"From the start I felt how caring my counsellor was"

I had been suffering with a bad back, I had MRI and it showed quite bad stenosis and also discs indenting my spinal cord, I was told I needed neuro surgery and they would refer me to neuro surgeon, also I had to have an appointment with Orthopaedic’s for follow up, so was discharged in October and sent home to wait for appointments.

Finally had appointment in January with Orthopaedic’s and they didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, I had been sitting indoors terrified to move because I could trip or fall and end up paralysed, and due to my legs giving way under me I could hurt myself really badly so stayed indoors terrified of moving, so my anxiety was through the roof and my whole character changed.

I cried most days lost my appetite couldn’t sleep and so so miserable I didn’t think I could cope anymore and thought I don’t want to be here anymore so my doctors had a lovely Nurse in touch with me and she put me in touch with inclusion.

From the start I felt how caring my counsellor Lauren was and it didn’t take long for me to trust her totally, I needed help due to my panic attacks and stress that I couldn’t deal with on my own, every week Lauren would give me tasks to do and I actually wanted to do them as her kind words to me had given me the strength to do them.

I actually started to look forward to the tasks and without really thinking I came to stop stressing so much, one task was to try driving again which I had been panicking about well I finally did it and all my anxiety had really calmed down so no attack, I couldn’t believe it I was so pleased and proud of myself so I have really come on in leaps and bounds.

I’m still a working progress due to my health problems but I can only praise Lauren and inclusion for actually helping my mental health get so much better, I still can’t believe or even remember over the weeks when my anxiety disappeared but it did and so now I can say I’m concerned about my health especially my Spine but not terrified anymore.

Thank you to Lauren and Inclusion for getting me back to a form of normality 😃