Once again I crawled off to bed at 8:30 and slept all the way through, which of course leaves me with a problem as to what my new drug routine is doing, as every night I have taken my drugs later, I have gone to bed early. Now that doesn’t make any sense to me at all, surely not taking my drugs should make me want to go to bed later not sooner, as I have shifted my routine and once the drugs are in me, I would have expected myself to have fallen into the same pattern, mind you, why should my body suddenly start doing what I expect! I do think that my drug change is helping me to sleep right through as I am not reaching the slope down to drug free whilst I am still tired, I am convinced it is holding me right through, well almost, the last two days something woke me enough to check the time at 7:20, probably someone heading out to work.

We have been so lucky in where we bought our flat as all apart from two are owner occupiers, all of which are quiet and generally normal everyday people, especially important when it comes to those flats attached to ours. It is only occasionally that I am woken by something, even in the afternoons I usually get silence from around us, worst case scenario at the weekends I will be aware of a hoover. Neighbours are important to us all, but I never realised just how much until I was ill. I have no control over the amount of rest I need, all I know is that I need it and if I don’t get it, well as I have said before, all hell brakes loose. Unfortunately, you can’t exactly go around all your neighbours and ask them to be quiet for the next 20 plus years, just because you are ill, no one is that considerate. To be honest, apart from one family, I don’t think anyone knows that I am here 24/7, or that I have MS. Some in the past will have seen my wheelchair padlocked to the bannisters when I was still mobile enough to go out, but even then, I doubt they put two and two together. I hate to think how many people’s health has been made worse, just because of their neighbours, but I am sure the number is in the millions just here in the UK and that is only out of the people who have a medical condition that requires sleep. So when I found out a couple of weeks ago that the flat next door is up for sale, well I started to worry, luckily for me, so far they have failed to sell it and as nasty as it is, I honestly hope that they can’t sell it. Illness doesn’t always bring the best out in people and when it comes to self-preservation, well I admit I am not the nicest of people, I’m just glad that the dustbin men can’t hear my language as they make their way along our street.

It is often the smallest of things that drive all of us mad, but once they have started up that tiny wormhole of a thought, it just grows and grows until it is almost the only thing that you can think about. Noise is something that everyone can relate to, but what if that annoying thing was a twitching muscle, or a pain that appears so suddenly and so sharply that you can’t help but let everyone around know by the sound and movement of you body. It doesn’t matter where or what it is, unlike a noisy neighbour who you can talk to, or the dustmen who will vanish for two weeks, your body doesn’t listen or give you a break. Of all the things that annoy and drive me nuts, from pain, sensations and the daily frustrations of life, right now the thing that is driving me mad, is my nose. Yes, I did write nose, it wasn’t a typo. A few weeks ago it started to itch and tickle, both inside and out, then when I was relaxed in bed, it started twitching, well probably vibrating would be a better description, I didn’t see it, I just felt it. My hopes that it was a one-off were dashed quickly when it happened a couple of days later, now it is happening again and again, even when I am sat up and aware of everything around me, I can feel it. I have now looked in a mirror and there is nothing to see, just to feel and trust me it is now driving me mad, making me constantly pinch it, rub it, scratch at it and anything else that I can think of, with no positive results.

I know that it is the big things that most people think of when they think of any of my conditions and they are as bad or as slight as I have described them, but it is the small and the irritating, that will get to me far faster than the big and flashy. Maybe that says something about me, or maybe it says something about the whole human race. Either way, I know inside that I can always deal with the major, the unexpected and the showy, only to then be thrown flat on my face by one stupid nerve playing stupid games. Personally, I think that says far more about life in general than it does about being ill, illness just makes us more aware and more frustrated by the whole thing and unlike when I was well, these things are now never short lived.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 07/08/12 – I ate well! I exercised! I became ill?

A second quiet day is ahead if I can ever get Adam out of his bed, he is going out for the day as it is his Mums birthday, Adam and his sister and her girlfriend are all off on a cycling trip, an unusual way to spend your birthday but if it is what she want then it should be what she gets. I am a strong believer …….