Will I ever learn to ask for help sooner?

Asking for help, tricky though! Maybe it's because of my old profession. I was a nurse. But I always seek and ask for help too late. I can mess around for six months before I decide to seek help.

Still I find it difficult to ask and experience this. I hope that I can pass on to my children that they will seek help sooner, if necessary, than their mother does.

From home

Maybe it just comes from home, that I'm not used to seeing a doctor or seeking help quickly. We were a small family and managed just fine by ourselves. Does it have to do with the career choice I made? I worked as a nurse for years and then you see a lot of misery and problems around you.

That your own complaints always seem so minimal.

Asking the children for help.

I also found asking for help with the children difficult. When the youngest was three, he still didn't sleep through the night. Often at about ten o'clock he was screaming and thrashing in his sleep incredibly loudly.

He was then not ’reachable’. And on top of that he was awake every hour every night from one ’s onwards. He would cry and scream until I went to him. We kept this up for six months.

Every night I got out of bed 4 or 5 times to comfort him. After six months, the husband and I became ill. Only then did I decide to go to the doctor.

Which I was very ashamed of, because so many children do not sleep through the night.

The family doctor called around and then it was quickly determined that waking up screaming in the evening was a case of night terrors. I read up on this and at some point it stopped by itself. However for the ‘waking up every hour’, she referred me to a Teaching Assistant.

After talking once, the teaching assistant immediately knew what was going on and where the ‘ problem’ lay. She gave me tips and I went for another closing call. After visiting her and applying her advice, the youngest slept through every night.

In case you want to know what all that was about, read my article about guilt.

Well go to the doctor anyway

Meanwhile I had been walking around with knee problems since the summer vacations. I watched it for a while. Continued to play sports and run, but decided to stop around November. The pains only got worse. When after two months of not running I only got more pain, I decided to go to the doctor anyway.

Still with doubts, because I mean you don't go to the doctor with knee problems after all. However, she saw it differently, I really should have come sooner, was her first message.

Get the exercise bike out of the dust

I ended up at the physiotherapist's and here the symptoms turned out to be worse than I thought. My kneecap appears to be unstable and keeps moving out of place. Luckily I found a physiotherapist who took me straight into rehab. With the message that I really raised the alarm far too late and will now be rehabilitating for about six months.

I got the exercise bike out of the dust and train a few times a day on this thing. I am very quietly doing some exercises, leaving the climbing aside for a while and hoping to expand the exercises a little at a time.

Because I waited too long to seek help, the whole rehabilitation process will take longer. Of course I am very upset about this and it makes me realize that I should not be so stubborn from now on. So now I tell the boys.

Don't be as stubborn as your mother, but ask for help when you need it.

 

I took the exercise bike out of the dust and put it downstairs, I have to cycle 3 times a day, so it is nice if I train downstairs.

Are you quick to go to the doctor, quick to ask for help or are you as stubborn as I am?