Karen’s Journal: ‘I don’t want to waste my life, so it’s a new year and a new me’ – a woman we support shares her diary

Karen – a familiar face here at The New Futures Project – began keeping a diary late last year having agreed to share it with us, our supporters and the wider community.

Karen – not her real name – is in her early-40s and in poor health, chiefly as a result of drug and alcohol use.

She loves dropping into the project to catch up with friends and recently helped out here as a volunteer – something which gave her a renewed sense of purpose and achievement.

This is her account of January:

It’s a new year and for me 2024 will be amazing.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s going to be a year full of pain, (but that’s another story), laughter, tears and temptation.

I’m going to have to put every ounce of strength and positivity to make this the year that I become the person I want to be.

The past four years I lay wasting away and almost died twice.

You would have thought I’d be writing this after the first time I came hours away from dying, but no…

I suppose my depression sank me into a state of ‘existence’. I wasn’t living. I was in a rut.

From the second I woke up I could not even get out of bed without a can of 8.5% beer, a stone and a bag (crack’n’smack) in my system.

That’s not including the two pre-gabs (codeine), to boot. No pun intended.

For those who are not in the know, a stone is crack and a bag of ‘dark’ is heroin – and you ‘boot’ your dark, hence the pun.

But that is not a life. I don’t want to waste my life, so it’s a new year and a new me. A new hairdo, new clothes, new trainers and new way of thinking, doing positive projects.

I’ve been sober since last June. That was the second near-death experience.

I want to move on with my life. I want to be a better person. I want to feel wanted and useful.

My daughter is six this year, so I need to spend the next few years piecing my life back together.

I’d lost all care in the world, I thought ‘its not like I have a purpose or if anyone even likes me as a person’.

I hope someone does – lol.

I want to be a good mama. I want to not feel like drugs make me feel better. I’m not sure I even do enjoy it when I do smoke.

It’s crazy spending £50 to £70 on a smoke twice or even three times a day. You do the maths.

Think what I could have been buying for my flat.

Why should I give my money to a 20-year-old youth who has a bad attitude and who thinks I’m a little crackhead t**t.

Back to my point. This is my year to be better, to do better. Obviously, Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s one step at a time.

Just not being in pain would be a start. I’m so sick of being in pain with my legs. And, yet again, that’s another story.

So, let’s go on this journey together and see where it takes us.

Fingers crossed. Let’s do this. So, its almost the end of January and I thought about getting all these plans in motion.

The pain in my left leg is unreal. I know my own body and I’ve lived with the ulcers on my legs for five years now.

The right leg is healing now, but the left has more than doubled in size since vascular specialists signed me off last May.

At that time I was in hospital undergoing iv antibiotics, so as far as they were concerned I’m on the mend. But I’m not.

I swear I’ve considered asking for it to be amputated rather than be in this pain anymore.

It’s not like I couldn’t walk again. I’d get a prosthetic leg. I could even get one of those springy ones. That way I’d be like Linford Christie – fast!

Jokes aside, the fact I’d consider amputation surely gives everyone an idea of the excruciating pain I’m in every second of every day.

So, this morning the nurses that come in to change the dressings on my legs have decided they think it’s infected and, again, I need antibiotics.

A quick rundown.

• 2019: A small spot appears on my right leg.

• 2020: I have three or four ulcers on my right leg. Cellulitis, blood clot, PE/DE?? sepsis. I almost die.

• 2020 (summer): I spent four weeks in hospital.

• 2020 (winter): Got a friend round for the night. Fast forward four months and she’s still here and my health is deteriorating.

• 2021: Ulcers have spread to both legs now and, with the madness going on around me, I’m surprised I’m still alive.

• 2022: I can’t even walk to the toilet. The ulcers cover both legs, both front and back, from the knees down and the pain is excruciating. Hospital admission again. Four weeks.

• 2023: March it was three weeks in hospital, July four weeks and October five weeks. Between all this were one to two weeks in the LRI for IV antibiotics.

• 
  

I am even drinking again now because of it – one or two cans of 8.5% lager. It’s getting more frequent. Is this my life?

I’m going to New Futures in the morning.

I’m trying. I really am.

Contact The New Futures Project on 0116 251 0803 or send us a message at: info@new-futures.org.uk

You can find us at 71 London Road, Leicester, LE2 0PE.

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