Mourning the loss of quality of life
It’s all I can do right now: wondering if I’ll ever return to a “normal” life. I’m not asking much, just sleeping without interruption; waking up refreshed and full of energy; the absence of pain…
This past week has been a particularly bad one. I guess the culprit was my 14 hour duty manager shift last Sunday. That was an exertion from which I just didn’t manage to bounce back, even though I was off the following Monday. The headaches – sometimes better, sometimes worse – are accompanying muscle pains in my left leg, left upper arm, right hip and right chest. Once I sit down, I have trouble getting up again. Walking up the stairs from the kitchen to the bedroom makes me wince, as does lying down to sleep – and getting up again – and my nights are split up in short exhausted bursts of sleep, interrupted by more pain.
This week I’ve contemplated seeing a doctor every single morning, but each time his last words to me rang in my ears, “I really don’t know any more what to do with you.” So I saved myself the aggravation of being seen as a querulous patient who has nothing better to do than getting on his nerves.
After I’ve lived more years in Gozo than in Berlin, I’m finally seriously questioning my wisdom of moving here. I mean, forget about my rants over the years about this island’s little quirks, because they are nothing compared to what I’m experiencing now.
In my work back in Berlin I used to be surrounded by specialists in all areas, and I knew first-hand how people with all sorts of symptoms of “unclear origin” were systematically put through whole batteries of tests until a diagnosis was reached – or eliminated. Sometimes, while writing the medical reports, I would feel sorry for them, wondering whether it was really necessary to subject them to all those tests… Well. I know better now, don’t I? As silly as it may sound, but I don’t think that here in Gozo I stand a chance of getting any better. Right now, I sure wish I could turn back the time to have the chance to be put through the mill. On the other hand, I can’t help doubting that I would have found myself in this situation in the first place. At least as far as I remember, work and leisure were far more balanced in Germany than they are over here…
Quality of life. Ha! Search the internet for chronic pain conditions and that term crops up everywhere as an important factor in the treatment of such syndromes. Funnily enough, being able to live in Gozo for many foreigners is seen as the epitome of superior quality of life. Hell, I used to believe that myself – but I’ve changed my mind.
