It is very easy in life, to just get comfortable, with things in our homes and lives and never even think, about changing them. Sometimes it’s because we think we have found the best there is, and at others, we’re just comfortable with what’s there, yes, it might be tatty, but it’s doing its job, so why bother changing it? I had for a while been intending to buy a new sleep mask, but for some reason, I just kept forgetting about it. The one I had still blocked the light, it was just that the edges were fraying and the elastic had turned rather slack, after months of use, it was overdue replacing. I had been so impressed with the one I had, I didn’t have the slightest doubt about buying an identical one. I wasn’t looking for it, but I noticed that some packs came with a free set of earplugs. I’ve tried many different ones, and although similar, these were a slightly different shape, from those I used, so worth a try, especially when it wasn’t costing a penny. They arrived yesterday and when Adam came home for lunch, he opened the package, which was once again beyond me. I understand that packages need to survive the postal system, but do they really need to be so tough? Who do they have working in the Post Office these days, gorilla’s with extra long nails? Once open he switched them over for me. leaving the new ones in place and ready to go when I went for my nap. Boy, what a nap that was. I couldn’t believe how I never heard, even the muffled sound of a single car, and the fit of the mask was so comfortable, I was simply stunned by the difference. I have to say, it has made me start wondering about some of the other rather tatty looking objects I use daily, simply because I always have, maybe, it’s time a few of them were changed as well.

It may have given me a great sleep, but it didn’t do anything about the pain I was in yet again from my stomach. I really am beginning to believe that half of what is wrong with me is coming once more from my guts. Clearly I’m guessing, but if I am in pain all night, the fact that I am waking up, uncovered or squashed into corners, says that I probably am, I won’t be getting a good nights sleep. Yes, I’m asleep, but what I am questioning is its quality. During the day, I am constantly on the move, twisting and turning, in an attempt to let whatever is inside me, to pass the area it’s causing pain in. It would be a miracle if it wasn’t disturbing me in the same way at night, which would explain, a whole list of things that have been happening recently. Just over a week ago, I made a new batch of Psyllium pancakes. I had deliberately made them slightly bigger so that I was getting a large dose from each one. Over the previous month, I was having to eat two instead of one, just to make things move at all, proving that in that batch, the dose was too small. On day 4 of eating the new ones, I went to the loo without any problems. Then again on day 5 and 6, on day 7 I suddenly found myself going twice in one day, something that is totally unheard of for me. Then yesterday, once more my bowels moved first thing in the morning, followed by even more intense pain. If I had been passing tiny quantities, I would be just shrugging the whole week off, but I haven’t. Granted my stomach looks a much better shape than it has in ages, but the spasms, are just never stop. It is as though my insides had been storing up far more than I thought was there, especially when you add in just how little I really eat.

Last night, I actually did wake up due to the pain, so I am reasonably sure that I have found the culprit for my increased tiredness. It’s over two weeks now that I have been feeling over tired, but, it is almost the same length of time since I started to have, increased pain from my guts and started feeling tired. The early stages were probably from the build up that wasn’t shifting, now, it’s because, it is. What I am not sure about is the dose of the Psyllium, do I continue with it just as it is, or do I reduce it? If I reduce, it may just slip back to not moving, if I continue as is, the pain may just continue as well. It’s a difficult one, but I think that I need to continue for another week at least, as I may just be getting used to the dose and it may just all settle down, now that the bulk of the work is actually done. In a way, it is totally my fault. I should have acted quicker last month when I first noticed that the thinner smaller pancakes weren’t working. But I just persisted, as they were the ones that I had made, and they were the ones, I was going to eat. I am so used to my routines and my systems, that the whole idea, that I had got that batch wrong, just wasn’t computing. I just continued in a blind belief that eating them anyway, was fine. I wasn’t going to waste them by throwing them out and I wasn’t going to waste any of my none scheduled time, in making another batch. I already begrudge them the time they take once a month, after all, my body is supposed to work without them.

That is an easy trap to fall into and this isn’t the first time that I have. I have to admit that, that, is a large part of the reason I don’t use my catheters. Somehow, that whole idea that I have to intervene to just to get my body, to do what everyone else’s does without thought, is wrong. I have managed to get my head around so many aspects of my health. I have accepted so much, but to actually physically intervene with my internal workings, feels like one step too far. So if I have to, then it has to simple and fast. Catheters aren’t, they also hold a huge embarrassment factor and a few other issues I’ve written about before. The fact that I have to make pancakes, and I really do now need Adam to help me as well, makes them an intrusion, something that being comfortable with, is really hard. Any idiot can be comfortable just swallowing tablets, me included. But having to go through a once a month ritual of 5 hours work to make those pancakes, to remember to defrost one every day, then to cover it in a fine layer of jam, and make yourself eat it, despite the odd flavour, is wrong. I do it, but it’s wrong and I’m not going to get through a batch quicker, or throw out a batch that’s not right, as I would then have to find another 5 hours to replace them. My body is demanding, so much care these days, just to do the things it once did by itself, and I’m not good about caring for me.

Tablets, inhalers, nebuliser, Pysillum pancakes, wheelchair, mattress elevator, shower seats, pressure mattress and cushions and all the other things I can’t think of at the second, they all push their way into your life. If they are there, like a mattress, no problem, I don’t think about it, I don’t even register its existence. But those I have to think about, that I have to interact with, they wear me down. Not going out, not being able to work, not having the opportunity to live an average life, spending that life in pain and housebound, without a memory and without all the things I once loved, unable to do all the hobbies I once loved, I can live with all of that. That is all easy, I accept it, work with it and make the most of all of it. Just don’t ask me to use a catheter, to find the time to make pancakes or to enjoy using a nebuliser. I don’t want them in my life, I don’t want to have to give time to them. I just want to keep being me, without all the fiddly bits. Without all those annoyances, well I could live forever just as I am, but the more and more things that I have to do, to keep this body going, the less I enjoy things. All I can do is, to hope that no more gadgets are foisted upon me, as I think I might just tell the doctor where to stuff it, regardless of their so-called benefits.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 08/12/2013 – It’s gone again

Half an hour ago I knew what I wanted to write about today, but I was doing something else when the idea appeared and I stupidly didn’t keep a note of it, I just kept working away in the stupid….