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.
Saturday, 29 March 2008
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.
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