I Demand Total Sensory Deprivation and Backup Drugs!

My back has taken a turn for the worse over the last couple of days. Today it’s especially bad and I’m really scared that it goes really bad again and I either can’t go home to Scotland on Friday or I’ll have to endure the excruciating humiliation of being in a wheelchair.

Having suffered chronic pain since I was 16, IOW for 27 years, I have cause to be grateful for a very high pain threshold and, although the pain itself is, of course, unpleasant, the biggest issue for me is the incapability having a slipped disc causes. I’m the World’s Worst Patient. I hate having things done for me and will always endeavour to do things by myself, even though my body and my Sensible Shoes tell me not to bother.

I’ve been incapacitated now for almost 2 weeks and there is little chance of me being able to go out of the house before I have to leave for the airport. So, maybe I can tell you a story while I sit…

Chagrin from Literary Purgatory

I don’t know what was wrong with me yesterday. I felt terrible and worse as the day progressed. I went to bed kind of early and kept waking up knowing I had done something stupid (moaning about everything, sending my loneliness post) and that I had to fix it.

I feel a bit better today, I think, it’s kind of early to tell.

I think my problem is I can’t find a decent book to read to keep me out of trouble!

Bit Panicky Today

Not completely sure why.

My partner is at work all day and I’ve been confined to the house physically as well as ‘cognitively’ for over a week now, so I expect there is an element of stir-craziness about the way I feel.

I also had very little sleep last night, pronking up and coming down to the computer every time I opened my eyes.

I’m also having those compelling “I really need to do something with my new life, NOW” feelings. When I was a Dead Woman Walking, I had no future and therefore no plans other than to end my miserable life, ASAP. Now that I’ve come to terms with having to live out the rest of my natural life, I accept certain facts about this, among them the fact that I need a Purposeful Occupation.

I have a very active mind which has been on the go non-stop for as long as I can recall and being confined to a house with nothing meaningful to occupy myself does get to me – a lot.

I’m also stressed out about which font to use in my blog. This is a problem (AND a strength!) of mine, that I see and consider things that some people wouldn’t even notice. I do love typefaces and I have several hundred of them – but therein lies a problem as well as a solution, meguesses. Oh yes, if you don’t know them, make them up.

Oh GAWD, why am I such a LOSER? I have This Many qualifications, This Many skills and yet I have no way to earn my keep and I am DESPERATE to earn a living. I had so much potential when I was young. I had a MENSA level IQ, I had lots of passions and interests, I was caring – worked for years with the mentally handicapped and loved it

I initially wanted to be a clinical psychologist, then decided to retrain to working in Information Technology. And to what end? I do nothing but care for my elderly Mother and Aunt and spend time resting with my soulmate, all the while bemoaning the fact that I COULD have had a very successful career. This is simply not enough. I need to have something else to occupy me in life.

Okay – I just added a simple Meebo widget to my sidebar and my LibraryThing widget disappeared! That annoys me SO MUCH. Crap coding, complete lack of attention, not to detail, but to the Bleeding Obvious! RRRRRaaarrgghh…..Then WordPress HTML also just gets rid of my font information. Usually it adds, like FIFTEEN font tags to each paragraph text.

I really need to sleep but I’m not sure if I can.

Okay – the Meebo jobbie has been given the boot, as it deserves. The authors seem too concerned about sooking up to their initial interested to pay proper attention to the fact that their widget can’t even display text in the right size, much less anything else.

I’m currently in Holland and I miss my cat something awful. He’s my baby, I love him more than anything and he’s the most clever and affectionate cat I’ve ever had – and I’ve had cats my entire life.

I suffer from low back pain!

This must be about the 6th or 7th time in around 5 years I’ve had a prolapsed disc but it’s the first time I’ve been able to benefit from using McKenzie exercises. On Tuesday, I had a cup of tea in my hand, picked some crumbs off the settee to put them in the bin and was brought to my knees by the unmistakable electric shock type pain of a disc popping out. It goes without saying that I managed to save most of my cuppa and immediately lay on my stomach and did the first 3 of the First Aid exercises and, every day since, have done them about 5 times a day (less than the recommended 6 or 8).

At this stage, compared to the other times I’ve had low back problems, the pain is hugely improved. I have a flight to make on the 25th of August and am reminded of the pain and humiliation last year when I had to be pushed around two airports in a wheelchair 11 days after a prolapsed disc. This time it’s with some considerable relief that I can say I’m sure I will be able to walk.