I guess, everything in life is relevant in differing measures, it all depends upon what you are comparing something too. If someone were to ask me at this second, “How are you?” I could, in all honestly, give several totally different answers to them. It all depends on whether I am comparing it to the worst I have ever been, or the best I have ever been, or just since the last time we spoke. In fact, I could play that game forever, using as many different points of reference I chose. Yet, hardly anyone ever asks, “How are you compared to ……..?”, that, I have only ever heard from a Doctor, mind you, I suspect they get fed up with some of the silly answers people give. So, “How are you?”. It’s such a standard, yet stupid question, and one that few really ever want the answer to, it has somehow become a greeting, rather than a genuine question. I have so often thought that is was because even total strangers, want us to see them as caring people, when so few, genuinely care, about anyone outside their personal circle? How is it, that our world has become such a false place?

I have often been tempted, but for some reason refrained from actually doing it, just to answer something totally ridiculous, just to see if they even notice, or if they just move on as, though, I had said “Fine”. I know for a fact, that people don’t hear what others say, they hear what they expect too. Working in Telesales for a number of years, proved that without a doubt, on many occasions. Salespeople don’t always have their brains switched on and just go into auto. I once, personally, answered a call while daydreaming with “Good morning, I love you” and I heard one of the sales girls telling a male customer, “We have checked the size of your balls”, rather than “bills” and in both cases, the customers, never said a thing, they, didn’t hear it. Unfortunately, for both of us, everyone around us did. Most of the time, if your tone of voice is what they expect, and the majority of what you say is correct, some of the actual words, don’t really seem to matter. I am convinced that in many occasions, we could answer whatever we wanted, to that question and get away with it, as our answer to them, is as irrelevant, as the actual question.

Like most people born in the 60’s, my first real memories are of the 70’s. As odd as that decade and the one that followed were for me, I do still have the feeling that in general, people were actually more genuinely caring. There was far less of the shiny false caring veneer, that I feel fills the world these days. I can remember several occasions, one when I was pregnant, that I found myself somehow on the ground, probably some of my early MS attacks. Pregnant or not, on all occasions when I was outside, people ran to my aid, and I do mean people, not just one caring soul. Everyone within a 20-foot radius were heading my direction, before, I actually hit the ground. In the years prior to my being in my wheelchair when out, I took several falls. I remember one, no one came to my aid at all, although, there were people around. Another had been just after hailing a taxi, as I went to open the door, I went down. There was no one around, the taxi driver must have assumed I was drunk, and drove off, leaving me there. On another, an elderly couple headed to help me. Once they were talking to me, two younger people stopped to help. I couldn’t help wondering, if they would have bothered, if the older couple, hadn’t been so clearly, unable to assist me. From the early 80’s to the early 2000’s, the world changed, and not for the better. Back in the 80’s, I don’t remember anyone asking “how are you?” in the 2000’s, they had stopped caring and asked it all the time.

I’m in pain today, I don’t know what triggered it, but for the past week I have been once more been really suffering from my intestine. For the last six months, since I have been eating the Psyllium pancakes, everything has been moving through me with so much more ease. Not painlessly, but with ease, that to me was enough. Then suddenly two weeks ago, I started having those area’s of intense pain again. The worst was down in my appendix area, I knew because I had felt it so many times before, that it was nothing, to worry about. All I had to do was grin and bear it, occasionally, with the assistance of a booster pill, but I could bear it. Every time they happened, I was also aware that other things were happening too. My diaphragm would go tight, or I would have tremors in my legs, other small but unconnected things seemed to come out in sympathy. As whatever had been sitting there producing pain, moved on, it would ease until it reached the next corner, then it would start all over again, 12 hr of peace, 6hrs of hell. That has been the cycle ever since this bout started. Today, it is the turn of the top left-hand corner of my stomach, it feels like there is a pumped up basketball lodged tightly, just under my ribs. I put up with it for about an hour, then my patience ran out and another blue pill slid down into my stomach. I have tried hard to work out exactly what might have triggered this, but there is nothing I can think of, which is just so annoying.

I truly hate it, when you think that you have found an answer and that you are actual, if not in control, at least in harmony with it. When I introduced, as recommended by the consultant, the WD40 of the food world, it was like adding a nice comforting duvet. It took all those horrid spiky and often blinding pains away, and soothed it down to an ache, or a grumble, that for me, was more than livable. Other than when I have been on my baking bouts, I don’t think I have even mentioned it for several months, so when it did reappear, well I thought it was a one-off, a tick in a box that said, nothing to even think about. Yet here I am two weeks on and I have been forced into using an eraser. This morning, I haven’t even been able to sit still, in the same position, for more than a few minutes. The longer I am stationary, the more it felt as though the ball was going to crack my ribs and explode out into the room. The really confusing things is, although this is the same pain I was getting when my intestine was at a total stop, everything is still moving. Possibly a little slower, but it’s still moving, still leaving me painlessly and if it wasn’t for this increased and persistent pain, I wouldn’t be mentioning it now. All that makes any sense is, is that it matches up with everything else, as my symptoms have been getting worse, this pain has slowly increased as well. Last night, as I was trying to coax a disobedient left foot onto the rest on my wheelchair, I had to stifle a scream. When your leg muscles don’t want to work, for some reason, without knowing it, you start to use your stomach muscles. As I did so, I discovered or possibly created, a pressure point. As though using the muscles, pumping up one of these ballooning areas, it felt as though it was both overfull and stretched to its limit, simultaneously.

I know that it does take around 14 days for my intestine to clear through, so I initially had my fingers crossed, that it was just a matter of waiting for that to happen. A hope that last night been shattered, as the pain I created, was right back at the beginning of the pain path, where it started two weeks ago. I’m not sure, if I should just continue as normal and hope that it settles, or to intervene, up my Physillium dose, or possibly add a laxative, to clear everything through, if you like, resetting the system. I just fear that that might be an even more painful process. If someone asked me today “How are you?”. Do you think I could get away with answering “Perplexed by the lack of eupepsia”, “Musing my internal affairs”, or possibly “Flatulated and pensive”? Would they hear, or notice any of them?

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 16/11/2013 – Freedom

Ever since I started having the spasms from hell I have also been sweating buckets, I didn’t actually think so much liquid could come out of my skin when I am sat totally still. I didn’t even sweat that much when……