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.

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.

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.

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.

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.