I’m Baa-aaack!!
Yes, after a considerable amount of quiet time your friendly neighbourhood seated person is back at his laptop, ready to entertain and enlighten. Sorry about that.
So, what, you may ask, is the reason for this recent radio silence? Well, to tell the truth, although it would be easy to blame medical grounds, and to a degree it would be a well deserved accusation, that would not be giving you the full story. It's a story of pain, of anguish... and more than a little red wine.
Say Cheese!n the occasion
The aforementioned alcohol was four weeks ago, just before the day of my first missed blog post, a day that also fell just after a wine and cheese evening hosted by a good friend.
Now I know what you’re thinking, but no, I’m not going up in the world. In fact it would possibly be a lie to claim I was maintaining my current altitude at this stage of the game. It's true that there was indeed cheese, and there was wine (my word, was there wine), and it's also true that there were people sampling both of these delicacies, but that’s just about where the refinement ends.
There were no evening dresses or tuxedos, no sticking out of ones pinky, as a cheeky little red is shifted across the palate and ejected into an awaiting spittoon, and I certainly don’t remember any real discussion of the merits of the Manchego apart from ‘mmm, that’s nice’.
What I do remember is yours truly quaffing quite a large amount of red that turned out to be not just cheeky but downright rude, and subsequently embarrassing himself thoroughly in the taxi on the way home. Suffice it to say that the evening ended with me not feeling entirely well, a state that continued well into the next day. A veil should probably be drawn over the exact details.
Tea & Cake
So that’s one down. What happened to the second planned post though? Ah, well there we venture into a slightly less adventurous tale, one of family, cake, Doctor Who, and an unplanned take-away.
This was the family celebration of my sister, Janine’s birthday. An afternoon, that to be fair we had down in the diary, but for one reason or another, failed to realise clashed with blog writing day. It was the kind of ‘do’ that entails pretty much the whole family getting together at my mum and dad’s, catching up, drinking tea, and eating the rather lovely home-made chocolate cake. The take -out? Well that was due to a combination of an increasingly late hour, the aforementioned television programme, a hungry blogger, and the fact that not one person out of the whole extended family, seemed to be able to stop talking about Chinese food the whole afternoon. This includes my other sister Leanne, who at the time was doing a remarkable impression of me a fortnight earlier.
Excuse Me!
Excuse Me!
So, yes. There You have it. The excuses, if excuses be needed. A matter of events overtaking me, something that seems to have happened just a little too easily for my liking of late.
It’s easy to blame the busy time of year, the need to buy presents, plan meals, and remember to invite the right people over. It’s easy to blame the need to sort out a new car before my current one goes back to Motability next February and it is, as always, extremely easy to blame MS.
The truth of the matter is that all these things and perhaps a little more have combined over the last month. Life has become busier, there is no doubt of that, and the stresses of the season, exacerbated by the increasing need to be careful with the purse strings, have almost certainly led to an increase in the soul-sucking weariness that seems to raise its head whenever I have even the threat of a busy day. The fact that I’m not sleeping all that well only goes to add to this rather frazzled effect.
Yoga Class
Luckily, there’s a new doctor in town, one who is taking over from my previous specialist and has now had the time to actually take up her post and start catching up on the workload left by her predecessor's sudden and seemingly unplanned retirement (No-one seemingly took over the role for several months when that happened). This has meant that I’ve been able to meet up with Doctor Yoga face to face and to discuss management (there being no real treatment or cure for MS) strategies going forward.
The Plegridy that I gave up taking, due to the ‘flu-like symptoms’ impacting me far more than I could have ever foreseen, was talked about and a different drug was put forward. As this also carries with it the possibility of flu-like symptoms, still only reduces the chances of a relapse by up to 30%, and means injecting myself every other day rather than every other week, I’m currently thinking that it might be better to take my chances with the disease. To my mind it’s no good prolonging a life at the cost of that life being one of aches, pains, tiredness, and the ever enduring foggy-headedness.
The Drugs Do Work
I also took the opportunity to raise the possibility of CBD oil, which has been mooted to have a very positive effect on my fellow sufferers and could conceivably address the sleeplessness and hopefully, the fatigue side of things. This I would count as a major win. Unfortunately the drug, although available on the NHS seems harder to get hold of than a particularly slippery eel that has been greased and placed in a non-stick bath full of motor oil, and I was told my chances of being prescribed it were disappearingly slim to non-existent.
Luckily there is an alternative, and upon stressing my constant exhaustion and lack of sleep, I have been prescribed a low dose of Amitriptyline, a mild pain killer, anti-depressant, and most importantly, a mild sedative, that aids quality of sleep. It’s only two days into my usage of the drug but last night’s sleep was the best I’ve had in weeks, and today feels brighter, sharper, and a hell of lot less daunting.
Present Time
If things progress in the same way then it’s come at just the right time. With Richards and Buble already set loose from their cages with their own brands of musical mild sedative, ready to hunt for that elusive Christmas number one, and any and every shop one cares to go into tinseled up to the eyeballs, it won’t be long before the silly season descends upon us in full. Having a tad more energy, a little more alertness, and the ability to launch into some full on Christmas cheer, well that’s the best present I could get.
Have a great Christmas!
It’s easy to blame the busy time of year, the need to buy presents, plan meals, and remember to invite the right people over. It’s easy to blame the need to sort out a new car before my current one goes back to Motability next February and it is, as always, extremely easy to blame MS.
The truth of the matter is that all these things and perhaps a little more have combined over the last month. Life has become busier, there is no doubt of that, and the stresses of the season, exacerbated by the increasing need to be careful with the purse strings, have almost certainly led to an increase in the soul-sucking weariness that seems to raise its head whenever I have even the threat of a busy day. The fact that I’m not sleeping all that well only goes to add to this rather frazzled effect.
Yoga Class
Luckily, there’s a new doctor in town, one who is taking over from my previous specialist and has now had the time to actually take up her post and start catching up on the workload left by her predecessor's sudden and seemingly unplanned retirement (No-one seemingly took over the role for several months when that happened). This has meant that I’ve been able to meet up with Doctor Yoga face to face and to discuss management (there being no real treatment or cure for MS) strategies going forward.
The Plegridy that I gave up taking, due to the ‘flu-like symptoms’ impacting me far more than I could have ever foreseen, was talked about and a different drug was put forward. As this also carries with it the possibility of flu-like symptoms, still only reduces the chances of a relapse by up to 30%, and means injecting myself every other day rather than every other week, I’m currently thinking that it might be better to take my chances with the disease. To my mind it’s no good prolonging a life at the cost of that life being one of aches, pains, tiredness, and the ever enduring foggy-headedness.
The Drugs Do Work
I also took the opportunity to raise the possibility of CBD oil, which has been mooted to have a very positive effect on my fellow sufferers and could conceivably address the sleeplessness and hopefully, the fatigue side of things. This I would count as a major win. Unfortunately the drug, although available on the NHS seems harder to get hold of than a particularly slippery eel that has been greased and placed in a non-stick bath full of motor oil, and I was told my chances of being prescribed it were disappearingly slim to non-existent.
Luckily there is an alternative, and upon stressing my constant exhaustion and lack of sleep, I have been prescribed a low dose of Amitriptyline, a mild pain killer, anti-depressant, and most importantly, a mild sedative, that aids quality of sleep. It’s only two days into my usage of the drug but last night’s sleep was the best I’ve had in weeks, and today feels brighter, sharper, and a hell of lot less daunting.
Present Time
If things progress in the same way then it’s come at just the right time. With Richards and Buble already set loose from their cages with their own brands of musical mild sedative, ready to hunt for that elusive Christmas number one, and any and every shop one cares to go into tinseled up to the eyeballs, it won’t be long before the silly season descends upon us in full. Having a tad more energy, a little more alertness, and the ability to launch into some full on Christmas cheer, well that’s the best present I could get.
Have a great Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment