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.