I wish I could have done exactly that to the two pieces of post I received on Wednesday: one was a summons for unpaid Council Tax, the other was to say my appeal for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) had been turned down, and I would have to take them to a tribunal if I wished to receive any money.
These were both nasty shocks: I believed that the council owed me money for Council Tax, but it turns out they still haven't processed my exemption from Council Tax from last April; and I had been receiving DLA for 4 years prior to my most recent reapplication, and in that time my condition has deteriorated, so I am definitely eligible for it. Both of them are down to bureaucratic ineptitude. Thankfully my mother has been able to sort out the Council Tax for me, and we will have to deal with the DLA now.
It has brought home to me just how far I am from being able to look after myself: from being a fairly hard-working, independent adult I have been reduced to relying on my parents for help in day-to-day living. Receiving these bits of post also made me feel more like I'll have to move closer to my mother in order that she will be able to do more of these tasks for me. That's a very tough thing to consider for me.
It is interesting how shocks and stresses such as the above make my symptoms much worse. It has taken me since then to recover to a degree where I'm well enough to make this entry, and it'll take a bit longer before I'm as strong as I was before receiving this news.
To cheer myself up I managed to buy myself some lovely flowers yesterday. As I can't get out of my flat very often, flowers are a wonderful way of bringing a bit of the outside world into my home.
One silly thing happened yesterday: after about 18 months without a working turntable (I have two, neither of which work) I managed to get a friend to drive me to the nearest Rega dealer to get it looked at. The service engineer wasn't very pleased with what he saw, but I think we managed to get the immediate problem sorted out. So I got it home, ready to start listening to all the vinyl I've not been able to hear for so long, only to discover that he had forgotten to put the drive belt back. So I still can't play my vinyl! Have to wait for the belt to arrive in the post.
Oh well, that's it. I hope my next entry will be able to be a bit more positive, but as this blog is to give me an outlet for difficult situations I encounter related to my health, there are going to be some entries where I feel I've hit a brick wall.
