This first paragraph will be the last direct mention of what happened on Monday. I received a phone call from the store manager yesterday after the help desk sent me a DM to ask if they had spoken to me today as arranged and they hadn’t. She called within 20 minutes as it appears there was some sort of mix-up caused by the eternal problem for 24/7 businesses, members of staff not knowing who is working when. She clearly had taken the time to read my post as she referred to it a couple of times and she officially apologised for all that happened and has given me the second thing I wanted a total guarantee that that driver will never be sent to my house again. The one thing I have learned from this is simply that you are wasting your time phoning any of the companies so called service lines, complain and complain loudly on twitter and response is guaranteed. As I already knew they can not discuss beyond the fact that they will be taking disciplinary action against the driver concerned and whether or not he keeps his job is something they can’t tell me. I had to handle something similar when I was a manager and despite the pleas of any customer you just can’t tell them what the outcome will or won’t, or has been taken. I have been using Asda’s now for about 10 or 11 years every second week, so I personally don’t see a one off as a good reason to stop using them, but if it ever happens again, then I would have to think again. I know all too well, that even the best interview and screening systems can’t weed out every bad penny.

I can blame nothing but eating for the painful evening I had last night. Wednesday has become a sort of routine for us since Christmas as being treat night, we either have one of those really nice well-flavoured sharing breads or some sort of crisps and dip, last night it was bread. I am even more careful these days about how much I eat within any given period since Teressa and Johns visit, I learnt the hard way then that volume is a problem that has to be carefully handled. Quantity wise, I was sure that what was in front of me wasn’t going to be a problem, and I did try to pace it a little, but to me if you don’t eat those breads whilst still warm, they seem to lose much of their flavour, hot is even better. Having grown up in a family where I had two ever hungry rakes of brothers who didn’t eat but opened their mouths and food entered them as though on a conveyor belt, well it is still a little hard for me to break the habit of eating before someone else steals it and I am left with nothing. Within about 15 minutes of eating, my diaphragm and the rest of my insides were knotting themselves up with spasms, so painful that just standing up sent pain shooting throughout my entire abdomen. Although food has been a problem for a long time now, I have noticed in the last few weeks that instead of it just being that strip across the top of my stomach that has caused me pain for a couple of years now, something has changed as the same pain can and now does appear anywhere. It has even progressed to the point that I find myself these days sitting looking at my tablets and meds with trepidation as on several occasions just swallowing them has sent my actual stomach into a tight ball which is ridiculously painful. The tablet problem always seems to be worse in the morning as they are the first things to hit my stomach other than liquid every day and almost every day now for about a month the result has been the same. Even before I have even swallowed them all, I can already feel the pressure and solid feeling building, taking them all including the liquids, takes less than a minute but it is long enough to leave me feeling as though I have been attacked with several sets of pliers. Add on to that that it nearly always causes almost instant heartburn, which oddly only lasts about 5 minute and then subsides, which to me doesn’t tally with my lifetime experience of it, which I have to say is rare and my newly discovered reluctance to take what I know actually makes me feel better is explained.

All of this now means that the entire nervous system of my intestine is now reacting strongly enough for me to be aware of it constantly? I know this is a guess, but I am wondering if it has all been going on for a much longer time than I knew and that my pain medication has been covering much of it up and that everything this year has been a step up rather than a sudden new invention. I know that is the case with the constipation, it has just increased until I hit the dead stop setting, the spasm and pain may have been there all along, just too mild to make themselves known through the fog of my drugs. As all of it has stepped up, I have also became aware last week for the first time in a new area where when the pressure feeling is high, that I am now also feeling a pulsing vein. I have had one now for over two years on the left side midway down the slope of my ribcage, the new one is also on the left side of my body about an inch from my bellybutton to date I have only felt it while in bed just as I did again last night. It is one of those things in life that is both fascinating and unsettling at the same time. Fascinating because you can’t help but lie there wondering what on earth could be causing it and unsettling as the only thing you can think of is that something is stretched beyond its designed capabilities, not the best thing to have running around in your head as you are trying to go to sleep. It is a thought that I have grown accustomed to as it has been in my head now from the very first time that I started to feel the pressure sensation, as when things are under pressure, bursting is often their next step. Yet again, I find myself thinking that what the pressure is, is actually what anyone would feel but normally covered or accompanied by pain and it is because of the drugs that all I feel is the pressure, maybe I should be grateful for the fact that I spend my life popping Morphine as I have also noticed that if I take a booster for something else, the pressure also disappears, there has to be a link somewhere along the line, but be under no illusion, I am not going to stop taking it just to find out. All I can do is wait for that appointment to arrive

It felt good this morning to find that I am once again feeling more like myself, the numbness and fear has vanished and reality has been restored. Sleeping well last night I am sure made a huge difference, as sleep always does, when we are tired it is harder to be logical and to see things as done and dusted, but we humans are renowned for being our own worst enemies and being human also means we run thing over and over in our heads, the more we try not to think about them. Yes, the intercom upset me and confused me on Tuesday, but this is Thursday morning a new day and one where all I have to deal with is my normality, so it should be easy then.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 16/04/13 – Limb placement or pain > http://bit.ly/17iTPYC

A day to be glad to be indoors, the wind out there even for a wheelchair user, would be lethal, mind you a well-held rain cover could act well as a sail. I wasn’t a great outdoors user of a chair, after several over exuberant trips into town when I fist had my chair, proved totally that the world isn’t wheelchair friendly, what it did do for me was let me work. Many of the so-called aids…..