Interview 15

Age at interview: 57

Age at diagnosis: 39

Brief Outline:

Diagnosed '85 after 2 hospital stays for groin pain; decreased mobility & sleep disruption. Side-effects on Gold injections & Methotrexate. Has steroid pulses/joint injections & daily Meloxicam 7.5mg & 2-4 co-codamol. Starts Anti-TNF in 2 wks. Operation on toes planned.

Background:

Retired (on health grounds) lab assistant, married with two adult children.

Avoids taking painkillers if possible but needs them sometimes to help her sleep.

I don't like it but it's a case of having to. I mean I've never been a one for drugs, you know even a headache tablet, I wouldn't take. But I realise now I have to, like I take painkillers cocodamol whatever you call them, you know I have to take them. I try not taking them every night, it's only if I can't sleep, then I will come down and take a couple. But on the whole I try not to.  

So it's generally at night that you take them?

Yeah, yeah 'cos in the morning, I get up and a couple of hours, it'll take for me to get back on, you know, on track as I call it [laugh]. And then I'm all right till maybe the evening.

She felt depressed and had to retire early because she couldn't cope with the work.

So how did you cope at work?

I did, I used to hide a lot of it but I couldn't, I couldn't use the machines and I just was getting frustrated with myself as well. It just, you know, I, in the end my doctor kept saying to me 'You'll have to finish work, you've just got to'. 'Cos I used to get depressed and upset about it because I, I couldn't. I, I really could not do my job.

And what was your job?

Oh, but, in, in the beginning I worked in the development kitchen in the lab, in Nestles, in the laboratory. It was quality control, you know. And then that closed down and then I was downstairs in the office only with my manager, just bits and pieces, nothing, they have got names for it but nothing exciting. 

So did you retire early, I mean, did you '

Yeah, yeah, I took early retirement, yeah. Yeah. Well it was a case of having to. You know, I had to then, yeah. I realised then I had to 'cos I couldn't do my job, not to 100%. No, I used to bring work home and that and because I couldn't do it in the time it should have been done and it was paperwork that just had to be done. You know and it was just, I just couldn't cope with it.

So is it, towards the end it was office work?

Yeah.

' that you were doing?

Yeah, hmm. I just couldn't cope with it.

Initially the 'pumping' pain she felt made it difficult to sleep for days on end.

But it was just, the sleeping, I just could not sleep. There was days that I went without sleeping because of the pain, it was like a pumping and it was only, the worse part was when I went to bed, that's when it really, really, pain, you know. It was just like someone pumping the pain into you. [Hmmm] That's the only way I can describe it. 

God, it was a good year, if not, yeah, longer, yeah it was. I wouldn't go anywhere. I wouldn't go on holiday with my husband. I just would not do nothing. I used to just, be silly and cry 'cos that time I didn't sleep, I couldn't, there was days and days when I couldn't sleep. You know, I just was walking, I was walking round the house, like a woman possessed, you know and the pain and I just if I could only get the morning. I used to think, 'God, I wish it was..', I just used to look out the window and think, 'Oh I wish it was morning. I wish it was morning', you know.

Did you go to the GP or did you, you know, sort of get any help, sleeping tablets or painkillers?

No I wouldn't take sleeping tablets and then they wanted to put me on another sort of, to calm me down but I wouldn't go on that neither, you know.