how different it is from person to person.

My depression looks like a smile, a forced cheery “I’m fine!”, it looks like me sleeping a lot, it looks like me avoiding friends. My depression looks like me wearing a hat because I can’t bring Myself to shower and my hair is dirty. My depression looks like me pushing through and managing to work and be cheerful to the outside world.

My depression looks like me crying because I missed the blackberries in my allotment. It looks like my stiff upper lip as I excuse myself to sit with my head between my knees in the loo because I can’t breathe and it’s all too much. It looks like me smiling too big and laughing too forced because I don’t want you to see my sadness because if you’re nice to me it will all spill out and I don’t want to scare you.

It looks like brief moments of honesty when I can bring myself to write things like this.

Depression takes many forms, don’t be mistaken into thinking the person smiling in front of you is a-ok.

If you’re reading this and have depression, could you do me a favour and share what your depression looks like using #mydepressionlookslike – because I honestly believe that by talking and sharing we can create a more nurturing, understanding and caring environment where depression stops being a taboo,where people stop suffering in silence, where people stop dying.

#mydepressionlookslike

 

✌?& ❤️

Sam xx