I'm having a Good Patch. This year, it's been mostly Good Patches.
Friday, I ran flat out all day, doing housework and gardening, including chopping back overgrown lawn with scissors of all things. Only an hour and I cleared a surprising amount.
I say only an hour - that's an hour solid's effort. This is a bizarre amount for me to be doing, with getting up at each handful and carrying the grass to the bucket. I went on from that to make proper rabbit stew from scratch (including chopping the rabbit into servings), to do laundry and make up the guest bed, which is a king-size, so it's not easy. Then I greeted guests, Carol and Gary, saw to their needs and crawled to bed.
The next day, I got up, did my morning routine, took Carol to the Bodyworks exhibition and came home with her and Sessifet both. There was a side-trip to look at a Roman fort. I managed to be together enough to find the time of the train I wanted, notice at Bolton station that it didn't go through to Deansgate, stop and get food, water and tickets, get us on the right train and even arrive in Deansgate on time. My only anxiety was when we couldn't find the well-hidden group that were, from the main entrance, past the car-park, down spiral stairs, through another car park and under some columns. I call that well-hidden.
We saw dead people. They were very beautiful and strange. Then I came back and served us
the rabbit stew. Wisely, I decided to rest inside, instead of going out to the pub. I had a nice, quiet evening chatting with Gary and occasionally feeding him things. He made tea. We watched television. I had a wonderful time. I fell asleep on the sofa later on, being hair-fuzzled into a coma by Pol. I don't remember putting myself to bed.
Why did I need to rest? Well, on Sunday I had to be up at eight, to go on a walk. It was a long walk, and a hard walk, and my legs are sore. Claire came too, and I persuaded her, after, to come over to say hello to Carol and Gary. Then I felt peckish and offered a fried breakfast. But we were out of eggs and bacon and sausages, so off Claire and I walked to the Co-op, and back, and we both put on a slap-up feed, with toast even.
The day didn't finish there. Carol showed me how to heddle-weave, and I was able to pay attention, which was wonderful. No having my concentration 'bbzdt'ed away by blasts of migraine. Carol and Gary left, and Angela came over, so we went for a long drive. I coped with all of this.
Then, after Pol went to bed, I did another hour or two in the garden, losing more skin. The torn-off blisters on my hand are, at worst, mildly annoying, so I suspect my pain threshold is up, or I am Tramadoled to oblivion.
Stress-wise, I was getting a bit anxious about the neighbours shouting outside (playing with their portapool and getting into arguments), so I put on my Bolton Hospital relaxation CD and tried track 6, the body scan. It worked wonderfully and I don't even have too much of a headache to mark the day.
We'll see how I am tomorrow when all the excitement is over.
Sunday 11 May 2008
Thursday 17 April 2008
In which the Rodent discusses meal planning and its online profile.
Look for Supermouse The Rodent, migraine on Google and what you get is myLivejournal. There's no trace of this blog at all. To be honest, that's the way I prefer it. It's just a mild nuisance when I am on a borrowed computer and don't have my bookmarks to hand.
My Livejournal is more or less a report to my friends of everything I've been up to. This blog is a report to myself and possibly medics about how my migraines and ME and other health issues are affecting me. It's much duller, on the whole, but neither are exciting.
Today I want to talk about food, meal planning and how migraines affect what I eat.
On Tuesday I baked trout stuffed with a mixture of sweet potato (which should be precooked), lemon grass paste, ginger paste (very little, but enough) and spring onion. I was intending to cook mackerel, but in my un-drugged addledness accidentally clicked the (much more expensive) 'responsibly raised' trout from some Lord's lake.
It was very nice. It was also three times the price of the meal I'd intended to have.
Migraines make it hard to budget. It's harder to plan a journey properly, because I get confused about when things are, what date is 'now' and what day goes with which date. Even with a calendar in front of my, I can get puzzled. It also makes it hard to work out where to get buses, so I end up with taxis a lot of the time out of a need not to have to think too hard. And, as above, they complicate meal planning.
ME does similar but with extra problems on top. You have the difficulty of planning, and the additional joy of not knowing whether or not you're going to be able to cook the food you've bought. Fresh trout looks very pretty in the fridge, but what if you then are exhausted from putting the shopping away, and can't cook it before it goes off? I eat more fresh food now, just because I can usually rely on myself to be able to cook, for example, fresh meat before it goes green and smelly. I use less tinned milk and tinned fruit. I cook proper meals and then have the energy to freeze portions.
Just as being rich lets people save money that the poor can't (tax rebates, bulk buying, better quality therefore longer-lasting goods), being full of energy lets me save energy. I can cook a huge meal and freeze it later in the same day or the next morning. I've been able to clean up the kitchen right away, so I don't have to scrub off dried-off gunk before I start portioning things out. The kitchen is tidy, so I can find the pen and the freezer containers.
The payoff is that for a while after a cooking session, I can just throw in a home-made frozen meal, nuke it for five-and-a-half minutes and know I've got good food going. I can use the getting-food-ready energy on other things, which might make it even easier next time as I shop for new ingredients and plant food plants so I can pick my own. And, of course, I save money too, money I can spend on taxis.
If I could plan food out properly, I'd save even more. I think, once the Tramadol is properly back in my system, I'll be more able to. I don't think it's worth taking a break of more than three days, just because the migraines then take such a hold that I spend days drugged up but no better off thinking-wise.
Last night, newly back on painkillers, I was in terrible pain and so the planned painting session didn't happen, but I did get to socialise and the planning ability was there, in that I knew it was Wednesday and I knew that Wednesday, therefore this day, was art day. I'd even managed to buy a vinyl table cloth for art, and remember I'd bought it, and put it out before the evening began. I'm quite pleased with the level of joined-up-thinking this implies. I am just greedy and want to be able to apply it to meals.
Tonight's dinner is tinned soup and Matteson's U-shaped sausage. The delicious taste of planning failure.
My Livejournal is more or less a report to my friends of everything I've been up to. This blog is a report to myself and possibly medics about how my migraines and ME and other health issues are affecting me. It's much duller, on the whole, but neither are exciting.
Today I want to talk about food, meal planning and how migraines affect what I eat.
On Tuesday I baked trout stuffed with a mixture of sweet potato (which should be precooked), lemon grass paste, ginger paste (very little, but enough) and spring onion. I was intending to cook mackerel, but in my un-drugged addledness accidentally clicked the (much more expensive) 'responsibly raised' trout from some Lord's lake.
It was very nice. It was also three times the price of the meal I'd intended to have.
Migraines make it hard to budget. It's harder to plan a journey properly, because I get confused about when things are, what date is 'now' and what day goes with which date. Even with a calendar in front of my, I can get puzzled. It also makes it hard to work out where to get buses, so I end up with taxis a lot of the time out of a need not to have to think too hard. And, as above, they complicate meal planning.
ME does similar but with extra problems on top. You have the difficulty of planning, and the additional joy of not knowing whether or not you're going to be able to cook the food you've bought. Fresh trout looks very pretty in the fridge, but what if you then are exhausted from putting the shopping away, and can't cook it before it goes off? I eat more fresh food now, just because I can usually rely on myself to be able to cook, for example, fresh meat before it goes green and smelly. I use less tinned milk and tinned fruit. I cook proper meals and then have the energy to freeze portions.
Just as being rich lets people save money that the poor can't (tax rebates, bulk buying, better quality therefore longer-lasting goods), being full of energy lets me save energy. I can cook a huge meal and freeze it later in the same day or the next morning. I've been able to clean up the kitchen right away, so I don't have to scrub off dried-off gunk before I start portioning things out. The kitchen is tidy, so I can find the pen and the freezer containers.
The payoff is that for a while after a cooking session, I can just throw in a home-made frozen meal, nuke it for five-and-a-half minutes and know I've got good food going. I can use the getting-food-ready energy on other things, which might make it even easier next time as I shop for new ingredients and plant food plants so I can pick my own. And, of course, I save money too, money I can spend on taxis.
If I could plan food out properly, I'd save even more. I think, once the Tramadol is properly back in my system, I'll be more able to. I don't think it's worth taking a break of more than three days, just because the migraines then take such a hold that I spend days drugged up but no better off thinking-wise.
Last night, newly back on painkillers, I was in terrible pain and so the planned painting session didn't happen, but I did get to socialise and the planning ability was there, in that I knew it was Wednesday and I knew that Wednesday, therefore this day, was art day. I'd even managed to buy a vinyl table cloth for art, and remember I'd bought it, and put it out before the evening began. I'm quite pleased with the level of joined-up-thinking this implies. I am just greedy and want to be able to apply it to meals.
Tonight's dinner is tinned soup and Matteson's U-shaped sausage. The delicious taste of planning failure.
Saturday 12 April 2008
In which the Rodent settles back home and catches up.
I've been away, first to Nottingham, then to London. This has made it impossible to update my blog. It's also mean doing a lot of travelling, alone, which I got through just fine, even with all the physical work involved.
It's also meant taking Tramadol nearly every day for several weeks, and I want a break, even if it makes me very headachey. So I am taking a break from any sort of opiates and I've kept my calendar more or less empty. On Monday I have a flute lesson, Tuesday I have a walk in the morning, Wednesday I'll take drugs because we're having an evening of painting and chat and that's a huge problem without the drugs.
Day two drugless and I am headachey but still able to enjoy life. I am eating Skittles Crazy Sours when the pain hits, as a distraction. Oddly, the pain isn't much worse than without the opiates, but my thoughts are starting to scatter. Yesterday was very busy, cold and wet. Today is bright and sunny after a cold, wet start. Neither weather pattern fills me with joy. Getting everything done I wanted to have done does make my life joyful. However, it's getting more difficult to join my thoughts together and do anything needing concentration or memory.
I have an appointment for relaxation training with the Pain Clinic, finally. It's this month, even.
It's also meant taking Tramadol nearly every day for several weeks, and I want a break, even if it makes me very headachey. So I am taking a break from any sort of opiates and I've kept my calendar more or less empty. On Monday I have a flute lesson, Tuesday I have a walk in the morning, Wednesday I'll take drugs because we're having an evening of painting and chat and that's a huge problem without the drugs.
Day two drugless and I am headachey but still able to enjoy life. I am eating Skittles Crazy Sours when the pain hits, as a distraction. Oddly, the pain isn't much worse than without the opiates, but my thoughts are starting to scatter. Yesterday was very busy, cold and wet. Today is bright and sunny after a cold, wet start. Neither weather pattern fills me with joy. Getting everything done I wanted to have done does make my life joyful. However, it's getting more difficult to join my thoughts together and do anything needing concentration or memory.
I have an appointment for relaxation training with the Pain Clinic, finally. It's this month, even.
Saturday 29 March 2008
In which the Rodent reluctantly updates.
I recognise the signs. That urgh, don't wanna that says if I drop the blog now, I will never, ever, ever pick it up again and then I'll feel guilty, despite the fact that it's something I do for me and so far as I know there's a maximum of one other reader.
This blog is also where I talk about my migraines and health, an indulgence I don't allow myself as much rein on in Livejournal. This is a depressing blog about a depressing subject so a little urgh is to be expected.
Yesterday was bad. I woke up at 4am and went back to bed at 6am when the painkillers kicked in. Then I was woken up again at 8am, full of migraine. The migraines are a lot better if I am allowed to just sleep them off. Yesterday was another reminder of why I go to bed ridiculously early if I need to get up. I woke up because I got bronchitis which is a good thing, honestly.
If I exercise too much in cold weather, by which I mean to the point where I take in a nice, deep breath of cold air, I get a warning pain in my lungs which will invariably turn into a nice chesty case of sick-sheep-coughing bronchitis. This used to be a real problem when I was a child and a teenager, but it hasn't bothered me since I got ME because I haven't been fit enough to exercise to that level. Well, on Thursday I got my lungs seared climbing up Forest Hill Road in Nottingham carrying a week's clothes and my flute and laptop. This is why I woke up at 4am coughing sadly and unable to breathe well. A cuppa and some sitting up time made all better but it did not make me feel much better when I had to get up and start being active outdoors.
Yesterday I helped my sister move. Despite feeling very, very sick (nauseated) and bronchitic and with a pounding head moving between six and eight all day long, I managed to help my sister. She was upset because her landlord isn't getting basic things like her heating sorted out. I have been in crappy housing before. Her house is decent, but not when it doesn't have heating. I know how easy it is to end up just sitting in despair and when my mum said she'd been crying on the phone at the latest problem (shoddy workmen pulling cupboards apart to put in a fridge that doesn't fit) then I had an idea of what to do. I looked around and grabbed a few pretty things I knew she liked. My mum took her blankets and I greeted her at the door with a cushion she owns that has a very smiley happy yellow cat on. This got a smile.
We were sat in her sitting room all full of bags, lamenting how bad the landlord had been and how awkward it was not to be able to hang anything on any of the walls. It came to me that this was a miserable room but full of nice things and that it didn't have to stay miserable. I then got into bullying mode and spent a happy day mercilessly browbeating my relatives. I made her take all the rubbish outside which was a one-minute job she'd not bothered to do. I got a picture white-takked to a door and the blankets put away instead of dumped on the sofa, and suddenly we were off and the place was being put back together.
She said it was as if she was a junkie and we were running an intervention, because everything we made her do was so obvious and made such a difference but she'd just not been able to work out how to get started doing it.
The meter-cupboards had post and phone books dumped on top and looked depressing, so I made her put the phone books away and she white-takked album covers onto the white doors.
I had to argue with my mum about a fireplace behind the chair that the telly is currently balanced on. She told me not to decorate it because it was a depressing, dusty hole and half-hidden anyway. Now it has a little green dressing table (about eight inches high) my sister picked out, with a potter rabbit on top that sis had had on display in her old room and cheerful matching candles and it's a lovely little background note.
Her computer table has had a vintage scarf fastened to the front to hide all the wiring and I put her monitor-decorations back and cleared the table top but for her tiger-print mouse and pretty speakers.
The meter-cupboards have an album cover, a lot of pink tea-lights in stacks and a coloured tile. Her little tiled coffee table she'd stuffed into the corner is now on display, and the room-heater that was sitting on top of an old suitcase is now on her little table. There's a rug in front of her sofa. I hung up a light shade and covered the non-functional radiator. Suddenly the room is part of a home and not what it was before, which was a place to dump things.
Inspired by this, my sister did her room herself, unpacking everything and putting it all away. The task had seemed overwhelming to her, but we'd got things started and that's the hardest part, usually. When we struggled home at 8pm, it was all just about done.
Going home was awful. Since my sister was nearly done, we ended up staying in a house that was getting colder and colder, while we both got hungrier and hungrier and more and more tired. She did need us and I am glad we stayed, but I was crying with pain on the way home and threw up several times after I got back. I did manage to keep down some cocodamol and by 9pm I was back in the land of the living. It did make me realise how much better I've been recently. I felt so ill, but a few weeks ago that level of pain was normal living. I was also amazed at how well I functioned when in so much pain.
I read recently that slow release opiates should be taken for chronic pain (I mean, if you're going to take opiates at all) and quick-release for top-up. This accords with what I have worked out myself through trial and error, that if I take a single Tramadol in the morning of what looks to be a bad day, and perhaps another in the afternoon or evening, then I can top up with cocodamol and perhaps as a last resort have aspirin as well and I am unlikely to end up unable to cope with the pain.
Last year I was taking Tramadol as a last resort and of course I then needed more and often ended up unable to cope. The current regime suits me very well.
Today I've been out shopping and also spent a very happy time hanging my sister's earrings from a ribbon fastened along the top of a door. My migraine is at about a four after drugging up with tramadol at 4am and cocodamol at tennish. I feel so much better than last night.
This blog is also where I talk about my migraines and health, an indulgence I don't allow myself as much rein on in Livejournal. This is a depressing blog about a depressing subject so a little urgh is to be expected.
Yesterday was bad. I woke up at 4am and went back to bed at 6am when the painkillers kicked in. Then I was woken up again at 8am, full of migraine. The migraines are a lot better if I am allowed to just sleep them off. Yesterday was another reminder of why I go to bed ridiculously early if I need to get up. I woke up because I got bronchitis which is a good thing, honestly.
If I exercise too much in cold weather, by which I mean to the point where I take in a nice, deep breath of cold air, I get a warning pain in my lungs which will invariably turn into a nice chesty case of sick-sheep-coughing bronchitis. This used to be a real problem when I was a child and a teenager, but it hasn't bothered me since I got ME because I haven't been fit enough to exercise to that level. Well, on Thursday I got my lungs seared climbing up Forest Hill Road in Nottingham carrying a week's clothes and my flute and laptop. This is why I woke up at 4am coughing sadly and unable to breathe well. A cuppa and some sitting up time made all better but it did not make me feel much better when I had to get up and start being active outdoors.
Yesterday I helped my sister move. Despite feeling very, very sick (nauseated) and bronchitic and with a pounding head moving between six and eight all day long, I managed to help my sister. She was upset because her landlord isn't getting basic things like her heating sorted out. I have been in crappy housing before. Her house is decent, but not when it doesn't have heating. I know how easy it is to end up just sitting in despair and when my mum said she'd been crying on the phone at the latest problem (shoddy workmen pulling cupboards apart to put in a fridge that doesn't fit) then I had an idea of what to do. I looked around and grabbed a few pretty things I knew she liked. My mum took her blankets and I greeted her at the door with a cushion she owns that has a very smiley happy yellow cat on. This got a smile.
We were sat in her sitting room all full of bags, lamenting how bad the landlord had been and how awkward it was not to be able to hang anything on any of the walls. It came to me that this was a miserable room but full of nice things and that it didn't have to stay miserable. I then got into bullying mode and spent a happy day mercilessly browbeating my relatives. I made her take all the rubbish outside which was a one-minute job she'd not bothered to do. I got a picture white-takked to a door and the blankets put away instead of dumped on the sofa, and suddenly we were off and the place was being put back together.
She said it was as if she was a junkie and we were running an intervention, because everything we made her do was so obvious and made such a difference but she'd just not been able to work out how to get started doing it.
The meter-cupboards had post and phone books dumped on top and looked depressing, so I made her put the phone books away and she white-takked album covers onto the white doors.
I had to argue with my mum about a fireplace behind the chair that the telly is currently balanced on. She told me not to decorate it because it was a depressing, dusty hole and half-hidden anyway. Now it has a little green dressing table (about eight inches high) my sister picked out, with a potter rabbit on top that sis had had on display in her old room and cheerful matching candles and it's a lovely little background note.
Her computer table has had a vintage scarf fastened to the front to hide all the wiring and I put her monitor-decorations back and cleared the table top but for her tiger-print mouse and pretty speakers.
The meter-cupboards have an album cover, a lot of pink tea-lights in stacks and a coloured tile. Her little tiled coffee table she'd stuffed into the corner is now on display, and the room-heater that was sitting on top of an old suitcase is now on her little table. There's a rug in front of her sofa. I hung up a light shade and covered the non-functional radiator. Suddenly the room is part of a home and not what it was before, which was a place to dump things.
Inspired by this, my sister did her room herself, unpacking everything and putting it all away. The task had seemed overwhelming to her, but we'd got things started and that's the hardest part, usually. When we struggled home at 8pm, it was all just about done.
Going home was awful. Since my sister was nearly done, we ended up staying in a house that was getting colder and colder, while we both got hungrier and hungrier and more and more tired. She did need us and I am glad we stayed, but I was crying with pain on the way home and threw up several times after I got back. I did manage to keep down some cocodamol and by 9pm I was back in the land of the living. It did make me realise how much better I've been recently. I felt so ill, but a few weeks ago that level of pain was normal living. I was also amazed at how well I functioned when in so much pain.
I read recently that slow release opiates should be taken for chronic pain (I mean, if you're going to take opiates at all) and quick-release for top-up. This accords with what I have worked out myself through trial and error, that if I take a single Tramadol in the morning of what looks to be a bad day, and perhaps another in the afternoon or evening, then I can top up with cocodamol and perhaps as a last resort have aspirin as well and I am unlikely to end up unable to cope with the pain.
Last year I was taking Tramadol as a last resort and of course I then needed more and often ended up unable to cope. The current regime suits me very well.
Today I've been out shopping and also spent a very happy time hanging my sister's earrings from a ribbon fastened along the top of a door. My migraine is at about a four after drugging up with tramadol at 4am and cocodamol at tennish. I feel so much better than last night.
Tuesday 25 March 2008
In which the Rodent goes for a walk and then does other things instead of going back to bed to recover.
It's been snowing, raining and beginning to blow outside, thankfully after I finished a nice hour-long walk. Bolton Primary Care Trust have come to the conclusion that more people would walk if they had someone to walk with. I filled in the questionnaire last year that helped them to come to this conclusion. The result is a set of Get Active walks, where you turn up at, in this case, a local library and all set off together to tramp around a country park, taking in the sights and keeping up a flow of inconsequential chatter as a nice distraction from the fact you're outside in the freezing cold being weathered upon.
It works. I've spent a full hour, more than, walking around. On my own, I get too tired in ten minutes. I'm looking forward to going and doing it again. This after doing two sessions of tai chi over the weekend (I seriously recommend tai chi) and various running around for a science fiction convention.
Part of the mental discipline is going to be finding something innocuous to talk about while doing it. I've got a leaflet, Zeppelins over Lancashire, from the Bolton museum, so I'll read up and be able to spout off at will with any luck. I'm having a lot of fun gathering local knowledge and putting down roots like a dandelion.
I didn't feel, somehow, that I could share my memories of a fascinating weekend learning how to deal with a Cyberman invasion. Or about the really cool person in the really cool Jack Harkness outfit who got chosen to lead a team on account of being the most smartly dressed (and most hung over and least able to wriggle out of it.) Or the fun of watching a scenario writer seeing her scenario get played out and enjoyed while all goes to happy chaos. Or the mummer in a flame costume collecting money, or the table full of body parts, or the new author hawking his book (Johnny Nexus is his name, I forget the title of his book but I'm enjoying it so far). Or how cool it is to watch someone you know run a panel next to one of their heroes and manage to look as though he does this all the time.
I did share the tale of Pol giving me a lift back to the Travel Lodge and leaving me in the Landrover to go and get something. As he was coming back, the weather suddenly came up, with literally howling winds. There was a crow trying to land in a tree and being blown back, but it managed to get a grip and, once safe, sat watching poor Pol struggling across the car park as about twenty tonnes of hail and rain were dumped upon his head and blown up his nose. I was digging hail out of his ear when he got back. Of course, as soon as he got into the car and closed the door, all the rain and hail stopped.
We went off to get Moth and the traffic was so awful I had to call my flute teacher. She postponed me until 4:30 and I got through the lesson, albeit badly. I've had two doses of cocodamol and I feel not too bad now. Headachey but it's bearable. It's definitely a migraine. I'm not getting the space between migraines I was hoping for but I am functional and I am only taking about 50mg per day, and not even every day.
It works. I've spent a full hour, more than, walking around. On my own, I get too tired in ten minutes. I'm looking forward to going and doing it again. This after doing two sessions of tai chi over the weekend (I seriously recommend tai chi) and various running around for a science fiction convention.
Part of the mental discipline is going to be finding something innocuous to talk about while doing it. I've got a leaflet, Zeppelins over Lancashire, from the Bolton museum, so I'll read up and be able to spout off at will with any luck. I'm having a lot of fun gathering local knowledge and putting down roots like a dandelion.
I didn't feel, somehow, that I could share my memories of a fascinating weekend learning how to deal with a Cyberman invasion. Or about the really cool person in the really cool Jack Harkness outfit who got chosen to lead a team on account of being the most smartly dressed (and most hung over and least able to wriggle out of it.) Or the fun of watching a scenario writer seeing her scenario get played out and enjoyed while all goes to happy chaos. Or the mummer in a flame costume collecting money, or the table full of body parts, or the new author hawking his book (Johnny Nexus is his name, I forget the title of his book but I'm enjoying it so far). Or how cool it is to watch someone you know run a panel next to one of their heroes and manage to look as though he does this all the time.
I did share the tale of Pol giving me a lift back to the Travel Lodge and leaving me in the Landrover to go and get something. As he was coming back, the weather suddenly came up, with literally howling winds. There was a crow trying to land in a tree and being blown back, but it managed to get a grip and, once safe, sat watching poor Pol struggling across the car park as about twenty tonnes of hail and rain were dumped upon his head and blown up his nose. I was digging hail out of his ear when he got back. Of course, as soon as he got into the car and closed the door, all the rain and hail stopped.
We went off to get Moth and the traffic was so awful I had to call my flute teacher. She postponed me until 4:30 and I got through the lesson, albeit badly. I've had two doses of cocodamol and I feel not too bad now. Headachey but it's bearable. It's definitely a migraine. I'm not getting the space between migraines I was hoping for but I am functional and I am only taking about 50mg per day, and not even every day.
Wednesday 19 March 2008
In which the Rodent makes fish pie.
Today's not a bad day, although I am considering a nap before people turn up tonight. I woke up at half past four in the morning again and used the time to clean up, watch telly and get Pol his breakfast.
I don't feel quite up to going out, but given all of yesterday's activity, that is to be expected. I did have enough energy to make a fish pie.
This is my first attempt at a home made fish pie, so the recipe follows exactly what happened. The final recipe will of course be altered to produce a better result.
Home made fish pie.
Take two fillets of coley defrosted the night before.
Put on baking tray and sprinkle with sunflower oil.
Add a lime leaf to the top of each and cover only the top of each fillet with a tinfoil hat to protect it from scorching and thetans.
Place into cold oven because you forgot to preheat, at gas mark 4
Set timer for fifteen minutes.
Peel and slice five small/medium maris piper or other mashing potatoes.
Cover in cold water in a thin-walled pan and put on to cook. Immediately wash knife and chopping board to guard them from starch thetans.
Place about 30g/quarter of an inch of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan at a low heat. While it's melting, grate a sad little carrot which, while not at all rotten, is about a day past its best. Put grated carrot into the bottom of a small casserole which holds about three pints.
To the melted butter, add about a dessert spoonful and a half of wholemeal flour. Reflect on the sadness that leads to using wholemeal flour and thus turns white sauces beige. Leave to cook for a surprsingly long time on a low heat, to rid roux of all possible traces of flouriness (probably thetan-attracting).
Take God's gift to brocolli, which is emerald green and splendid and has been lording it over the sad carrot for the last day or so. Chop off a few florets and then finely chop until it's all little tiny green bits, because who wants to bite into a fish pie and get a soggy mouthful of brocolli? I like brocolli, but it has to know its place. Add to casserole with carrot. There should be about equal volumes of green bits and orange bits. Add same quantity of sweetcorn as there is of carrot and stir. Reassure delicate little vegetables that no one is going to pour tinned soup over them.
Stir roux, which is beginning to smell agreeably bicuitlike. Become alarmed at spitting noises from oven, and scared that the fish is going to be all scorched and dead. Pull out and examine. Discover it needs about another five minutes. Glance at timer, which has another five minutes to run. Feel smug.
Put fish back in oven, then stir roux harshly and add about half a cup from half a litre/just under a pint of semi-skimmed milk. Whisk very thoroughly and quickly add more before it turns into actual pastry and causes lumps. Whisking makes white (or beige) sauce feel loved. Once you've added enough to leave the end result looking like thin cream, if thin cream was beige and had bits of bran in it, turn up the heat just a little. Whisk very thoroughly one more time as a gesture of love, then leave it to do other things.
(At this point, if I had trouble standing, I would pour the sauce into a glass bowl and nuke it for a minute or two at a time until it had thickened to my satisfaction).
Turn oven off with two minutes left to go. Turn potatoes down and turn them over. Stir white (or beige) sauce. Chop a small onion finely, then eye vegetables and seemingly huge pile of onion. Add about half the onion to the mix and mutter about waste while discarding other half. Remove fish from oven and flake it into the veg. Be agreeably surprised at the pleasant, entirely foodlike smell which comes up. Stir sauce.
Turn potatoes off, empty into colander, then empty colander back into pan. Wash colander immediately to rid it of starch thetans. Go back to sauce, which can take just about anything except lack of attention. Whisk again to tell it you love it and then shake in dried or fresh parsley until the smell changes from a biscuity smell to a wonderful, only slightly herby parsley sauce smell. Adjust until the smell of the sauce seems like it would go well with the veg and fish mix. Add sauce to mix and discover that of course there's too much, but not by that much. Stir what is now finished pie mix and put to one side.
Mash potatoes, adding a pinch or two of nutmeg. You want enough to give a certain something, but not nearly enough to actually be able to tell the something is nutmeg. Spoon potatoes onto pie. Smooth over with a fork, reliving childhood days in nursery school and leaving patterns. Put pie into oven at gas mark 4 and set timer for half an hour.
Clean up kitchen, feeling good about life. Turn to leave, only to discover potato pan which has been beset by starch thetans. Battle and destroy all thetans, then clean up resulting mess from counter tops. Retire to the computer, cuppa in hand. Discover an hour later the timer has failed to go off, that the pie is fine and that next time you'll put it in at gas mark 6.
Next time I will also add butter and cream or milk to the mash, since it's a little too plain without.
Migraine pain got a little thumpy, about sixish, and then got splatted with tramadol. It's now down to a barely annoying three and spiking five only when kids play football outside. The pain bothers me less than the thumping.
I don't feel quite up to going out, but given all of yesterday's activity, that is to be expected. I did have enough energy to make a fish pie.
This is my first attempt at a home made fish pie, so the recipe follows exactly what happened. The final recipe will of course be altered to produce a better result.
Home made fish pie.
Take two fillets of coley defrosted the night before.
Put on baking tray and sprinkle with sunflower oil.
Add a lime leaf to the top of each and cover only the top of each fillet with a tinfoil hat to protect it from scorching and thetans.
Place into cold oven because you forgot to preheat, at gas mark 4
Set timer for fifteen minutes.
Peel and slice five small/medium maris piper or other mashing potatoes.
Cover in cold water in a thin-walled pan and put on to cook. Immediately wash knife and chopping board to guard them from starch thetans.
Place about 30g/quarter of an inch of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan at a low heat. While it's melting, grate a sad little carrot which, while not at all rotten, is about a day past its best. Put grated carrot into the bottom of a small casserole which holds about three pints.
To the melted butter, add about a dessert spoonful and a half of wholemeal flour. Reflect on the sadness that leads to using wholemeal flour and thus turns white sauces beige. Leave to cook for a surprsingly long time on a low heat, to rid roux of all possible traces of flouriness (probably thetan-attracting).
Take God's gift to brocolli, which is emerald green and splendid and has been lording it over the sad carrot for the last day or so. Chop off a few florets and then finely chop until it's all little tiny green bits, because who wants to bite into a fish pie and get a soggy mouthful of brocolli? I like brocolli, but it has to know its place. Add to casserole with carrot. There should be about equal volumes of green bits and orange bits. Add same quantity of sweetcorn as there is of carrot and stir. Reassure delicate little vegetables that no one is going to pour tinned soup over them.
Stir roux, which is beginning to smell agreeably bicuitlike. Become alarmed at spitting noises from oven, and scared that the fish is going to be all scorched and dead. Pull out and examine. Discover it needs about another five minutes. Glance at timer, which has another five minutes to run. Feel smug.
Put fish back in oven, then stir roux harshly and add about half a cup from half a litre/just under a pint of semi-skimmed milk. Whisk very thoroughly and quickly add more before it turns into actual pastry and causes lumps. Whisking makes white (or beige) sauce feel loved. Once you've added enough to leave the end result looking like thin cream, if thin cream was beige and had bits of bran in it, turn up the heat just a little. Whisk very thoroughly one more time as a gesture of love, then leave it to do other things.
(At this point, if I had trouble standing, I would pour the sauce into a glass bowl and nuke it for a minute or two at a time until it had thickened to my satisfaction).
Turn oven off with two minutes left to go. Turn potatoes down and turn them over. Stir white (or beige) sauce. Chop a small onion finely, then eye vegetables and seemingly huge pile of onion. Add about half the onion to the mix and mutter about waste while discarding other half. Remove fish from oven and flake it into the veg. Be agreeably surprised at the pleasant, entirely foodlike smell which comes up. Stir sauce.
Turn potatoes off, empty into colander, then empty colander back into pan. Wash colander immediately to rid it of starch thetans. Go back to sauce, which can take just about anything except lack of attention. Whisk again to tell it you love it and then shake in dried or fresh parsley until the smell changes from a biscuity smell to a wonderful, only slightly herby parsley sauce smell. Adjust until the smell of the sauce seems like it would go well with the veg and fish mix. Add sauce to mix and discover that of course there's too much, but not by that much. Stir what is now finished pie mix and put to one side.
Mash potatoes, adding a pinch or two of nutmeg. You want enough to give a certain something, but not nearly enough to actually be able to tell the something is nutmeg. Spoon potatoes onto pie. Smooth over with a fork, reliving childhood days in nursery school and leaving patterns. Put pie into oven at gas mark 4 and set timer for half an hour.
Clean up kitchen, feeling good about life. Turn to leave, only to discover potato pan which has been beset by starch thetans. Battle and destroy all thetans, then clean up resulting mess from counter tops. Retire to the computer, cuppa in hand. Discover an hour later the timer has failed to go off, that the pie is fine and that next time you'll put it in at gas mark 6.
Next time I will also add butter and cream or milk to the mash, since it's a little too plain without.
Migraine pain got a little thumpy, about sixish, and then got splatted with tramadol. It's now down to a barely annoying three and spiking five only when kids play football outside. The pain bothers me less than the thumping.
Tuesday 18 March 2008
In which the Rodent has much less trouble getting around.
Suddenly I am fit to go out alone.
Yesterday I failed to get to Rochdale. I missed one train and was too tired out to get another, but the thing is, I looked the train times up myself. I can't articulate why this is so difficult for me when not on strong narcotics, but it is. Yesterday it was simple. This morning, it was simple and I finally got to go.
I didn't just go to Rochdale. I visited the vet there, went to a supermarket and bought everything I wanted to without getting lost or frustrated. I got a taxi to the station and was able to read the signs and make a judgement call as to which train to get home again, finding myself in Manchester Victoria. I did have a small time of being lost, but it resolved fairly quickly and I got myself to Platform 6. It is nice being able to read signs and have them mean something. It's nice to be on a journey and at all times be aware where I am going and why.
Not only did I do all this, but I also had a successful flute lesson. The notes aren't waving lazily around the lines any more, which is making note reading easier. I am still flailing, but that's my own muppetry acting. I can deal with it being muppetry. It just means I need more practice doing sight reading. Ugh.
After the flute lesson I wandered around Bolton town centre. There's a museum and aquarium. Previously, I have spent unfun hours, literally hours, tramping around unable to follow the maps and getting lost. This time it took me about two minutes to work out where it was. Still slow, but I walked straight from the map to the museum and got to see everything and talk about fish care and filters with the two knowledgeable men. One had an enthusiastic air of knowledge, the other had a mop. I ended up suspecting the chap with the mop was probably the senior person there.
I didn't bother with the fake Egyptian artefacts, saving them for another day, but I did get myself a Hall I' Th' Wood mug for £4.75.
No Tramadol (yet) today. Cocodamol at the point where a football being kicked around outside started driving me barmy and I realised I was in pain and probably more cocodamol very soon, but no Tramadol. Tramadol yesterday and Tramadol tomorrow because it's Wednesday and I will have people over. Pain is at about a 5. Annoying but bearable.
Yesterday I failed to get to Rochdale. I missed one train and was too tired out to get another, but the thing is, I looked the train times up myself. I can't articulate why this is so difficult for me when not on strong narcotics, but it is. Yesterday it was simple. This morning, it was simple and I finally got to go.
I didn't just go to Rochdale. I visited the vet there, went to a supermarket and bought everything I wanted to without getting lost or frustrated. I got a taxi to the station and was able to read the signs and make a judgement call as to which train to get home again, finding myself in Manchester Victoria. I did have a small time of being lost, but it resolved fairly quickly and I got myself to Platform 6. It is nice being able to read signs and have them mean something. It's nice to be on a journey and at all times be aware where I am going and why.
Not only did I do all this, but I also had a successful flute lesson. The notes aren't waving lazily around the lines any more, which is making note reading easier. I am still flailing, but that's my own muppetry acting. I can deal with it being muppetry. It just means I need more practice doing sight reading. Ugh.
After the flute lesson I wandered around Bolton town centre. There's a museum and aquarium. Previously, I have spent unfun hours, literally hours, tramping around unable to follow the maps and getting lost. This time it took me about two minutes to work out where it was. Still slow, but I walked straight from the map to the museum and got to see everything and talk about fish care and filters with the two knowledgeable men. One had an enthusiastic air of knowledge, the other had a mop. I ended up suspecting the chap with the mop was probably the senior person there.
I didn't bother with the fake Egyptian artefacts, saving them for another day, but I did get myself a Hall I' Th' Wood mug for £4.75.
No Tramadol (yet) today. Cocodamol at the point where a football being kicked around outside started driving me barmy and I realised I was in pain and probably more cocodamol very soon, but no Tramadol. Tramadol yesterday and Tramadol tomorrow because it's Wednesday and I will have people over. Pain is at about a 5. Annoying but bearable.
Tuesday 11 March 2008
In which the Rodent learns from past mistakes.
Having spent another restless night listening to the wind (and even, at one point, nipping out for a 3am walk to see how bad the wind was), I learned that Tramadol is not really any good to me as a nightcap. Today I took it early. Not terribly early, since I slept through until my flute teacher rang me at some point past 3pm. I may have needed it, today was much better.
I went Outside! I went to the butchers and had returned, unpacked veg and cooked us both breakfast before much more than an hour had passed since waking. This is very quick off the mark for me, but it did put me on edge for the rest of the day: one reason I like two hours to get off the mark from sleep to Out.
Then the second trip was to the garage, pausing only to admire a double part-rainbow, a complete rainbow and a pretty sunset. There I got enough gas for a goodly while and various sundries. I am having fewer episodes where I forget what I was doing and miss chunks of time, which is nice. I was able to stay focused on what I was doing right through all the processes of getting to the garage, getting money, looking around at things and then paying. I did nearly walk off without the gas, but that's fairly normal.
I'm not sure how to explain the difference between normal absent-mindedness and the strange, frightening voids in memory that bother me. I think it's the difference between forgetting to pick up the gas and forgetting what a gas card is and not being able to work out what to do with it, or where I currently am, and why.
A second meal was cooked and eaten: thinly sliced leeks cut on the bias and cooked in butter, white wine and nutmeg, to which grated carrots and then dried tarragon were added. With this, Ruthi had my last vealburger (I made it from high-welfare veal) and I had big, fat venison sausages from the local butcher. We both had sweet potatoes cooked with allspice and sage, pronounced very delicious by Ruthi.
Dessert was underripe pear and overripe red plum cooked in red wine, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and fresh ginger. Ruthi had seconds, so I think she liked it.
Since I've put laundry on, remembered to give Moth her hot water bottle and done the bulk of the washing up, as well as my ten chores, I'd say today was a very high functioning day. It remains to be seen how well tomorrow goes, but hopefully an early night will get me awake in better time to go museum-visiting.
Pain is only about four, bothersome but I can still feel good, spiking to six, ow, or seven where life seems unfun and I have to stop typing.
I went Outside! I went to the butchers and had returned, unpacked veg and cooked us both breakfast before much more than an hour had passed since waking. This is very quick off the mark for me, but it did put me on edge for the rest of the day: one reason I like two hours to get off the mark from sleep to Out.
Then the second trip was to the garage, pausing only to admire a double part-rainbow, a complete rainbow and a pretty sunset. There I got enough gas for a goodly while and various sundries. I am having fewer episodes where I forget what I was doing and miss chunks of time, which is nice. I was able to stay focused on what I was doing right through all the processes of getting to the garage, getting money, looking around at things and then paying. I did nearly walk off without the gas, but that's fairly normal.
I'm not sure how to explain the difference between normal absent-mindedness and the strange, frightening voids in memory that bother me. I think it's the difference between forgetting to pick up the gas and forgetting what a gas card is and not being able to work out what to do with it, or where I currently am, and why.
A second meal was cooked and eaten: thinly sliced leeks cut on the bias and cooked in butter, white wine and nutmeg, to which grated carrots and then dried tarragon were added. With this, Ruthi had my last vealburger (I made it from high-welfare veal) and I had big, fat venison sausages from the local butcher. We both had sweet potatoes cooked with allspice and sage, pronounced very delicious by Ruthi.
Dessert was underripe pear and overripe red plum cooked in red wine, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and fresh ginger. Ruthi had seconds, so I think she liked it.
Since I've put laundry on, remembered to give Moth her hot water bottle and done the bulk of the washing up, as well as my ten chores, I'd say today was a very high functioning day. It remains to be seen how well tomorrow goes, but hopefully an early night will get me awake in better time to go museum-visiting.
Pain is only about four, bothersome but I can still feel good, spiking to six, ow, or seven where life seems unfun and I have to stop typing.
Monday 10 March 2008
In which the Rodent lives the life better stoned.
The first day of Tramadol did not go well, because I slept badly and then got woken up several times an hour and a half apart each time by poor well-meaning Pol. This left me wiped out on Sunday. I got poor-quality sleep in the afternoon and of course stayed awake all night. Then I had to get up to host Ruthi (a person of much, much shininess). My first painkiller of the day was HFCC again, but, on being reminded I have Tramadol as an option, I took one tonight.
The headache's still there but I can think clearly through it and the pain is somehow ignorable. I have no idea why opiates help me the way they do. They clearly do help, but crivvens if I can see why. I'm not addicted to them and every doctor going says they don't help alleviated migraine symptoms, so why do they leave me able to follow thoughts in a straight line?
To give an example, just now before finally dropping off, I've finished the process of getting back on MSN and Skype and I've uploaded my preferred icon, which will end up here when I find out how to do things with pictures. Part of the uploading involved installing an image converter and using it to convert a gif to a bmp. I kept getting it wrong, which is the sort of thing which makes my migraines spike massively, normally. Trying to problem solve and stay on-task like that is very, very hard with a migraine. Just now I have a humdinger but I've still done all that and even remembered to blog before I go to sleep.
The five months of unremitting pain have left me without any fear of the worst migraines can throw at me painwise, so in a good world I won't get into a despair spiral when the headache gets sore. Tramadol being a very effective painkiller, I think I'll notice the pain more when it wears off, an effect I'd seen already with cocodamol. I was convinced that Tramadol had helped me think more clearly back in late 2006/early 2007, during which time I learned a good chunk of Spanish, moved to Seville for several months, found a good (very good) hostel as a temporary measure (Hostel Oasis in Seville is a very, very good place), rented a flat and dealt with flights back to the UK (although I did need help with booking a train). I wasn't happy, and I was too unreliable to be fit to work, but I was functional. Unhappy, in pain but still feeling like a person.
Contrast to my time without, which was spent more or less doing nothing. Forgive the self-pitying tone here, but it was a crappy second half to the year. My social life dwindled because I couldn't stand to see anyone and, worse, can't remember from one conversation to the next what has been discussed. Trying to concentrate to remember is a migraine spike, usually. Not right now, when drugged on Tramadol, but usually. My old skills all fell away and I lost the ability to learn new things. I tried to plan a Solstice meal and couldn't, until I started back on cocodamol.
Magical opiates allow me to think, reason, remember and plan. I can without, but such cognitive efforts are always fragmentary and disordered. I lose the thread of what I am trying to do and the inevitable frustration that engenders causes a small vicious circle of pain until I drop what I was trying to do and go back to lalala butterflies again.
It was a pity that the first day left me an insomniac wreck, but I'll see how it goes from here.
It's 2am, later than I planned on sleeping, but it's still within my definition of 'night' since I am generally a 3am-11am sleeper when healthy. I think I can drop off and even if I don't, there are strict instructions left to let me sleep it out tomorrow so I can get my head straight. Pain is base five, spiking eight.
The headache's still there but I can think clearly through it and the pain is somehow ignorable. I have no idea why opiates help me the way they do. They clearly do help, but crivvens if I can see why. I'm not addicted to them and every doctor going says they don't help alleviated migraine symptoms, so why do they leave me able to follow thoughts in a straight line?
To give an example, just now before finally dropping off, I've finished the process of getting back on MSN and Skype and I've uploaded my preferred icon, which will end up here when I find out how to do things with pictures. Part of the uploading involved installing an image converter and using it to convert a gif to a bmp. I kept getting it wrong, which is the sort of thing which makes my migraines spike massively, normally. Trying to problem solve and stay on-task like that is very, very hard with a migraine. Just now I have a humdinger but I've still done all that and even remembered to blog before I go to sleep.
The five months of unremitting pain have left me without any fear of the worst migraines can throw at me painwise, so in a good world I won't get into a despair spiral when the headache gets sore. Tramadol being a very effective painkiller, I think I'll notice the pain more when it wears off, an effect I'd seen already with cocodamol. I was convinced that Tramadol had helped me think more clearly back in late 2006/early 2007, during which time I learned a good chunk of Spanish, moved to Seville for several months, found a good (very good) hostel as a temporary measure (Hostel Oasis in Seville is a very, very good place), rented a flat and dealt with flights back to the UK (although I did need help with booking a train). I wasn't happy, and I was too unreliable to be fit to work, but I was functional. Unhappy, in pain but still feeling like a person.
Contrast to my time without, which was spent more or less doing nothing. Forgive the self-pitying tone here, but it was a crappy second half to the year. My social life dwindled because I couldn't stand to see anyone and, worse, can't remember from one conversation to the next what has been discussed. Trying to concentrate to remember is a migraine spike, usually. Not right now, when drugged on Tramadol, but usually. My old skills all fell away and I lost the ability to learn new things. I tried to plan a Solstice meal and couldn't, until I started back on cocodamol.
Magical opiates allow me to think, reason, remember and plan. I can without, but such cognitive efforts are always fragmentary and disordered. I lose the thread of what I am trying to do and the inevitable frustration that engenders causes a small vicious circle of pain until I drop what I was trying to do and go back to lalala butterflies again.
It was a pity that the first day left me an insomniac wreck, but I'll see how it goes from here.
It's 2am, later than I planned on sleeping, but it's still within my definition of 'night' since I am generally a 3am-11am sleeper when healthy. I think I can drop off and even if I don't, there are strict instructions left to let me sleep it out tomorrow so I can get my head straight. Pain is base five, spiking eight.
Monday 3 March 2008
In which the Rodent ably alliterates about a political porker.
Pol says it always snows on his birthday and outside it is cold enough that all the wheelie bins are frozen shut under a layer of sticky ice.
Yesterday's flute lesson didn't go very well. I got started but was only a few minutes in when migraine struck with shaking hands, loss of coordination and weird visual effects, none of which make for deft flute-playing. Poor Alex is stuck with a very slow student. I got home, dosed myself with the cocodamol Pol so kindly went out and got and was fine thereafter. Thanks to loadsadrugs, pain hasn't crept much over the 8 mark. 8 still has me confined to bed and deeply unhappy, but it's not dangerous. I ran out of cocodamol for a while and had to have 30mg codeine. It stopped the pain excellently well and I got a lot done under it's influence. Yay drugs.
My shopping has all arrived. So much! Part of the expense was a duvet for the spare room so that we can have visitors without it impacting my ability to huddle downstairs watching telly and clutching my HWB in the early hours.
Speaking of which, Moth woke me up at 4am very agitated and insisted on being in my room. She wouldn't go on the bed to her usual place but would only sit next to the bedside on the structural bodge-job that serves me as a bedside table. Coincidentally, my HWB had just started leaking and was making me damp, but luckily not too much escaped and the bed is drying out already. I'll check it in a little while but I think that the top wasn't done tightly enough and I'd been sleeping on it, and because it was cool it had been allowed to unravel from the towel it's usually wrapped in.
Moth's currently elsewhere in the house, ignoring me again.
The bulk of the shopping is food, including a few new store cupboard items like black treacle and rice wine vinegar. I have chicken defrosting from last night, ready to pretend to be the rabbit in the recipe I posted. I'll separate the skins and have them roasted as a snack, because there's nothing I like more than fresh, hot chicken crackling.
I'm not sure whether to cook the Somerset beef today as well, in the slow cooker, or gamble on having enough energy on Friday to do it then. Pol's away for a few days, so it would be nice, I think, for him to come back to a hot beef stew thing, although I don't know how much he'll like the finished result. The other point is that I'll have a few more plastic containers by then from having Chinese food. Most of all of these dishes will be frozen for my bad days.
On a food-related note, there's a rally in London today organised by the National Pig Association or NPA, to protest the falling price of pork. British pork is raised to slightly higher welfare standards than the rest of the EU, which isn't really saying much. (If you buy pork from happy pigs, they were probably doing all right.)
Corn, both maize and wheat, is more expensive just now. According to various news sources I've trawled, lots of maize is being taken to make ethanol in an attempt to green up. Because maize is now worth more, it's being planted in areas that used to be used to grow wheat. Both these grains are used in bulk to make animal feed and that's painfully pinching the purses of pork producers. Hence the protest.
I mention this partly because there's a forecast pork shortage which means fewer bacon sarnies, which is a dreadful thought, and partly because former mayoral candidate Winnie the Pig will be marching alongside the NPA to show her support. She might have been blocked from standing for London Mayor by speciesism, but that hasn't stopped her political career.
Yesterday's flute lesson didn't go very well. I got started but was only a few minutes in when migraine struck with shaking hands, loss of coordination and weird visual effects, none of which make for deft flute-playing. Poor Alex is stuck with a very slow student. I got home, dosed myself with the cocodamol Pol so kindly went out and got and was fine thereafter. Thanks to loadsadrugs, pain hasn't crept much over the 8 mark. 8 still has me confined to bed and deeply unhappy, but it's not dangerous. I ran out of cocodamol for a while and had to have 30mg codeine. It stopped the pain excellently well and I got a lot done under it's influence. Yay drugs.
My shopping has all arrived. So much! Part of the expense was a duvet for the spare room so that we can have visitors without it impacting my ability to huddle downstairs watching telly and clutching my HWB in the early hours.
Speaking of which, Moth woke me up at 4am very agitated and insisted on being in my room. She wouldn't go on the bed to her usual place but would only sit next to the bedside on the structural bodge-job that serves me as a bedside table. Coincidentally, my HWB had just started leaking and was making me damp, but luckily not too much escaped and the bed is drying out already. I'll check it in a little while but I think that the top wasn't done tightly enough and I'd been sleeping on it, and because it was cool it had been allowed to unravel from the towel it's usually wrapped in.
Moth's currently elsewhere in the house, ignoring me again.
The bulk of the shopping is food, including a few new store cupboard items like black treacle and rice wine vinegar. I have chicken defrosting from last night, ready to pretend to be the rabbit in the recipe I posted. I'll separate the skins and have them roasted as a snack, because there's nothing I like more than fresh, hot chicken crackling.
I'm not sure whether to cook the Somerset beef today as well, in the slow cooker, or gamble on having enough energy on Friday to do it then. Pol's away for a few days, so it would be nice, I think, for him to come back to a hot beef stew thing, although I don't know how much he'll like the finished result. The other point is that I'll have a few more plastic containers by then from having Chinese food. Most of all of these dishes will be frozen for my bad days.
On a food-related note, there's a rally in London today organised by the National Pig Association or NPA, to protest the falling price of pork. British pork is raised to slightly higher welfare standards than the rest of the EU, which isn't really saying much. (If you buy pork from happy pigs, they were probably doing all right.)
Corn, both maize and wheat, is more expensive just now. According to various news sources I've trawled, lots of maize is being taken to make ethanol in an attempt to green up. Because maize is now worth more, it's being planted in areas that used to be used to grow wheat. Both these grains are used in bulk to make animal feed and that's painfully pinching the purses of pork producers. Hence the protest.
I mention this partly because there's a forecast pork shortage which means fewer bacon sarnies, which is a dreadful thought, and partly because former mayoral candidate Winnie the Pig will be marching alongside the NPA to show her support. She might have been blocked from standing for London Mayor by speciesism, but that hasn't stopped her political career.
Sunday 2 March 2008
In which the Rodent battles depression to win biscuit goodness.
I visited the pain clinic and wrote here about how the psychologist seemed more interested in lowering my expectations than in offering to work with me to get a handle on all this pain. The overall impression I got was very negative. I get very upset about being in so much pain and the unhopeful prognosis, so I ended up dropping into a pit of depression for a few days. Insomnia, crying, feelings of hopelessness, you name it. I've had an awful few days emotionally speaking.
As part of clawing my way out of the pit, I spent a while planning my next week's meals and ordering the necessary food and I stuck to my list of ten as much as I could. I emailed the Samaritans at a point where I felt like ending it all and texted the long-suffering Hunter early in the morning to remind myself that other people were alive and I wasn't all alone. Pol spent a chunk of that morning giving me a hug and tell me aw there there. I spent a chunk of that afternoon giving him a hug and telling him aw there there. These days we seem, I think, to be a lot better at being there for each other.
Just now he's away for the weekend. I haven't felt like grabbing people and suggesting a quick jaunt to Blackpool but it's definitely something to do another day.
So, today I feel better. I got to bed at eleven, got to sleep probably about twelvish and didn't wake up until 2pm. Not what I wanted, but I feel so much better today I'll accept that I needed to sleep for thirteen or fourteen hours. Since I'd been feeling MEish as well as depressed, it's not unexpected. Sometimes a bout of ME will get better after a marathon kip.
I did my ten. I got myself a bath and got dressed. I went outside and looked to see if anything is sprouting. I collected rubbish. I practiced flute. I fussed Moth and got her a fresh hot water bottle. I got myself lunch; breakfast was one the oatmeal and ginger biscuits I baked yesterday and a raw carrot. Lunch was baked sweet potato, sausages and steamed bok choy. I didn't finish it in one go and I've just finished the last of it, nuked hot again, now. I had the last biscuit I baked as a snack and I have frozen part-baked biscuits and frozen dry mix in the freezer ready to go.
Go me!
Out in the wider world, the euro news had a report yesterday on what seemed to be a hurricane, hurricane Emma that had hit Germania and chunks of southern Scandewegia. I know we've had force eleven winds here in Britain because I caught the shipping forecast. I couldn't find any mention of hurricane force winds in Europe on Google or the BBC but a friend on Livejournal has since told me that it was indeed Hurricane Emma, that it did just flick Britain with its tail and she pointed me to some relevant news sites.
As part of clawing my way out of the pit, I spent a while planning my next week's meals and ordering the necessary food and I stuck to my list of ten as much as I could. I emailed the Samaritans at a point where I felt like ending it all and texted the long-suffering Hunter early in the morning to remind myself that other people were alive and I wasn't all alone. Pol spent a chunk of that morning giving me a hug and tell me aw there there. I spent a chunk of that afternoon giving him a hug and telling him aw there there. These days we seem, I think, to be a lot better at being there for each other.
Just now he's away for the weekend. I haven't felt like grabbing people and suggesting a quick jaunt to Blackpool but it's definitely something to do another day.
So, today I feel better. I got to bed at eleven, got to sleep probably about twelvish and didn't wake up until 2pm. Not what I wanted, but I feel so much better today I'll accept that I needed to sleep for thirteen or fourteen hours. Since I'd been feeling MEish as well as depressed, it's not unexpected. Sometimes a bout of ME will get better after a marathon kip.
I did my ten. I got myself a bath and got dressed. I went outside and looked to see if anything is sprouting. I collected rubbish. I practiced flute. I fussed Moth and got her a fresh hot water bottle. I got myself lunch; breakfast was one the oatmeal and ginger biscuits I baked yesterday and a raw carrot. Lunch was baked sweet potato, sausages and steamed bok choy. I didn't finish it in one go and I've just finished the last of it, nuked hot again, now. I had the last biscuit I baked as a snack and I have frozen part-baked biscuits and frozen dry mix in the freezer ready to go.
Go me!
Out in the wider world, the euro news had a report yesterday on what seemed to be a hurricane, hurricane Emma that had hit Germania and chunks of southern Scandewegia. I know we've had force eleven winds here in Britain because I caught the shipping forecast. I couldn't find any mention of hurricane force winds in Europe on Google or the BBC but a friend on Livejournal has since told me that it was indeed Hurricane Emma, that it did just flick Britain with its tail and she pointed me to some relevant news sites.
Friday 29 February 2008
In which the Rodent writes a much shorter blog post.
Aargh, the last entry was long! I'll keep this one shorter.
I got all upset by the pain clinic's careful dashing of hopes, so slumped into a huge (and migrainous) fit of depression, pain and despair, all of which went to show the relaxation lessons will be very helpful. Meanwhile, I have carte blanche to go back to narcotic pain relief if it keeps me functional. I am also corresponding with the Samaritans by email to help with the despair thing. It saves me having a very miserable blog and upsetting my friends. Whining, but guilt-free! When I no longer end up in tears at the end of each email I'll probably stop considering myself depressed. I think I am coming out of it now anyway.
I rang the London Migraine Clinic and the doc explained (again, alas) that they're not overseeing my pain meds at all, so I also rang the GP and got an appointment for next Friday morning. Go me! The week long wait shows they're busy, so I've written down my case for getting back onto Tramadol. The one change between last year and now is that I will probably mentally be much better able to cope when the painkillers aren't effective, which is going to happen several times per week. The downside to better pain relief is that you notice the pain so much more when it stops. The upside is of course that you are able to actually do things.
Speaking of which, I have some Happy Fun Cocodamol fizzing in a glass next to me which has been sitting there for ten minutes, so I should take my drugs and get back to the written Chinese I have been learning from the basiccharacters Livejournal community. One character per day most days is still slightly hard to keep up with but I am trying hard to. The ten household tasks swallows a lot more of my thinking time than I had guessed.
I got all upset by the pain clinic's careful dashing of hopes, so slumped into a huge (and migrainous) fit of depression, pain and despair, all of which went to show the relaxation lessons will be very helpful. Meanwhile, I have carte blanche to go back to narcotic pain relief if it keeps me functional. I am also corresponding with the Samaritans by email to help with the despair thing. It saves me having a very miserable blog and upsetting my friends. Whining, but guilt-free! When I no longer end up in tears at the end of each email I'll probably stop considering myself depressed. I think I am coming out of it now anyway.
I rang the London Migraine Clinic and the doc explained (again, alas) that they're not overseeing my pain meds at all, so I also rang the GP and got an appointment for next Friday morning. Go me! The week long wait shows they're busy, so I've written down my case for getting back onto Tramadol. The one change between last year and now is that I will probably mentally be much better able to cope when the painkillers aren't effective, which is going to happen several times per week. The downside to better pain relief is that you notice the pain so much more when it stops. The upside is of course that you are able to actually do things.
Speaking of which, I have some Happy Fun Cocodamol fizzing in a glass next to me which has been sitting there for ten minutes, so I should take my drugs and get back to the written Chinese I have been learning from the basiccharacters Livejournal community. One character per day most days is still slightly hard to keep up with but I am trying hard to. The ten household tasks swallows a lot more of my thinking time than I had guessed.
Tuesday 26 February 2008
In which the Rodent has its first visit to a pain clinic.
The ME yuk has faded into the background again. Migraines restrict me so much that I am never quite sure if the lack of fluey ache is because I am in remission, because the beta blockers are a miracle drug for my particular woes, or whether I end up accidentally staying at less than seventy percent of capability and thus don't trigger an ME crash. It's impossible to tell without about fifteen thousand similarly afflicted Rodents and a million pounds. Whatever it is, I am lboody grateful.
Today I finally managed to attend a pain clinic after missing the first appointment by turning up on the wrong day. This time it was the right day, although by the end of the two hour assessment I couldn't honestly have told you what day it was without looking at my calendar. The calendar is one of the few Flylady items, I've tried that actually works for me, and this is only after years of slowly adapting the system to my own needs. The main reason the calendar works is because there's no picture and so you end up with two A3 sized pieces of paper for every month.
What I have been told is that after taking no painkillers at all between July 17 2007 and November 17 2007, the headaches are not rebound and I can take whatever kills the pain while the pain clinic teaches me new methods to relax and cope. I'm all for the relaxation, since I think I need it. I don't need the added psychological barrier of being afraid to go out because it will hurt, and that is already beginning to happen. When I explained this, though, I got no feedback at all about whether this was something they did or not. It was very much a talking to blank walls exercise. I could have used their not carefully explaining that they don't offer miracles, since I am feeling crushed and hopeless enough as it is. I'm not expecting to be pain free, or drug free, but it would be nice to be in a better mental place. They kept asking me what I thought they could offer me, and I don't know what they can. Relaxation techniques, CBT, tea and biscuits, who knows? I felt horribly like I was sitting an oral exam I hadn't studied for.
I told them fairly honestly what I use to help the pain: two times 8/500 cocodamol two or three times a day, sometimes four, sometimes none. Tramadol if I need my wits about me for any length of time. Alcohol as an occasional alternative when I want to go out with friends (the Solstice was very boozy). Headbutting a wall during the really bad ones.
I forgot to mention super-sour sweets, cinnamon sweets and ice cream, all of which help the pain by giving me a few seconds respite/distraction.
I am thinking I need a non-junkie style way to explain to my migraine doc that when I was on thirty or so tramadol per month I was unhappy and unable to work but able to learn Spanish, travel to Spain, find my own accommodation and keep up my hobbies, while without them I am struggling with getting to the corner shop and back again. Either my brain has deteriorated very swiftly since 2007 and I am in serious trouble (and livejournal entries then and now suggest not), or my mental health has just become that bad for some reason (that's harder to ascertain), or strong pain relief really does help me get it together. I need to get that all out verbally without resorting at any point to screaming GIVE ME DRUGS!! because that won't help my case. Unfortunately, while I can type this out fairly calmly, once I'm talking to a doc I can hear the brain cells dribbling away until I am snivelling about wanting more tramadol because it makes me feel better....
It might even actually be better to be a drug-free zombie and not get habituated, although experience really, really says I need something. I really wanted a doc at the pain clinic I could talk this sort of thing over with, and I didn't get it. I'll be going to a GP I probably haven't seen before and asking for tramadol after a looooooooong gap without them, so I want to do it with backing. For this reason, I have an appointment to phone my doc at the London Migraine Clinic on Friday morning. I'll take her advice as regard tramadol. Cocodamol too, since, although it's available OTC, I still don't want to make things worse.
I am working on my own strategies for being unable to think all day. I do ten pieces of housework every day, or at least make a gesture in their direction, and mark them done (or not done) on a whiteboard. They're beginning to slowly be things I do without having to think about them. In particular, it's been natural now for months to wash up as I wait for the kettle to boil for my first cuppa, but it's now becoming second nature to also grab the no-taint kitchen spray and a square of Bounty cloth and wipe the kitchen surfaces and visible spots down. While I eat breakfast, the kitchen is spotless. This is so much not the case for the rest of the day. Wiping the bathroom and brushing the loo are also becoming less things I think about and more things I do naturally, and so those might also come off the list-of-ten-things. I can then add new things onto the list. At the current rate, with current levels of gaga, I could be fairly self sufficient and possibly working at something very simple in three to five years.
For depression, actually, not having to think what to do next is a huge bonus. It's been helping me deal with those February blues, stopping the vicious circle of lack of arsedness--->mess--->being overwhelmed--->depression--->lack of arsedness. If I get a huge relapse or merely hit my limit in the future, I will still try to keep my morning routine going just for the lack of stress it engenders.
Since feeding the cat and emptying her tray are on the list, Moth thinks it's a very good thing. She will come and get me if her cat tray is too full for her comfort, after spreading litter and poo about, so it's good for both of us if it's emptied regularly.
Pol and I had our usual Huge Row about the fact that he really wants to live in a caravan and I really can't cope with it even though the idea itself appeals. The last time we had this row, he threw me out just before I walked out, then he bought me coffee about a minute later and we got very vommish while addressing the very real concern I had over getting so little sleep each night. We left the caravan and moved to this house soon after. This time, we just sat and talked it through for a while, then went and watched the first episode of Stargate SG1 together. Like the fact that I want a dog, the fact that he likes living in a caravan is going to keep on and keep on coming up in the future, so I'll be looking for some way forward to that dream. Perhaps he'll start sleeping eight hours a night. Either that or I can live in a second caravan. One full of dogs. Smelly dogs.
Today I finally managed to attend a pain clinic after missing the first appointment by turning up on the wrong day. This time it was the right day, although by the end of the two hour assessment I couldn't honestly have told you what day it was without looking at my calendar. The calendar is one of the few Flylady items, I've tried that actually works for me, and this is only after years of slowly adapting the system to my own needs. The main reason the calendar works is because there's no picture and so you end up with two A3 sized pieces of paper for every month.
What I have been told is that after taking no painkillers at all between July 17 2007 and November 17 2007, the headaches are not rebound and I can take whatever kills the pain while the pain clinic teaches me new methods to relax and cope. I'm all for the relaxation, since I think I need it. I don't need the added psychological barrier of being afraid to go out because it will hurt, and that is already beginning to happen. When I explained this, though, I got no feedback at all about whether this was something they did or not. It was very much a talking to blank walls exercise. I could have used their not carefully explaining that they don't offer miracles, since I am feeling crushed and hopeless enough as it is. I'm not expecting to be pain free, or drug free, but it would be nice to be in a better mental place. They kept asking me what I thought they could offer me, and I don't know what they can. Relaxation techniques, CBT, tea and biscuits, who knows? I felt horribly like I was sitting an oral exam I hadn't studied for.
I told them fairly honestly what I use to help the pain: two times 8/500 cocodamol two or three times a day, sometimes four, sometimes none. Tramadol if I need my wits about me for any length of time. Alcohol as an occasional alternative when I want to go out with friends (the Solstice was very boozy). Headbutting a wall during the really bad ones.
I forgot to mention super-sour sweets, cinnamon sweets and ice cream, all of which help the pain by giving me a few seconds respite/distraction.
I am thinking I need a non-junkie style way to explain to my migraine doc that when I was on thirty or so tramadol per month I was unhappy and unable to work but able to learn Spanish, travel to Spain, find my own accommodation and keep up my hobbies, while without them I am struggling with getting to the corner shop and back again. Either my brain has deteriorated very swiftly since 2007 and I am in serious trouble (and livejournal entries then and now suggest not), or my mental health has just become that bad for some reason (that's harder to ascertain), or strong pain relief really does help me get it together. I need to get that all out verbally without resorting at any point to screaming GIVE ME DRUGS!! because that won't help my case. Unfortunately, while I can type this out fairly calmly, once I'm talking to a doc I can hear the brain cells dribbling away until I am snivelling about wanting more tramadol because it makes me feel better....
It might even actually be better to be a drug-free zombie and not get habituated, although experience really, really says I need something. I really wanted a doc at the pain clinic I could talk this sort of thing over with, and I didn't get it. I'll be going to a GP I probably haven't seen before and asking for tramadol after a looooooooong gap without them, so I want to do it with backing. For this reason, I have an appointment to phone my doc at the London Migraine Clinic on Friday morning. I'll take her advice as regard tramadol. Cocodamol too, since, although it's available OTC, I still don't want to make things worse.
I am working on my own strategies for being unable to think all day. I do ten pieces of housework every day, or at least make a gesture in their direction, and mark them done (or not done) on a whiteboard. They're beginning to slowly be things I do without having to think about them. In particular, it's been natural now for months to wash up as I wait for the kettle to boil for my first cuppa, but it's now becoming second nature to also grab the no-taint kitchen spray and a square of Bounty cloth and wipe the kitchen surfaces and visible spots down. While I eat breakfast, the kitchen is spotless. This is so much not the case for the rest of the day. Wiping the bathroom and brushing the loo are also becoming less things I think about and more things I do naturally, and so those might also come off the list-of-ten-things. I can then add new things onto the list. At the current rate, with current levels of gaga, I could be fairly self sufficient and possibly working at something very simple in three to five years.
For depression, actually, not having to think what to do next is a huge bonus. It's been helping me deal with those February blues, stopping the vicious circle of lack of arsedness--->mess--->being overwhelmed--->depression--->lack of arsedness. If I get a huge relapse or merely hit my limit in the future, I will still try to keep my morning routine going just for the lack of stress it engenders.
Since feeding the cat and emptying her tray are on the list, Moth thinks it's a very good thing. She will come and get me if her cat tray is too full for her comfort, after spreading litter and poo about, so it's good for both of us if it's emptied regularly.
Pol and I had our usual Huge Row about the fact that he really wants to live in a caravan and I really can't cope with it even though the idea itself appeals. The last time we had this row, he threw me out just before I walked out, then he bought me coffee about a minute later and we got very vommish while addressing the very real concern I had over getting so little sleep each night. We left the caravan and moved to this house soon after. This time, we just sat and talked it through for a while, then went and watched the first episode of Stargate SG1 together. Like the fact that I want a dog, the fact that he likes living in a caravan is going to keep on and keep on coming up in the future, so I'll be looking for some way forward to that dream. Perhaps he'll start sleeping eight hours a night. Either that or I can live in a second caravan. One full of dogs. Smelly dogs.
Saturday 23 February 2008
In which the Rodent suffers an ME relapse.
Thursday night we went to dinner with Julia Jones and it was really, really nice. The restaurant was one that cooks vegetables little enough that they still taste of vegetable and we all had a very good meal. The service was very good, with staff being pleased to see us and willing to do extra little things to make the meal more pleasant. The waitress remembered what we were all drinking when we wanted refills. They do steamed char sui buns too, which is a happy thing for me.
Julia was full of interesting anecdotes and she and Pol were well away remembering various events in the steel industry. I didn't have an awful lot to add, but it was fun sitting and listening. Pol told me I was having real trouble finding words at all by the end of the evening, with long pauses. This must have been quite dull to listen to. I didn't actually notice, being too caught up in what I was saying. :0)
*************
Yesterday I woke up feeling very MEish, with the unpleasant fluey yuk in every joint. I took the day off, doing pretty much nothing and eating junk food, while Pol got on with his Open University assignment. The day ended with pizza because it was all I could face. Pol did six of my ten, so the house has been looked after.
*************
Today I woke up feeling more human and able to do my ten. I realised that, despite washing yesterday, I had that horrible sweat-sour ill person smell. I was very glad to have a bath, and I felt a lot better after. I've covered myself in Lush Silky Underwear powder and lit a candle in my room and gathered dirty clothes into bags ready to go in the machine. Each bag holds exactly one wash, so you don't overload the machine. Everything seems much fresher and more pleasant. It made me realise that people with ME are ill. I mean, I know that, but so many doctors think it's somatic that it's hard not to feel you're just being feeble somehow.
My migraines aren't getting much beyond mildly annoying. Yesterday was a heavy cocodamol day, all four doses, with the most recent being when I woke up at 3am sweating and in a lot of fluey pain. Today I've had none, though I might later.
My main problem is that I am starting to feel a little fluey again. Not badly, but a little achey under the armpits. ME pain always strikes me as a fairly accurate map of my lymph nodes, starting with armpits and neck and working down right to the back of the knees. I'm back on the beta-blockers after a long gap when I couldn't get out to get any, and they will stop me being MEish at all, but they take a couple of weeks to really kick in. I don't want to push things and trigger a major relapse, so I am beginning to think I am going to have to cancel tonight's dinner-and-a-show. I am gutted, since I wanted to see Emma and Andrew very much indeed. They're nice people and I miss seeing them.
Bah.
At least I smell nice.
Julia was full of interesting anecdotes and she and Pol were well away remembering various events in the steel industry. I didn't have an awful lot to add, but it was fun sitting and listening. Pol told me I was having real trouble finding words at all by the end of the evening, with long pauses. This must have been quite dull to listen to. I didn't actually notice, being too caught up in what I was saying. :0)
*************
Yesterday I woke up feeling very MEish, with the unpleasant fluey yuk in every joint. I took the day off, doing pretty much nothing and eating junk food, while Pol got on with his Open University assignment. The day ended with pizza because it was all I could face. Pol did six of my ten, so the house has been looked after.
*************
Today I woke up feeling more human and able to do my ten. I realised that, despite washing yesterday, I had that horrible sweat-sour ill person smell. I was very glad to have a bath, and I felt a lot better after. I've covered myself in Lush Silky Underwear powder and lit a candle in my room and gathered dirty clothes into bags ready to go in the machine. Each bag holds exactly one wash, so you don't overload the machine. Everything seems much fresher and more pleasant. It made me realise that people with ME are ill. I mean, I know that, but so many doctors think it's somatic that it's hard not to feel you're just being feeble somehow.
My migraines aren't getting much beyond mildly annoying. Yesterday was a heavy cocodamol day, all four doses, with the most recent being when I woke up at 3am sweating and in a lot of fluey pain. Today I've had none, though I might later.
My main problem is that I am starting to feel a little fluey again. Not badly, but a little achey under the armpits. ME pain always strikes me as a fairly accurate map of my lymph nodes, starting with armpits and neck and working down right to the back of the knees. I'm back on the beta-blockers after a long gap when I couldn't get out to get any, and they will stop me being MEish at all, but they take a couple of weeks to really kick in. I don't want to push things and trigger a major relapse, so I am beginning to think I am going to have to cancel tonight's dinner-and-a-show. I am gutted, since I wanted to see Emma and Andrew very much indeed. They're nice people and I miss seeing them.
Bah.
At least I smell nice.
Thursday 21 February 2008
In which the Rodent eats far too few vegetables.
I've been out yet again! The cold snap has gone. Pol and I walked in the rain down to the closer postbox. There was a tree next to it, covered in flowers and a road safety poster for some poor road victim. After that we went to the sandwich shop for bin lids. I had steak Canadien (mechanically recovered meat) with mushrooms and onions, and a cup of pea and ham soup. Three portions of veg for breakfast if you don't mind them being half the recommended size.
Pol told me the powers that be have upped the ante to seven fruit and veg a day. Given their recommended portion sizes (three whole sticks of celery or one dessert bowl of salad is one portion) does anyone actually eat that? A soup made from three sticks of celery, two carrots, a turnip, one bowl of cabbage, two cups of whole grain, two small onions and one and a half cups of mushrooms would feed me for two days, but add that to a bowl of shredded wheat and a glass of orange juice, and it's government recommended intake. Actually, I should try that one day, just to see if I can eat that much.
The walk hasn't hurt me at all and I've done my ten things as well. I hit the cocodamol heavily yesterday, since I had Claire over to play cards. Three doses in the day. Today migraines haven't bothered me until just now and it's 2pm and the pain has kicked in at a lowly four. I'll eat the lunch I cooked but forgot about and see if it helps before I take drugs today. I've finished watching Scrubs now, all the five series I own. It was great fun and now it's over.
Pol told me the powers that be have upped the ante to seven fruit and veg a day. Given their recommended portion sizes (three whole sticks of celery or one dessert bowl of salad is one portion) does anyone actually eat that? A soup made from three sticks of celery, two carrots, a turnip, one bowl of cabbage, two cups of whole grain, two small onions and one and a half cups of mushrooms would feed me for two days, but add that to a bowl of shredded wheat and a glass of orange juice, and it's government recommended intake. Actually, I should try that one day, just to see if I can eat that much.
The walk hasn't hurt me at all and I've done my ten things as well. I hit the cocodamol heavily yesterday, since I had Claire over to play cards. Three doses in the day. Today migraines haven't bothered me until just now and it's 2pm and the pain has kicked in at a lowly four. I'll eat the lunch I cooked but forgot about and see if it helps before I take drugs today. I've finished watching Scrubs now, all the five series I own. It was great fun and now it's over.
Monday 18 February 2008
In which the Rodent contemplates a sunset in the Pennines.
It's been another bright and sunny day. I've been out twice, once with sunglasses and once without. I ended up taking cocodamol twice today. The pain got all the way up to seven, and yet an hour later I feel pretty good. It spikes up to seven and then fades back to an ignorable three.
Yesterday we went out shopping. It wasn't so much of an ordeal as I remember it being. I found a nice picture for Anne. We went part of the way to Nottingham to deliver it, then Pol got tired and we turned back, just in time to spend a long time in a queue behind a very unpleasant smash on the M62. We could see all the lights clustered about half a mile away. We were in the Pennines and spent a while contemplating some stunning scenery in between being freezing. I had a migraine but no pills, but even through the sunglasses and pain it was very pretty indeed. The sun was lighting everything dark orange to the west, sending black shadows to the east, while frost painted the ground to the north of stands of trees.
It's been another bright and sunny day. I've been out twice, once with sunglasses and once without. I ended up taking cocodamol twice today. The pain got all the way up to seven, and yet an hour later I feel pretty good. It spikes up to seven and then fades back to an ignorable three.
Yesterday we went out shopping. It wasn't so much of an ordeal as I remember it being. I found a nice picture for Anne. We went part of the way to Nottingham to deliver it, then Pol got tired and we turned back, just in time to spend a long time in a queue behind a very unpleasant smash on the M62. We could see all the lights clustered about half a mile away. We were in the Pennines and spent a while contemplating some stunning scenery in between being freezing. I had a migraine but no pills, but even through the sunglasses and pain it was very pretty indeed.
Yesterday we went out shopping. It wasn't so much of an ordeal as I remember it being. I found a nice picture for Anne. We went part of the way to Nottingham to deliver it, then Pol got tired and we turned back, just in time to spend a long time in a queue behind a very unpleasant smash on the M62. We could see all the lights clustered about half a mile away. We were in the Pennines and spent a while contemplating some stunning scenery in between being freezing. I had a migraine but no pills, but even through the sunglasses and pain it was very pretty indeed. The sun was lighting everything dark orange to the west, sending black shadows to the east, while frost painted the ground to the north of stands of trees.
It's been another bright and sunny day. I've been out twice, once with sunglasses and once without. I ended up taking cocodamol twice today. The pain got all the way up to seven, and yet an hour later I feel pretty good. It spikes up to seven and then fades back to an ignorable three.
Yesterday we went out shopping. It wasn't so much of an ordeal as I remember it being. I found a nice picture for Anne. We went part of the way to Nottingham to deliver it, then Pol got tired and we turned back, just in time to spend a long time in a queue behind a very unpleasant smash on the M62. We could see all the lights clustered about half a mile away. We were in the Pennines and spent a while contemplating some stunning scenery in between being freezing. I had a migraine but no pills, but even through the sunglasses and pain it was very pretty indeed.
Wednesday 13 February 2008
In which the Rodent has a sinus headache that is NOT A MIGRAINE.
I've had daily migraines since June 2006. This is not news.
I've had a constant state of migraine, 24 hours a day, since July 2007, when I tried taking no painkillers for a few months. Again, this is not news.
I still have a headache now. The aspiring I took on top of the cocodamol have kicked in. I'd noticed a certain clarity of thinking. Signs like being able to go downstairs to put on hot water and coming upstairs having put the hot water on. Now, this is actually a major achievement for me.
What I did notice a few minutes ago was that all of my headache suddenly went up to the top of my head. This is where I'd expect sinus pain to manifest. It feels like sinus pain, in fact. The front of my face is burning and I have a lumpy weight pressing down from the top.
However. IT IS NOT A MIGRAINE. It's a headache, but it's not a migraine headache. For the first time in over six months I am free of migraine.
I have snorted salt water into my sinuses and been rewarded with green solid gunk and blood. Yummy.
I've had a constant state of migraine, 24 hours a day, since July 2007, when I tried taking no painkillers for a few months. Again, this is not news.
I still have a headache now. The aspiring I took on top of the cocodamol have kicked in. I'd noticed a certain clarity of thinking. Signs like being able to go downstairs to put on hot water and coming upstairs having put the hot water on. Now, this is actually a major achievement for me.
What I did notice a few minutes ago was that all of my headache suddenly went up to the top of my head. This is where I'd expect sinus pain to manifest. It feels like sinus pain, in fact. The front of my face is burning and I have a lumpy weight pressing down from the top.
However. IT IS NOT A MIGRAINE. It's a headache, but it's not a migraine headache. For the first time in over six months I am free of migraine.
I have snorted salt water into my sinuses and been rewarded with green solid gunk and blood. Yummy.
In which the Rodent makes good and is rewarded by a nice room.
I know I seem to spend my time letting things fall where they may, letting the house achieve a state of squalor and then cleaning it all up again, but I am still very pleased with the last two days.
Yesterday was a lazy day. Since I have this routine and want to do things every day, I am careful, especially after a weekend like this has been, to take a day now and then to just be a lazy slob. That said, my slobbishness only came to the fore after I had looked after the cat, washed every dirty pot and tried (and failed) to bake a supply of oat and rice breakfast bars. I let them overcook and they became bricks, but the batch I took a little too early were very edible, so I know now to leave them in for less time and not to try to melt brown sugar onto the top without a blowtorch or risking a saucepan.
Today was making up for a lack of earlier attention to my room. I always know I have been neglecting my main haven when I am reluctant to put out my posh embroidered bedspread in case it gets smelly or dirty.
I dragged myself out of bed promising myself I would do my 'ten things' daily list. The list is: feed the cat, water her tray of grass, brush the floors downstairs, wipe the kitchen (with implicit washing up beforehand), wipe the bathroom down, brush the loo, check the cat tray (with implicit leaving it empty), check the kitchen bin (and empty if full, or just wipe if not), mark Not Known At This Address for post and putting it in the red bag and change the hand towel in the bathroom for a fresh one. I usually get 6 out of 10 even on a lazy day.
Today my aim was to do all ten before I let myself watch more Scrubs. Somehow, in addition, I've put laundry on to wash and dry, tidied away some camera pieces into a bag, tidied all the rubbish in my room, sorted out, decluttered and wiped the bathroom stand, cleaned the bathroom floor, made my bed from scratch (old bedding is in the dryer right now), played madly with Moth who it turns out likes to kill dressing gown cord (I think it incites carrier bags into uprisings or something), emptied the bathroom bin, put clean clothes away (washed and dried at the weekend) and put out a joss stick (downstairs) and the oil burner (my room).
I've yet to get washed and dressed or sort out dinner for tonight, so my room is getting attention but I am not. I can feel a major migraine building. I woke up headachey, but it got better, and this is my first major migraine of the day, at 3pm after an 8am start. The pain's only at a 4, making doing things a drag but not badly, but I want to try, just for once, to head it off at the pass. If I had less migraine, I would do a little piece of sewing, but I don't, so I won't. It's enough that my floor is clear and my room smells good.
Yesterday was a lazy day. Since I have this routine and want to do things every day, I am careful, especially after a weekend like this has been, to take a day now and then to just be a lazy slob. That said, my slobbishness only came to the fore after I had looked after the cat, washed every dirty pot and tried (and failed) to bake a supply of oat and rice breakfast bars. I let them overcook and they became bricks, but the batch I took a little too early were very edible, so I know now to leave them in for less time and not to try to melt brown sugar onto the top without a blowtorch or risking a saucepan.
Today was making up for a lack of earlier attention to my room. I always know I have been neglecting my main haven when I am reluctant to put out my posh embroidered bedspread in case it gets smelly or dirty.
I dragged myself out of bed promising myself I would do my 'ten things' daily list. The list is: feed the cat, water her tray of grass, brush the floors downstairs, wipe the kitchen (with implicit washing up beforehand), wipe the bathroom down, brush the loo, check the cat tray (with implicit leaving it empty), check the kitchen bin (and empty if full, or just wipe if not), mark Not Known At This Address for post and putting it in the red bag and change the hand towel in the bathroom for a fresh one. I usually get 6 out of 10 even on a lazy day.
Today my aim was to do all ten before I let myself watch more Scrubs. Somehow, in addition, I've put laundry on to wash and dry, tidied away some camera pieces into a bag, tidied all the rubbish in my room, sorted out, decluttered and wiped the bathroom stand, cleaned the bathroom floor, made my bed from scratch (old bedding is in the dryer right now), played madly with Moth who it turns out likes to kill dressing gown cord (I think it incites carrier bags into uprisings or something), emptied the bathroom bin, put clean clothes away (washed and dried at the weekend) and put out a joss stick (downstairs) and the oil burner (my room).
I've yet to get washed and dressed or sort out dinner for tonight, so my room is getting attention but I am not. I can feel a major migraine building. I woke up headachey, but it got better, and this is my first major migraine of the day, at 3pm after an 8am start. The pain's only at a 4, making doing things a drag but not badly, but I want to try, just for once, to head it off at the pass. If I had less migraine, I would do a little piece of sewing, but I don't, so I won't. It's enough that my floor is clear and my room smells good.
Monday 11 February 2008
In which the Rodent plants bulbs and plays the flute.
I don't know whether this is my fourth or fifth lesson. I'd practised, but I am just not getting those eight-count blasts of noise, so that is my homework. Bizarrely, I can't read notes right after the rest, at least not when migrainous. The rest turns into an extra line or even two, and it makes it difficult to read the note straight after, especially if it's a minim. The solution turns out to be pencilling in a vertical line after the break to halt the bleeding of one mark into another.
This problem solved, we played on and I turned out to be spectacularly inept at C. This, alas, I cannot blame on my migraines. Sometimes I just am bad at something. :0) I have to be able to produce C easily too. If it's for 8 counts, this will be a bonus. Alex aims for one note per lesson and I am falling behind. I am still enjoying it. The tunes I produce may not be exciting, but they're tunes and I am sight reading them.
Since it was a nice day, I finally planted the bulbs I bought just after the January New Year. Then I rested and ate before my friend arrived. She helped me with the DLA forms, which have long ago run past their deadline because I've had no one to help me with the forms. This need for help was starkly realised within a page or two - left alone, I would have given up. As it is, I need to find a dozen pieces of paper and I am not sure I can. One page where everything was a stark YES I need help was communication. To those reading this blog, this might seem odd, but it's true. I avoid letters, forms and telephones because they hurt. Without Pol to pay the bills, I'd be sunk.
In between this, I fed her on wild boar sausages, steamed broccoli (florets and thin slices from the stem), raw carrots cut into matchsticks and thin slices of celery in crescents, with ketjap manis in a tiny little shot glass as a dip bowl.
The headache started waxing at about the time I sat down with the forms, lunchtime, which is amazingly late in the day for me. Usually I've had at least one by the time I have been up a few hours. As it is, the same headache is now pounding away at my head six hours later, which is all par for the course. I took cocodamol when it hit. I resisted taking it again just now, but I think actually I should if I am convinced that many painkillers mean fewer migraines in the long run. I have just trained myself to put up with the pain.
This problem solved, we played on and I turned out to be spectacularly inept at C. This, alas, I cannot blame on my migraines. Sometimes I just am bad at something. :0) I have to be able to produce C easily too. If it's for 8 counts, this will be a bonus. Alex aims for one note per lesson and I am falling behind. I am still enjoying it. The tunes I produce may not be exciting, but they're tunes and I am sight reading them.
Since it was a nice day, I finally planted the bulbs I bought just after the January New Year. Then I rested and ate before my friend arrived. She helped me with the DLA forms, which have long ago run past their deadline because I've had no one to help me with the forms. This need for help was starkly realised within a page or two - left alone, I would have given up. As it is, I need to find a dozen pieces of paper and I am not sure I can. One page where everything was a stark YES I need help was communication. To those reading this blog, this might seem odd, but it's true. I avoid letters, forms and telephones because they hurt. Without Pol to pay the bills, I'd be sunk.
In between this, I fed her on wild boar sausages, steamed broccoli (florets and thin slices from the stem), raw carrots cut into matchsticks and thin slices of celery in crescents, with ketjap manis in a tiny little shot glass as a dip bowl.
The headache started waxing at about the time I sat down with the forms, lunchtime, which is amazingly late in the day for me. Usually I've had at least one by the time I have been up a few hours. As it is, the same headache is now pounding away at my head six hours later, which is all par for the course. I took cocodamol when it hit. I resisted taking it again just now, but I think actually I should if I am convinced that many painkillers mean fewer migraines in the long run. I have just trained myself to put up with the pain.
Sunday 10 February 2008
In which the Rodent has a productive and not too painful day.
This morning has been quietly productive. Yesterday was very much a day of leaving things where they fall, which will very, very quickly reduce a house to squalor.
It's amazing how much more active I am every time I refill the house with fresh vegetables. I had a mild migraine all day, say about a 2 since it wasn't bothering me unless I rolled my eyes or shook my head. Towards the evening, I got snappy and miserable and kept rowing with Pol over stupid thing. I finally realised I was in pain at 7ish levels, so I've had cocodamol and I am less miserable and also less in pain.
Friday 8 February 2008
In which the Rodent posts the letter of complaint and celebrates with suicidal leeks.
I went out and posted a letter of complaint after the unpleasantness with the court officer or whoever she was yesterday, with all the bells and whistles.
The weather's dry and quite warm. I did manage to get to the chemist to get a form for getting drugs delivered. I get so stressed out about trying to keep up with the beta blockers, if I can use this service, then I can keep regular with the drugs and also use my energy for other things. For example, I'd like to get Moth registered at a new vet, get my teeth seen to, various other things I've been putting off.
I had to fill in a form and the chemist was just closing for lunch, so I grabbed a sarnie at the local cafe - actually one of three local cafes! They lent me a pen, and I got the form done and posted, but it did leave me migrainous. Something about filling in forms sets them off and I think it's a combination of the leaning forward and the having to focus eyes and attention. The leaning forward problem would also explain why I can read a book in bed or in the bath but not when out of the house - being outside means sitting upright, which means looking down to read.
On then to the butcher, to get meat and veggies. I want to do veal burger on a bed of leeks and vichy carrots, which is just carrots split and cooked in slightly sugared water to give them a glaze. Courgettes, carrots, white turnips, some leeks which kept trying to commit suicide by leaping, so I got the butcher to decapitate them and save them the trouble. Mixed peppers, lemons, celery. A good sized leg of lamb for the weekend and some sausages. No sweet potatoes though. They seem to be out of season. The entire lot was £16 and it's basically enough food for most of a week.
While I was walking from the butcher, a piece of paper fell out of my pocket, but it didn't look like much and I thought it must be an old receipt, since I couldn't remember anything papery I had wanted to keep. Since I was sweating and trembling and it was small and not important, I let it go. It's only occurred to me now that it was probably the tracking number for the letter I sent. Bother. My brain just does not seem to connect things in real time - I am always working them out later on.
Back home, feeling sick enough to nearly lose the bacon and egg sarnie, and distinctly not enjoying life even a little, in fact completely miserable with pain, not even wanting to put the veg away. Putting veg into the drawer and seeing all the tempting ingredients usually makes me happy and full of recipe ideas. The complete lack of pleasure puts the pain at about a 7. I persuaded myself to take cocodamol, but I think I've missed my opportunity since my head is pounding merrily.
The weather's dry and quite warm. I did manage to get to the chemist to get a form for getting drugs delivered. I get so stressed out about trying to keep up with the beta blockers, if I can use this service, then I can keep regular with the drugs and also use my energy for other things. For example, I'd like to get Moth registered at a new vet, get my teeth seen to, various other things I've been putting off.
I had to fill in a form and the chemist was just closing for lunch, so I grabbed a sarnie at the local cafe - actually one of three local cafes! They lent me a pen, and I got the form done and posted, but it did leave me migrainous. Something about filling in forms sets them off and I think it's a combination of the leaning forward and the having to focus eyes and attention. The leaning forward problem would also explain why I can read a book in bed or in the bath but not when out of the house - being outside means sitting upright, which means looking down to read.
On then to the butcher, to get meat and veggies. I want to do veal burger on a bed of leeks and vichy carrots, which is just carrots split and cooked in slightly sugared water to give them a glaze. Courgettes, carrots, white turnips, some leeks which kept trying to commit suicide by leaping, so I got the butcher to decapitate them and save them the trouble. Mixed peppers, lemons, celery. A good sized leg of lamb for the weekend and some sausages. No sweet potatoes though. They seem to be out of season. The entire lot was £16 and it's basically enough food for most of a week.
While I was walking from the butcher, a piece of paper fell out of my pocket, but it didn't look like much and I thought it must be an old receipt, since I couldn't remember anything papery I had wanted to keep. Since I was sweating and trembling and it was small and not important, I let it go. It's only occurred to me now that it was probably the tracking number for the letter I sent. Bother. My brain just does not seem to connect things in real time - I am always working them out later on.
Back home, feeling sick enough to nearly lose the bacon and egg sarnie, and distinctly not enjoying life even a little, in fact completely miserable with pain, not even wanting to put the veg away. Putting veg into the drawer and seeing all the tempting ingredients usually makes me happy and full of recipe ideas. The complete lack of pleasure puts the pain at about a 7. I persuaded myself to take cocodamol, but I think I've missed my opportunity since my head is pounding merrily.
Wednesday 6 February 2008
In which the Rodent eats steamed buns and watches Reaper with friends.
Happy New Year for Friday, to those it affects.
I woke up and came downstairs as usual, but Pol came back from work just as I was waking up. I hadn't realised just how much I needed that first groggy hour of watching inane drivel on telly. As a result, I ended up on edge and snappy while he was trying to unwrap his new purchases.
Pol unpacked various things and when Rob, Angela and Claire came round, Rob helped him take it up. He gave me a box of good acrylic paints, shiny! Very shiny when some of them are Windsor and Newton. Big tubes, too. These will get used. Painting is very hard for me to do now, since my head has to be tilted forward and it takes a level of concentration and detailed vision in good light.
We talked about Chinese restaurants, about how irrational jealousy can make people very isolated, played Identify the Steamed Bun and flux and watched Reaper on E4 for buggy goodness.
Now I am tired and headachey and very, very happy. Being in pain didn't stop me having a good time. I do want drugs though, so I'll get some more after typing this up, making two doses of cocodamol for today. My pain level is at a nice, solid thumping 6, heading toward the 7 where I stop enjoying myself, and I want to be able to keep this sense of having had a good time. When it gets to 7, I literally can't enjoy anything, although I still function.
I woke up and came downstairs as usual, but Pol came back from work just as I was waking up. I hadn't realised just how much I needed that first groggy hour of watching inane drivel on telly. As a result, I ended up on edge and snappy while he was trying to unwrap his new purchases.
Pol unpacked various things and when Rob, Angela and Claire came round, Rob helped him take it up. He gave me a box of good acrylic paints, shiny! Very shiny when some of them are Windsor and Newton. Big tubes, too. These will get used. Painting is very hard for me to do now, since my head has to be tilted forward and it takes a level of concentration and detailed vision in good light.
We talked about Chinese restaurants, about how irrational jealousy can make people very isolated, played Identify the Steamed Bun and flux and watched Reaper on E4 for buggy goodness.
Now I am tired and headachey and very, very happy. Being in pain didn't stop me having a good time. I do want drugs though, so I'll get some more after typing this up, making two doses of cocodamol for today. My pain level is at a nice, solid thumping 6, heading toward the 7 where I stop enjoying myself, and I want to be able to keep this sense of having had a good time. When it gets to 7, I literally can't enjoy anything, although I still function.
Sunday 3 February 2008
In which the Rodent has a lazy Sunday alone.
(Start Game Stuff)
The party now works as a team and Kevin keeps us all keyed up for the full ten hours or so we're there, which is not bad going. The party feels very settled now. I like the feeling that my cleric is valuable. I was trying spells with her I hadn't tried before, and buffing up other PCs, and it was all working. We got through a harrowing fight in time to not die, although we lost a horse, and then, having more or less shrugged off this near-death experience thinking a few drinks and a good night's sleep would solve it, our party wandered into a bureaucracy. Fill in form P235B to get a new horse... My cleric is pretty much incapacitated by the lawfulness of it all.
(End Game Stuff)
So, I rolled in at about 1am, with the painkillers worn off, having had a great game with good snacks. Apparently I left my keys in the front door, since someone had posted them back through the letter box when I woke up. Did I mention that I am not very with it when migrainous? Things like dropping things repeatedly and leaving the house insecure get me down.
Moth was very pleased to see me. After a while slumped on the sofa, I ended up running around after her, with her galloping about being Wildebeest, tail up. She loves the spare room being so open and empty, since it makes a great playground for her. I still have books to sort through and I will.
I didn't wake up at all until about 5pm or so. I was vaguely aware that Moth came and tried to rouse me at various points, but I just turned over and went straight back to sleep. It was wonderful.
So, the day after being exhausted, I set about my own routine of television and housework. I'm all washed and dressed. I have put laundry on and it's now drying. Pol's clean clothes have been put away. I've fed Moth, cleaned out the kitchen bin and replaced the bag, watered the cat grass (Moth has stopped throwing up since we got her cat grass), eaten sausages and green peas (yay vegetables!), wiped the kitchen and the bathroom, cleaned the loo, replaced the hand towel and taken the rubbish out of my room.
I've taken cocodamol, despite my pain levels only being five or six, because I want to go Outside and get more gas and electricity before they run out, and I am hurting enough that I am avoiding bending down or going out. It's not so much the pain that's always a problem, as the avoiding doing things because they'll hurt and make me throw up. If it was one migraine a week, fine, but I can't avoid everything forever. So, I've taken drugs. Yay drugs.
There's a move made to provide evening and weekend GP cover in Scotland which matters to me, because I want the same sort of provision down here. Pol really ought to be seeing a doctor for his low mood, but can't because he's working in Solihull and can't see a GP there, and they're all closed during the day. He can't apparently afford to take time off to get this all sorted out.
I get upset that Pol's apparently in a good job and is always acting as though we're only just scraping by. He snaps about money and working long hours, and yet he will buy a holiday in Sicily for us both without a second thought. I can't ever get him to tell me what's going on without first blustering, talking at me at length and then losing his temper when I don't immediately grasp things. I know he's obfuscating, but I can't work out how to sort out what is coming in (never enough) and what's going out (always too much) and how we can be too broke to do sensible things but have enough to splash out. Even seeing the bank statements doesn't clarify things.
I've put together a menu for the week, to see what vegetables I want to buy from the butcher. The winter menu is different to the summer menu, because I buy locally. It's nice.
The party now works as a team and Kevin keeps us all keyed up for the full ten hours or so we're there, which is not bad going. The party feels very settled now. I like the feeling that my cleric is valuable. I was trying spells with her I hadn't tried before, and buffing up other PCs, and it was all working. We got through a harrowing fight in time to not die, although we lost a horse, and then, having more or less shrugged off this near-death experience thinking a few drinks and a good night's sleep would solve it, our party wandered into a bureaucracy. Fill in form P235B to get a new horse... My cleric is pretty much incapacitated by the lawfulness of it all.
(End Game Stuff)
So, I rolled in at about 1am, with the painkillers worn off, having had a great game with good snacks. Apparently I left my keys in the front door, since someone had posted them back through the letter box when I woke up. Did I mention that I am not very with it when migrainous? Things like dropping things repeatedly and leaving the house insecure get me down.
Moth was very pleased to see me. After a while slumped on the sofa, I ended up running around after her, with her galloping about being Wildebeest, tail up. She loves the spare room being so open and empty, since it makes a great playground for her. I still have books to sort through and I will.
I didn't wake up at all until about 5pm or so. I was vaguely aware that Moth came and tried to rouse me at various points, but I just turned over and went straight back to sleep. It was wonderful.
So, the day after being exhausted, I set about my own routine of television and housework. I'm all washed and dressed. I have put laundry on and it's now drying. Pol's clean clothes have been put away. I've fed Moth, cleaned out the kitchen bin and replaced the bag, watered the cat grass (Moth has stopped throwing up since we got her cat grass), eaten sausages and green peas (yay vegetables!), wiped the kitchen and the bathroom, cleaned the loo, replaced the hand towel and taken the rubbish out of my room.
I've taken cocodamol, despite my pain levels only being five or six, because I want to go Outside and get more gas and electricity before they run out, and I am hurting enough that I am avoiding bending down or going out. It's not so much the pain that's always a problem, as the avoiding doing things because they'll hurt and make me throw up. If it was one migraine a week, fine, but I can't avoid everything forever. So, I've taken drugs. Yay drugs.
There's a move made to provide evening and weekend GP cover in Scotland which matters to me, because I want the same sort of provision down here. Pol really ought to be seeing a doctor for his low mood, but can't because he's working in Solihull and can't see a GP there, and they're all closed during the day. He can't apparently afford to take time off to get this all sorted out.
I get upset that Pol's apparently in a good job and is always acting as though we're only just scraping by. He snaps about money and working long hours, and yet he will buy a holiday in Sicily for us both without a second thought. I can't ever get him to tell me what's going on without first blustering, talking at me at length and then losing his temper when I don't immediately grasp things. I know he's obfuscating, but I can't work out how to sort out what is coming in (never enough) and what's going out (always too much) and how we can be too broke to do sensible things but have enough to splash out. Even seeing the bank statements doesn't clarify things.
I've put together a menu for the week, to see what vegetables I want to buy from the butcher. The winter menu is different to the summer menu, because I buy locally. It's nice.
Friday 1 February 2008
In which the Rodent takes drugs.
So, I've gone back to just taking painkillers, mostly Happy Fun Cocodamol (i.e. the fizzy 8/500s) whenever I feel blech due to pain without worrying about taking too many or rebound headaches. This is working out to be about once or twice a day, generally in the evening.
The end result seems to be that my migraines are calming back down again. I no longer actively dread any task that will mean having to bend forward. I've seen to the cat tray two days in a row now. I did online shopping, which I haven't done for ages because I couldn't focus long enough to work through it all. If I take painkillers, I seem to be in less pain, even after the painkillers have worn off. Avoiding painkillers left me in a lot of pain and unable to function.
Now, how to articulate this for the pain clinic people...
Today's food is veal. Since it's possible now to get high-welfare veal raised in the UK in reasonable living conditions, I got some from Odaco. I made it into burgers, using wholemeal breadcrumbs made by folding past-its-best bread into a lump and grating it, about a third the volume of bread to meat, two eggs, a good-sized double-handful of veal and enough ketjap manis (a thick, sticky, sweetish soy sauce) to be able to taste the difference. It was nice, cooked until done in the Foreman grill. I had it with cajun sweetcorn fritters.
The end result seems to be that my migraines are calming back down again. I no longer actively dread any task that will mean having to bend forward. I've seen to the cat tray two days in a row now. I did online shopping, which I haven't done for ages because I couldn't focus long enough to work through it all. If I take painkillers, I seem to be in less pain, even after the painkillers have worn off. Avoiding painkillers left me in a lot of pain and unable to function.
Now, how to articulate this for the pain clinic people...
Today's food is veal. Since it's possible now to get high-welfare veal raised in the UK in reasonable living conditions, I got some from Odaco. I made it into burgers, using wholemeal breadcrumbs made by folding past-its-best bread into a lump and grating it, about a third the volume of bread to meat, two eggs, a good-sized double-handful of veal and enough ketjap manis (a thick, sticky, sweetish soy sauce) to be able to taste the difference. It was nice, cooked until done in the Foreman grill. I had it with cajun sweetcorn fritters.
Wednesday 30 January 2008
In which the Rodent contemplates its own nails.
My nail beds grow to a point, extending invisibly under the white of the nail in a thin overhang of sensitive quick. Because of this, I eventually discovered that the best way to cut my nails was to a point, claw-like, following the shape of the nail bed in a Gothic arch. Moth looooooooves my nails when they are freshly sharpened and has been getting happily stoned on the action of rubbing her chin on the points. It made it very hard to get up from the sofa and get moving. The purring. My gods, the purring!
Moving around this afternoon made me contrast it with the recent patch of depression. Instead of it taking five hours to get moving at all, I was downstairs and scrubbing dishes in less than an hour from blearily looking at the clock. I've cleaned a patch of goodness knows what from around Moth's feeding station, wiped the kitchen, sorted out the day's post, put a hook in the door for Pol's keys so I can hang up my 'to be returned' post bag too, had breakfast (with real coffee), examined the lawnmower and the new blade (must ring Tim at fiveish to ask for correct sized spanner to borrow), moved Pol's grandad's coffee table to my room to use as a computer stand at the end of the bed, taken books downstairs, cleared the coffee table (and filled it again), checked the kitchen bin and had time to watch telly too. I was awake at 1:26pm and it's now 2:54pm.
The readiness to go is down to lack of depression, which saps the will to get moving or to stop one thing and move to another. It's an ongoing state of forever. The ability to move without much pain I am putting down to a judicious glass of Happy Fun Cocodamol before going to sleep. Current pain is about a three or four. I am aware of it without having to concentrate on it, but it's not stopping me from doing anything.
Just now, I am procrastinating getting washed and dressed and finding my return prescription to take to the doc. I am nearly out of beta blockers. I have enough Happy Fun Cocodamol to withstand a siege and I am not going to be shy about using it this week, since going without narcotics has been doing me no good at all.
Moving around this afternoon made me contrast it with the recent patch of depression. Instead of it taking five hours to get moving at all, I was downstairs and scrubbing dishes in less than an hour from blearily looking at the clock. I've cleaned a patch of goodness knows what from around Moth's feeding station, wiped the kitchen, sorted out the day's post, put a hook in the door for Pol's keys so I can hang up my 'to be returned' post bag too, had breakfast (with real coffee), examined the lawnmower and the new blade (must ring Tim at fiveish to ask for correct sized spanner to borrow), moved Pol's grandad's coffee table to my room to use as a computer stand at the end of the bed, taken books downstairs, cleared the coffee table (and filled it again), checked the kitchen bin and had time to watch telly too. I was awake at 1:26pm and it's now 2:54pm.
The readiness to go is down to lack of depression, which saps the will to get moving or to stop one thing and move to another. It's an ongoing state of forever. The ability to move without much pain I am putting down to a judicious glass of Happy Fun Cocodamol before going to sleep. Current pain is about a three or four. I am aware of it without having to concentrate on it, but it's not stopping me from doing anything.
Just now, I am procrastinating getting washed and dressed and finding my return prescription to take to the doc. I am nearly out of beta blockers. I have enough Happy Fun Cocodamol to withstand a siege and I am not going to be shy about using it this week, since going without narcotics has been doing me no good at all.
Tuesday 29 January 2008
In which the Rodent returns home to Mousehaven.
Today started well, in 100% cotton bedding, which I don't think I've appreciated loudly enough, and went on to include a bath, a breakfast of Chinese food and an escort to Euston including help carrying my bags to the train. I thought I was in coach A, so we walked along the long, long train all the way to the end where coach A was. Then, once on the train, with my bags, I looked at the ticket again to see which seat I was in. It was seat 20A. In coach C. Oops.
The journey went along much like that, with long stops, people eating loudly, someone loudly trying to rearrange the transport system to his liking with extra platforms at Stoke on Trent for services to Derby and so on, and the usual pounding head and waves of nausea.
I passed the time reading Intelligent Life, which is a magazine the Economist have out, mostly online, but with an additional glossy coffee-table magazine which I thought I would enjoy more than I did. It seemed somehow a little smug and over glossy and shallow, where the online things I saw before were fun. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood.
I survived that journey, and the long, long, long walk (with bags) to platform 14, and the incredibly crowded train from Manchester to Bolton, which is to be expected if you will try to travel at the height of rush hour as I did. I managed to get off the train, but I squished somebody doing it, which fact does not make me unhappy, but was unavoidable. I kept giving her a chance to move ahead before plastering herself to the side of a seat where she could at least lean over a seated passenger, but she would stay at the seat backs and so, she got squished by me and my bags. There were three very impatient and larger men with large suitcases behind me, so she is probably very squished. :0(
The taxi back was simple and easy, although the rain was something to behold. There had been a period of blat around Stoke on Trent, which Pol says has been there for a week or so. Some sort of water dragon or something? There was more blat in Bolton after some fine days while I was away. I have a little weather doohickey that keeps me informed of what it's like outside for days when I don't want to look.
Back at Mousehaven, Tiff was pleased to receive a bag of Tootsie Rolls and assorted associated sweets, and showed off a very clean home. I usually keep on top of things, just about, but this was a house that had been attacked in a determined manner by someone fit and well. It's nice. Everything sparkles.
I put on a beef and vegetable stew which will now be tomorrow's dinner, but was meant to be tonight's. Celery, carrot, leek, onion, red pepper, beef and flavourings. It has used all the veg left over from my last shopping trip, leaving an empty drawer ready for tomorrow's assorted vegetable goodness. I love having veg on sale so close.
After really only seeing Tiff in passing, I deserted her and vanished upstairs to spend time with Pol, who had clearly missed me. I ended up going with him to the pub meet, feeling unusually fit and ready to go, despite I think zero drugs of any kind all day. I blame a week of good feeding and company for that. We nearly missed dinner, but Wendy rescued us and ordered on our behalf and we got everything, including some really nice falling-off-the-bone lamb in the richest thickest gravy ever, and a banananana split.
Then back home, to play with Moth, who had found some carrier bags that were getting uppity and wanted my help, with a stick, to make sure they were suppressed as firmly as they should be. She's now by my side, purring madly and gently reaching for me with a paw when she thinks I have neglected scratching her head for too long.
I had a really, really good time away, but it's so nice to be home.
The journey went along much like that, with long stops, people eating loudly, someone loudly trying to rearrange the transport system to his liking with extra platforms at Stoke on Trent for services to Derby and so on, and the usual pounding head and waves of nausea.
I passed the time reading Intelligent Life, which is a magazine the Economist have out, mostly online, but with an additional glossy coffee-table magazine which I thought I would enjoy more than I did. It seemed somehow a little smug and over glossy and shallow, where the online things I saw before were fun. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood.
I survived that journey, and the long, long, long walk (with bags) to platform 14, and the incredibly crowded train from Manchester to Bolton, which is to be expected if you will try to travel at the height of rush hour as I did. I managed to get off the train, but I squished somebody doing it, which fact does not make me unhappy, but was unavoidable. I kept giving her a chance to move ahead before plastering herself to the side of a seat where she could at least lean over a seated passenger, but she would stay at the seat backs and so, she got squished by me and my bags. There were three very impatient and larger men with large suitcases behind me, so she is probably very squished. :0(
The taxi back was simple and easy, although the rain was something to behold. There had been a period of blat around Stoke on Trent, which Pol says has been there for a week or so. Some sort of water dragon or something? There was more blat in Bolton after some fine days while I was away. I have a little weather doohickey that keeps me informed of what it's like outside for days when I don't want to look.
Back at Mousehaven, Tiff was pleased to receive a bag of Tootsie Rolls and assorted associated sweets, and showed off a very clean home. I usually keep on top of things, just about, but this was a house that had been attacked in a determined manner by someone fit and well. It's nice. Everything sparkles.
I put on a beef and vegetable stew which will now be tomorrow's dinner, but was meant to be tonight's. Celery, carrot, leek, onion, red pepper, beef and flavourings. It has used all the veg left over from my last shopping trip, leaving an empty drawer ready for tomorrow's assorted vegetable goodness. I love having veg on sale so close.
After really only seeing Tiff in passing, I deserted her and vanished upstairs to spend time with Pol, who had clearly missed me. I ended up going with him to the pub meet, feeling unusually fit and ready to go, despite I think zero drugs of any kind all day. I blame a week of good feeding and company for that. We nearly missed dinner, but Wendy rescued us and ordered on our behalf and we got everything, including some really nice falling-off-the-bone lamb in the richest thickest gravy ever, and a banananana split.
Then back home, to play with Moth, who had found some carrier bags that were getting uppity and wanted my help, with a stick, to make sure they were suppressed as firmly as they should be. She's now by my side, purring madly and gently reaching for me with a paw when she thinks I have neglected scratching her head for too long.
I had a really, really good time away, but it's so nice to be home.
Friday 25 January 2008
In which the Rodent tries a multitude of flavours.
Yesterday is a tribute to painkillers. I was having a rotten migraine day, but had cocodamol before going out and life was suddenly much better.
I introduced Ruthi to custard mochi before we left. The cakes were declared to be terribly, terribly wrong. Mochi are small cakes made from glutinous rice flour, so giving a texture like putty. Starch stops the mochi sticking to your finger. The outside is translucent white when uncoloured, but they're often green or pink or some other pastel shade. The centre can be filled with many things. In this case, they were filled with a hard lump of custard. They were so very wrong that Ruthi had to have two to be sure of their wrongness.
Then we set out for Hummus Bros, the hummus restaurant of London Town. They're a very, very friendly outfit that serve hummus in a circle with some sort of flavouring. Phillipa tried the hummus to see if the substance might eat her brain. Brain uneaten, she had char sui pork with hers. Ruthi had beef, ccooke had one with chicken and one with beef and I had Greek salad. Ruthi had smoked aubergine too, and declared it good. I apparently would have liked mine too if I wasn't wrong. As wrong as custard mochi.
We then had malabi with date honey, made from dates but not by bees. After that, I told the server that we'd talked among ourselves and had been so impressed by the quality of the food that we'd all decided we'd like to pay them for it. After overcoming her shock and awe, she presented us with a bill and free fresh-picked-mint tea. Except for Ruthi, who did not get any because she already had mint tea. And because she is wrong. As wrong as custard mochi.
After that, I was tricked, cruelly tricked, into going to Cybercandy. I found there some Ubuntu cola, but they didn't have a diet version. This is probably a good thing, since I know Pol hates Ubuntu. Naturally, Ubuntu cola is fair trade.
I also got sweetie sprays, sour watermelon and hot cinnamon. The hot cinnamon is not actually hot, but the watermelon sugar-free spray is excellent. They'd be great for telephone workers who can't eat sweeties while working but still get bored. Spray, mmm for a few minutes and you can still talk. They seem very, very weird as a concept but having tried them, I like them very much.
After this, we went back, saying goodbye to Phillipa on the way, to sit and talk and let ccooke notice the luxury Valentine's Day Marmite now on the shelves. He was suitably appalled. I think soon we'll find out how it tastes.
All in all, yesterday was very much a day of flavours and drugs. Yay drugs.
I introduced Ruthi to custard mochi before we left. The cakes were declared to be terribly, terribly wrong. Mochi are small cakes made from glutinous rice flour, so giving a texture like putty. Starch stops the mochi sticking to your finger. The outside is translucent white when uncoloured, but they're often green or pink or some other pastel shade. The centre can be filled with many things. In this case, they were filled with a hard lump of custard. They were so very wrong that Ruthi had to have two to be sure of their wrongness.
Then we set out for Hummus Bros, the hummus restaurant of London Town. They're a very, very friendly outfit that serve hummus in a circle with some sort of flavouring. Phillipa tried the hummus to see if the substance might eat her brain. Brain uneaten, she had char sui pork with hers. Ruthi had beef, ccooke had one with chicken and one with beef and I had Greek salad. Ruthi had smoked aubergine too, and declared it good. I apparently would have liked mine too if I wasn't wrong. As wrong as custard mochi.
We then had malabi with date honey, made from dates but not by bees. After that, I told the server that we'd talked among ourselves and had been so impressed by the quality of the food that we'd all decided we'd like to pay them for it. After overcoming her shock and awe, she presented us with a bill and free fresh-picked-mint tea. Except for Ruthi, who did not get any because she already had mint tea. And because she is wrong. As wrong as custard mochi.
After that, I was tricked, cruelly tricked, into going to Cybercandy. I found there some Ubuntu cola, but they didn't have a diet version. This is probably a good thing, since I know Pol hates Ubuntu. Naturally, Ubuntu cola is fair trade.
I also got sweetie sprays, sour watermelon and hot cinnamon. The hot cinnamon is not actually hot, but the watermelon sugar-free spray is excellent. They'd be great for telephone workers who can't eat sweeties while working but still get bored. Spray, mmm for a few minutes and you can still talk. They seem very, very weird as a concept but having tried them, I like them very much.
After this, we went back, saying goodbye to Phillipa on the way, to sit and talk and let ccooke notice the luxury Valentine's Day Marmite now on the shelves. He was suitably appalled. I think soon we'll find out how it tastes.
All in all, yesterday was very much a day of flavours and drugs. Yay drugs.
Wednesday 23 January 2008
In which the Rodent goes to a nice pub and goes shopping.
I'm being spoiled rotten. Isn't that awful? Ruthi's been running around making sure that I have food and am comfortable and it's all working very well.
Yesterday we went to this fantastic pub, where people do things together, such as play games or make collage or just things it's more fun to do in a group than alone. They also have magazines, books and bar-billiards. The food at the pub is good, and it is a real ale, real whisky and real soft drink pub. It's so wholesome.
We played this strange game called Carcassonne, involving building roads and rivers and cities to gain points. It's insanely complicated. I was very distracted the whole time by Fretchen the ferret, the cutest fuzzball I've ever met. I had a migraine of course, but it wasn't enough to stop me enjoying myself. A six at worst.
We go there again on Sunday.
Meanwhile, back in Bolton, there's drama unfolding. Flitter is talking to husband, heavily mediated by someone who's been overseeing the entire drama, and we may get our spare room back by the time I get home. I didn't think she'd still be there when I got back, but she's allegedly going to stay long enough to do a few things in friendly togetherness.
Today's friendly togetherness with Ruthi was a visit to a supermarket, in fact to two supermarkets. One was the Chinese supermarket on the high street in Walthamstowe, where I got many snacks. Preserved plums are too strong for me to enjoy, but now plum tea and the way it tastes are fully explained. Actually, perhaps I should use one to make plum tea.
I also have wasabi broad beans, prune cream toffees, lychee pudding and I already drank the tamarind juice drink and ate chess cakes with coffee. There's lots more to go.
Yesterday we went to this fantastic pub, where people do things together, such as play games or make collage or just things it's more fun to do in a group than alone. They also have magazines, books and bar-billiards. The food at the pub is good, and it is a real ale, real whisky and real soft drink pub. It's so wholesome.
We played this strange game called Carcassonne, involving building roads and rivers and cities to gain points. It's insanely complicated. I was very distracted the whole time by Fretchen the ferret, the cutest fuzzball I've ever met. I had a migraine of course, but it wasn't enough to stop me enjoying myself. A six at worst.
We go there again on Sunday.
Meanwhile, back in Bolton, there's drama unfolding. Flitter is talking to husband, heavily mediated by someone who's been overseeing the entire drama, and we may get our spare room back by the time I get home. I didn't think she'd still be there when I got back, but she's allegedly going to stay long enough to do a few things in friendly togetherness.
Today's friendly togetherness with Ruthi was a visit to a supermarket, in fact to two supermarkets. One was the Chinese supermarket on the high street in Walthamstowe, where I got many snacks. Preserved plums are too strong for me to enjoy, but now plum tea and the way it tastes are fully explained. Actually, perhaps I should use one to make plum tea.
I also have wasabi broad beans, prune cream toffees, lychee pudding and I already drank the tamarind juice drink and ate chess cakes with coffee. There's lots more to go.
Sunday 20 January 2008
In which the Rodent visits Hall i' th' Wood and is depressed the following day.
Yesterday Pol, myself and our new lodger all went to Hall i' th' Wood (pronounced Hollith Wood) in Bolton. It's a Tudor building, which was owned by various people in history, including the Crompton family. One of the Cromptons of the house was named Samuel. His mother span cotton and I think his father wove. Samuel Crompton was interested in this, but thought the method too laborious. He looked at the Spinning Jenny and came up with the Spinning Mule, and the rest is mills, cloth caps, custard tarts and industrial history. One of the founders of the industrial revolution did all his thinking in a little room in a nice, but very warped, Tudor house in the north of what is now Bolton Town.
Time moved on and the Hall i' th' Wood fell into disrepair - people were too busy with the new factories and mills and the fall of the British Empire. It was getting decidedly ricketty when this chap named Lever was looking around for philanthropic uses of the money he'd made selling Sunlight Soap with his brother. (The Lever Bros. company is now of course the giant Unilever.) He picked up the Hall some time after he picked up the title Lord Leverhulme and messed about with it until he decided that it would make a nice museum for day to day artefacts of past life.
So now it's there, with a Tudor hall, kitchen and dairy, a nice staircase, a 17th century dining room and withdrawing room (complete with discrete garderobe), a few rooms given over to Samuel Crompton and his family (and his walking stick and death mask) and some really enthusiastic staff. The signposting was appalling, but once we found it, it was great. A nice day out, then back to the house.
Today I'm up, washed, dressed, fed and ready to deal with life. It's only taken me twelve hours... I'm mildly depressed (no surprise in January) which means I spend too long thinking about what I am about to do but lacking the get up and go to do it. I get things done, but it takes a while to get moving. Then I daren't stop in case I don't get going again. Thank goodness for cuppas.
I spent five hours this morning sitting playing Bejeweled and Peggle before I could drag myself downstairs to get my first cuppa of the day and breakfast. Five hours. I was hungry. It's silly. I knew at the time it was, but the will to move was just not there. That's depression for you. Luckily, making sure I am clean and well fed does stop the worthless and hopeless parts.
I don't have a little grey goblin counting coins of self-deprecation out loud. I hate that goblin so much. It sits there in your head, and you can hear it. 'You're worthless. You're stupid. Look at the stupid thing you did.' Like little greasy coins of shame.
I wonder what the chemical is in your brain that gives you the effort of will that lets you get moving once you've decided to act. It's definitely less in depressives - serotonin probably, although I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be something else that serotonin acts on.
I have migraines as well, naturally, but they're only at a level to make me irritable and I haven't had to curl up and cry with them all day. I did have a glass of port at 11ish to make sure. I only dare eat so much aspirin and I want to save this week's dosage of narcotics for when I am in London.
Time moved on and the Hall i' th' Wood fell into disrepair - people were too busy with the new factories and mills and the fall of the British Empire. It was getting decidedly ricketty when this chap named Lever was looking around for philanthropic uses of the money he'd made selling Sunlight Soap with his brother. (The Lever Bros. company is now of course the giant Unilever.) He picked up the Hall some time after he picked up the title Lord Leverhulme and messed about with it until he decided that it would make a nice museum for day to day artefacts of past life.
So now it's there, with a Tudor hall, kitchen and dairy, a nice staircase, a 17th century dining room and withdrawing room (complete with discrete garderobe), a few rooms given over to Samuel Crompton and his family (and his walking stick and death mask) and some really enthusiastic staff. The signposting was appalling, but once we found it, it was great. A nice day out, then back to the house.
Today I'm up, washed, dressed, fed and ready to deal with life. It's only taken me twelve hours... I'm mildly depressed (no surprise in January) which means I spend too long thinking about what I am about to do but lacking the get up and go to do it. I get things done, but it takes a while to get moving. Then I daren't stop in case I don't get going again. Thank goodness for cuppas.
I spent five hours this morning sitting playing Bejeweled and Peggle before I could drag myself downstairs to get my first cuppa of the day and breakfast. Five hours. I was hungry. It's silly. I knew at the time it was, but the will to move was just not there. That's depression for you. Luckily, making sure I am clean and well fed does stop the worthless and hopeless parts.
I don't have a little grey goblin counting coins of self-deprecation out loud. I hate that goblin so much. It sits there in your head, and you can hear it. 'You're worthless. You're stupid. Look at the stupid thing you did.' Like little greasy coins of shame.
I wonder what the chemical is in your brain that gives you the effort of will that lets you get moving once you've decided to act. It's definitely less in depressives - serotonin probably, although I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be something else that serotonin acts on.
I have migraines as well, naturally, but they're only at a level to make me irritable and I haven't had to curl up and cry with them all day. I did have a glass of port at 11ish to make sure. I only dare eat so much aspirin and I want to save this week's dosage of narcotics for when I am in London.
Friday 18 January 2008
In which the Rodent moves three times its own weight in furniture.
I woke up in the middle of the night sweating, with sharp pains in my chest and stomach and with my heart going at about 120bpm as though I'd just done a short sprint up a hill. Couple in the aching, lactic muscles and this is a typical ME attack presaging a day of extreme flueyness and lack of spoons. No wonder after the day I've had.
A friend of ours has decided to drop the life they were living elsewhere and take up residence at Chez Rodent, so said Rodent went along to lug what furniture it can. Various others were there too, as muscle. I'm not wild about the circumstances of the flit, but it did have to happen sooner or later, so I did what I could. Two of us that had gone down in Pol's landrover ended up travelling back again in it with all the furniture, while the others, including the flitter, all went off for a nice large lunch, staying away until we'd both had plenty of time to eat lunch and then empty the entire landrover our own two selves. Which we did. Go us.
Part of lunch was a snack I like, frozen sweetcorn nuked in water for a minute or two with butter and cajun spice. It's delicious, quick, filling and one of your five a day. What more do you want in
a snack? The rest was, regrettably, nukeaburger with a slice of onion added. Mechanically recovered meat, plastic white, white bread, artificial 'tomatoey' ketchup and plastic cheese food product. Mmmm-mm. Sad to say, I enjoyed it. A Big Mac meal would have been healthier. But still. Sweetcorn!
Part of getting the room ready was moving all those damned books I've been working through for weeks. Those were bundled out of the way as best we could, and then the other person did all the heavy lifting while I put things in logical places. No opening of boxes, but the loose fragile stuff was put on shelves and the pictures were stacked together for ease of putting up.
After that, about an hour later, everyone else arrived and sat and clustered around flitter for pretty much the rest of the evening until I faded out and had to go to bed. I woke up to television noises in the state mentioned above. Miserable and sweating and with a sore back and a right leg that doesn't want to carry me. Time for milk, aspirin, propranolol and decaf coffee with bad television. Another few hours sleep and now it's 5:30 am and squalls are being forecast everywhere in the UK, it sounds like.
In a few hours the whole new household of three starts and I suspect I'll end up sleeping through most of it until I go to Lunnon for over a week. I'd like to be showing flitter how the house works, but with these weird sleeping spurts and other factors, I doubt I'll get a look in.
A friend of ours has decided to drop the life they were living elsewhere and take up residence at Chez Rodent, so said Rodent went along to lug what furniture it can. Various others were there too, as muscle. I'm not wild about the circumstances of the flit, but it did have to happen sooner or later, so I did what I could. Two of us that had gone down in Pol's landrover ended up travelling back again in it with all the furniture, while the others, including the flitter, all went off for a nice large lunch, staying away until we'd both had plenty of time to eat lunch and then empty the entire landrover our own two selves. Which we did. Go us.
Part of lunch was a snack I like, frozen sweetcorn nuked in water for a minute or two with butter and cajun spice. It's delicious, quick, filling and one of your five a day. What more do you want in
a snack? The rest was, regrettably, nukeaburger with a slice of onion added. Mechanically recovered meat, plastic white, white bread, artificial 'tomatoey' ketchup and plastic cheese food product. Mmmm-mm. Sad to say, I enjoyed it. A Big Mac meal would have been healthier. But still. Sweetcorn!
Part of getting the room ready was moving all those damned books I've been working through for weeks. Those were bundled out of the way as best we could, and then the other person did all the heavy lifting while I put things in logical places. No opening of boxes, but the loose fragile stuff was put on shelves and the pictures were stacked together for ease of putting up.
After that, about an hour later, everyone else arrived and sat and clustered around flitter for pretty much the rest of the evening until I faded out and had to go to bed. I woke up to television noises in the state mentioned above. Miserable and sweating and with a sore back and a right leg that doesn't want to carry me. Time for milk, aspirin, propranolol and decaf coffee with bad television. Another few hours sleep and now it's 5:30 am and squalls are being forecast everywhere in the UK, it sounds like.
In a few hours the whole new household of three starts and I suspect I'll end up sleeping through most of it until I go to Lunnon for over a week. I'd like to be showing flitter how the house works, but with these weird sleeping spurts and other factors, I doubt I'll get a look in.
Wednesday 16 January 2008
In which the Rodent spends a lot of time with one taxi driver.
First he took me to the hospital, for my pain clinic appointment. I went in, announced myself, handed over the letter, had it explained to me in small words that today is Wednesday the 16th of January, and not Tuesday the 15th of January. Or, as I'd been thinking, Wednesday the 15th. At least I had the right month.
They don't redo appointments for first timers who fail to show. Unless they're very, very stupid - apparently rank daftness gives you a free pass. I think I'll get Pol to enter my new appointment in the calendar so this doesn't happen again.
So then I called for a taxi, and they said back to $street? I said no, to the railway station. Back comes the driver, surprised to see me so soon and thinking he was taking me home again. I explained about being daft and wanting to buy train tickets while he took me to the railway station, where I bought train tickets, turning down late-night travel for £14 and plumping for a £62 return in the afternoon. Rush hour travel would be £245. It's not where you go, it's when you go...
Back into the same taxi, this time to home, as expected. We talked about train tickets and the prices, and then travel to Spain, and then about Seville! That was an easy subject, although he knew the parts I wasn't so aware of. I discovered I can't remember the name of any of the districts.
Now in and sitting down reluctant to move again today, and with Moth purring her heart out by my side, just where I can reach out and scratch her head. She seems happier now she's got wet food and will forgive me for yesterday soon.
Moth's fit and well and vaccinated, but she does not like being in a car for hours at a time, so we're changing vet. It's a shame, because Crown House Vets in Rochdale have been excellent to us and I don't want to leave. Moth disagrees, especially if she has to travel for an hour, then get rained on all the way to the door, then stuck with a needle (the part she minds least because she looooooooves vets), then back again, and, horror of horrors, not even a drop of evaporated milk, or even tuna cat food. Just dry biscuits and water. Poor cat.
Thanks to Pol, this deficit has since been remedied.
They don't redo appointments for first timers who fail to show. Unless they're very, very stupid - apparently rank daftness gives you a free pass. I think I'll get Pol to enter my new appointment in the calendar so this doesn't happen again.
So then I called for a taxi, and they said back to $street? I said no, to the railway station. Back comes the driver, surprised to see me so soon and thinking he was taking me home again. I explained about being daft and wanting to buy train tickets while he took me to the railway station, where I bought train tickets, turning down late-night travel for £14 and plumping for a £62 return in the afternoon. Rush hour travel would be £245. It's not where you go, it's when you go...
Back into the same taxi, this time to home, as expected. We talked about train tickets and the prices, and then travel to Spain, and then about Seville! That was an easy subject, although he knew the parts I wasn't so aware of. I discovered I can't remember the name of any of the districts.
Now in and sitting down reluctant to move again today, and with Moth purring her heart out by my side, just where I can reach out and scratch her head. She seems happier now she's got wet food and will forgive me for yesterday soon.
Moth's fit and well and vaccinated, but she does not like being in a car for hours at a time, so we're changing vet. It's a shame, because Crown House Vets in Rochdale have been excellent to us and I don't want to leave. Moth disagrees, especially if she has to travel for an hour, then get rained on all the way to the door, then stuck with a needle (the part she minds least because she looooooooves vets), then back again, and, horror of horrors, not even a drop of evaporated milk, or even tuna cat food. Just dry biscuits and water. Poor cat.
Thanks to Pol, this deficit has since been remedied.
Monday 14 January 2008
In which the Rodent gets ready to go to Rochdale.
It's 6:45am and Pol and I are both overwhelmingly enthusiastic about being awake at this hour. Yes indeedy. I'm now dressed, although not booted, coated, scarfed and hatted. Pol is getting into the bath I ran for him and presumably checking out the large cup of tea I made. I can be nice, sometimes.
I breakfasted on wood-smoked Skippers (brisling), which are very small, very delicious fish that will probably turn out to be ethically horrible, but they are so very, very delicious. Moth, when presented with a single fish in tomato sauce, carefully ate all the tomato sauce and left the fish intact. Well, then.
My little weather gadget tells me that outside it's raining, 7C and with the faintest of breezes. My clock says my room is at a massive 20.7C. No wonder Pol is complaining he's been cooked all night. I strongly suspect the heating has been left on, which means we will be short on gas. The landlord has finally agreed to real meters, on receipt of a £250 bond. Frankly, it'll pay for itself within a few months, so we're going for it.
I still have more books to sort than I know how to deal with, and I need to remember to bother Tim for clips and things since at the moment the room is full of what are just boxes until the rest is put together.
I want Rochdale to have a little snow on the hills when we go there. It doesn't have to be much. Then Pol goes off to his interview and I go back to Bolton in a taxi with an unhappy, freshly vaccinated cat.
My head hurts. I know this is not news. I'm pondering aspirin or just having a joyous pain-free day of Tramadol in return for the risk of a worse headache when I am safely tucked in bed, and possible nausea meanwhile. If I take Tramadol, I might be able to go shopping. I am running out of food and Moth's been down to just biscuits for a couple of days. It's a thought, isn't it?
I breakfasted on wood-smoked Skippers (brisling), which are very small, very delicious fish that will probably turn out to be ethically horrible, but they are so very, very delicious. Moth, when presented with a single fish in tomato sauce, carefully ate all the tomato sauce and left the fish intact. Well, then.
My little weather gadget tells me that outside it's raining, 7C and with the faintest of breezes. My clock says my room is at a massive 20.7C. No wonder Pol is complaining he's been cooked all night. I strongly suspect the heating has been left on, which means we will be short on gas. The landlord has finally agreed to real meters, on receipt of a £250 bond. Frankly, it'll pay for itself within a few months, so we're going for it.
I still have more books to sort than I know how to deal with, and I need to remember to bother Tim for clips and things since at the moment the room is full of what are just boxes until the rest is put together.
I want Rochdale to have a little snow on the hills when we go there. It doesn't have to be much. Then Pol goes off to his interview and I go back to Bolton in a taxi with an unhappy, freshly vaccinated cat.
My head hurts. I know this is not news. I'm pondering aspirin or just having a joyous pain-free day of Tramadol in return for the risk of a worse headache when I am safely tucked in bed, and possible nausea meanwhile. If I take Tramadol, I might be able to go shopping. I am running out of food and Moth's been down to just biscuits for a couple of days. It's a thought, isn't it?
In which the Rodent had its second flute lesson.
I don't like being awake at 2am, but it's a step closer to normal living; it's 'morning'. Another couple of days and I'll be back on everyone else's schedule, which makes it much easier to shop. Actually, even waking at 5am isn't bad for being ready to move when the shops are open, it just makes socialising a little difficult. Ideally, I wake at about 10 or 11, breakfast at 12ish and am ready to move at around 2pm.
My second flute lesson went well. I'd apparently put in enough practice to be able to play along to the music, and Alexandra seemed pleased. Today we covered the note A and had a look at G but my fingers cramped. Next time. I like her a lot.
After two lessons so close together, the next one is not for a long time, because of the trip to London. Which reminds me, I have to either get Barclays to make my card work with lboody Visa Verify (it works for everything else), OR get to a train station and buy cards manually from a person. For now, I have no tickets and the lack of getting is going to cost me.
The cat carrier is down for the trip to Crown House Vet in Rochdale. Moth was eyeing it dubiously. She gets catnip from there, but also trips to the vet, so she is not sure whether it being around is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. She's compromised in settling down by my side in a cottage loaf shape and purring loudly to remind me that she's exactly where my hand will reach.
My second flute lesson went well. I'd apparently put in enough practice to be able to play along to the music, and Alexandra seemed pleased. Today we covered the note A and had a look at G but my fingers cramped. Next time. I like her a lot.
After two lessons so close together, the next one is not for a long time, because of the trip to London. Which reminds me, I have to either get Barclays to make my card work with lboody Visa Verify (it works for everything else), OR get to a train station and buy cards manually from a person. For now, I have no tickets and the lack of getting is going to cost me.
The cat carrier is down for the trip to Crown House Vet in Rochdale. Moth was eyeing it dubiously. She gets catnip from there, but also trips to the vet, so she is not sure whether it being around is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. She's compromised in settling down by my side in a cottage loaf shape and purring loudly to remind me that she's exactly where my hand will reach.
Sunday 13 January 2008
In which the Rodent had a fruit smoothie.
Today's a lot better than the last few days. I've put through a load of laundry which is drying now and I'm confident I'll be able to put it away before I go for my second flute lesson at 4:30pm Monday.
Today I had the fruit smoothie I prepped Saturday night, with the flesh of two nectarines, a plum and about two dozen grapes, all peeled, with a large spoon of Belvoir cranberry cordial and the freshly ground seeds from one pod of green cardamom.
It was delicious. Then with pie, I had green beans nuked in a mixture of water, chicken OXO and some very, very nice English mustard. That was delicious as well.
All in all, I feel well taken care of, which is nice when it's me doing it. Pol's also looking fairly happy with life, or at least with this weekend. We've had enough together time and he's seen people he wanted to see.
I have loud, whistling tinnitus and an aching neck, which suggest the current respite from pain is about to end, but at least it's done it after I got through the chores for the day.
Today I had the fruit smoothie I prepped Saturday night, with the flesh of two nectarines, a plum and about two dozen grapes, all peeled, with a large spoon of Belvoir cranberry cordial and the freshly ground seeds from one pod of green cardamom.
It was delicious. Then with pie, I had green beans nuked in a mixture of water, chicken OXO and some very, very nice English mustard. That was delicious as well.
All in all, I feel well taken care of, which is nice when it's me doing it. Pol's also looking fairly happy with life, or at least with this weekend. We've had enough together time and he's seen people he wanted to see.
I have loud, whistling tinnitus and an aching neck, which suggest the current respite from pain is about to end, but at least it's done it after I got through the chores for the day.
Saturday 12 January 2008
In which the Rodent contemplates life with constant pain.
I can remember a time when a headache like tonight's would have left me completely flattened for days. I woke up feeling dreadful, moaning in pain and wanting only for it to end, by whatever means. These days, it just means I take longer than usual to haul myself out of bed, wash, dress and go downstairs to my daily round of junk telly, snack meals and short bursts of housework. The pain is still bad, even unbearable, but you learn to get your body moving even while you're wanting to throw up.
I did end up raiding Pol's aspirin supply, which I'll try to replace this week, along with the bottle of aspirin I bought and then promptly lost. 900mg of aspirin will actually help the pain, bringing it from an 8 (utterly miserable and retching) down to a 5 or 6 (very much hurting but more or less functional if I don't try to do too much). I had a glass of port when the aspirin wore off and the rest has been a matter of gritting my teeth and getting through it, but it's getting less bad by the hour.
The last couple of days have been unusually headachey. I've also been awake all night and asleep all day. I can't help wondering if the two are connected, but I can't seem to manage to haul my sleep pattern to where it should be. At least today I did manage to get properly dressed and to eat more or less well. Duck pancakes, and tinned curry with peas added because I fancied peas. I peeled and chopped fruit for a smoothie tomorrow, but I can't make it now because it's 3am and Pol might be a little annoyed to be woken up this early.
Frozen peas are an incredible luxury. Back in Regency days, green garden peas were a short-lived seasonal delicacy which could sell for incredibly high prices. Even then, in the city, the peas would have been brought in from the countryside by horse and cart, and would have been losing freshness all the time they were travelling. It's one of those cases where frozen is better than fresh, as peas are delicate. Too much time, too much cooking and they lose that fantastic green sweet flavour. I can well believe that frozen peas, even 'frozen in the field', are not a patch on peas taken straight from the plants in your garden, but they're a very good second.
Some people swear by peas with garden mint. I can't abide mint anyway, and it's a ludicrously strong taste to impose on something as sweet and pleasant as garden peas. Just a little butter, or even nuked in a little hot water and eaten on their own, and peas are delicious.
I did end up raiding Pol's aspirin supply, which I'll try to replace this week, along with the bottle of aspirin I bought and then promptly lost. 900mg of aspirin will actually help the pain, bringing it from an 8 (utterly miserable and retching) down to a 5 or 6 (very much hurting but more or less functional if I don't try to do too much). I had a glass of port when the aspirin wore off and the rest has been a matter of gritting my teeth and getting through it, but it's getting less bad by the hour.
The last couple of days have been unusually headachey. I've also been awake all night and asleep all day. I can't help wondering if the two are connected, but I can't seem to manage to haul my sleep pattern to where it should be. At least today I did manage to get properly dressed and to eat more or less well. Duck pancakes, and tinned curry with peas added because I fancied peas. I peeled and chopped fruit for a smoothie tomorrow, but I can't make it now because it's 3am and Pol might be a little annoyed to be woken up this early.
Frozen peas are an incredible luxury. Back in Regency days, green garden peas were a short-lived seasonal delicacy which could sell for incredibly high prices. Even then, in the city, the peas would have been brought in from the countryside by horse and cart, and would have been losing freshness all the time they were travelling. It's one of those cases where frozen is better than fresh, as peas are delicate. Too much time, too much cooking and they lose that fantastic green sweet flavour. I can well believe that frozen peas, even 'frozen in the field', are not a patch on peas taken straight from the plants in your garden, but they're a very good second.
Some people swear by peas with garden mint. I can't abide mint anyway, and it's a ludicrously strong taste to impose on something as sweet and pleasant as garden peas. Just a little butter, or even nuked in a little hot water and eaten on their own, and peas are delicious.
Friday 11 January 2008
In which the Rodent considers battery farming and drugs.
Today has been given over to the full enjoyment of migraines, of which I think I'm on my third so far. At least, it's peaked to 'completely miserable' (8) three times. At this level, I am not up to doing anything at all vigorous and moving makes me retch. I can just about cope with television to take my mind off things. In between the peaks, I washed up, cooked sausages and beans and toasted some marshmallows over the gas ring. Pol polished his shoes because it's interview season again.
I watched Jamie Oliver and his battery farming demonstrations, trying to convince people over toward longer-lived, slower growing, less intensively reared birds for meat and eggs. The MRM demonstration was interesting. I was thinking, as I watched the carcases being squeezed for meaty goo, of a very, very expensive dish produced in only a few restaurants: pressed duck. It needs special equipment, because part of the process is to put the basically raw bones of the duck into a press and crush them to get out the marrow juices. Why is this so rare and fine, and crushed chicken goo so disgustingly horrific? Frankly, I like that we can use every particle of the chicken in this way. If we're going to rear birds, we should use everything we can.
I watched Jamie Oliver and his battery farming demonstrations, trying to convince people over toward longer-lived, slower growing, less intensively reared birds for meat and eggs. The MRM demonstration was interesting. I was thinking, as I watched the carcases being squeezed for meaty goo, of a very, very expensive dish produced in only a few restaurants: pressed duck. It needs special equipment, because part of the process is to put the basically raw bones of the duck into a press and crush them to get out the marrow juices. Why is this so rare and fine, and crushed chicken goo so disgustingly horrific? Frankly, I like that we can use every particle of the chicken in this way. If we're going to rear birds, we should use everything we can.
Thursday 10 January 2008
In which the Rodent has its first flute lesson.
It's now 19.7C in this room, or about as warm as it's been since I started taking note, but I am freezing; compare to when it was 11.2C and I was warm. Thus proving that my perception of temperature bears no relation, at all, to actual conditions. That said, I don't have a Hot Water Bottle to hand, so perhaps what it actually proves is that HWBs are magical objects of wonder.
My first flute lesson was tiring. I managed, eventually, to produce a B. One difficulty I'd had with the flute was explained by my having my right hand entirely the wrong way round, although the left was fine. I like my teacher and I like the shop that hosts the lessons. I'm booked for next week. It's £14 for a half hour lesson, one on one.
The end result of the lesson and all that brainwork was a very, very bad headache, so I am hiding upstairs nursing my 7-8 headache and hoping that pizza will make it better, since I already took some Happy Fun Cocodamol (soluble cocodamol 8/500) to get me through the lesson. Today hasn't been a good day - poor sleep led to me starting the day migrainous and it's carried on from there. Right now I want very much to throw up and cry. The good news is that even a crappy day isn't stopping me achieving something.
My first flute lesson was tiring. I managed, eventually, to produce a B. One difficulty I'd had with the flute was explained by my having my right hand entirely the wrong way round, although the left was fine. I like my teacher and I like the shop that hosts the lessons. I'm booked for next week. It's £14 for a half hour lesson, one on one.
The end result of the lesson and all that brainwork was a very, very bad headache, so I am hiding upstairs nursing my 7-8 headache and hoping that pizza will make it better, since I already took some Happy Fun Cocodamol (soluble cocodamol 8/500) to get me through the lesson. Today hasn't been a good day - poor sleep led to me starting the day migrainous and it's carried on from there. Right now I want very much to throw up and cry. The good news is that even a crappy day isn't stopping me achieving something.
Wednesday 9 January 2008
In which the Rodent enjoys artistic endeavours and Chinese food.
That was fun. Claire and Angela and Rob came round so we could do cards, which tomorrow I have to try to post. Tonight, they're drying. It was like being back at school, with a table full of bits to cut out, and people showing each other what they'd done, and paint getting everywhere. Claire did stars, Rob did a tree and a cracker, Angela did a penguin and I did a tree. They're all bright, cheerful and friendly.
The cards will be sent to Amnesty International, who will send them on to various prisoners in various places as a morale booster. I like the idea, and it's exactly the sort of thing I joined AI for. It tells political prisoners that, whatever else happens to them, they have not been forgotten by the world at large. I can get right behind that.
The Chinese restaurant sent us a new menu and one of the items on it, I discovered afterwards, is a platter of steamed buns, all different flavours. I am nuts for steamed buns, so I can't wait until next month's Chinese meal. I think it might well be Chinese New Year by then too, and I think the year of the Rat. I like Rat years.
Steamed buns are hard to make, which is a shame because their texture is fantastic - soft and not quite chewy. They're made from wheat flour, but what sort of wheat flour I don't know to turn out the bright, bleached white you get on restaurant steamed buns. The obvious ones are the steamed custard buns - since the pastry is doughy and sweet, this makes sense to the English palate. However, the pork buns, the char sui bao, are savoury pork in the same sweet, soft bun, and that seems very odd. I can't wait to try lotus bun, yam bun and peach bun.
The cards will be sent to Amnesty International, who will send them on to various prisoners in various places as a morale booster. I like the idea, and it's exactly the sort of thing I joined AI for. It tells political prisoners that, whatever else happens to them, they have not been forgotten by the world at large. I can get right behind that.
The Chinese restaurant sent us a new menu and one of the items on it, I discovered afterwards, is a platter of steamed buns, all different flavours. I am nuts for steamed buns, so I can't wait until next month's Chinese meal. I think it might well be Chinese New Year by then too, and I think the year of the Rat. I like Rat years.
Steamed buns are hard to make, which is a shame because their texture is fantastic - soft and not quite chewy. They're made from wheat flour, but what sort of wheat flour I don't know to turn out the bright, bleached white you get on restaurant steamed buns. The obvious ones are the steamed custard buns - since the pastry is doughy and sweet, this makes sense to the English palate. However, the pork buns, the char sui bao, are savoury pork in the same sweet, soft bun, and that seems very odd. I can't wait to try lotus bun, yam bun and peach bun.
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