Nov 23

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. My sleep is not slightly improving. My lungs are not improving. Worse today. Much worse.

Sleeping for more than an hour brings it on aggressively, accompanied by a ribbon of pain around my chest. Like someone has thrown a set of belts around you and has cinched them too tight.

Perhaps it's just something of a - long - chest cold. Fucking with my embattled immune system ( more cold sores, yay ).

Perhaps.

If it is, it doesn't feel like any kind of chest cold I've ever had before. Not even slightly. Hmm.

Who knows. The vagaries of post chronically ill me. Where everything I previously knew about How Shit Works With My Body, and all my experiences to date have been thrown out the window and replaced with a dumpster fire of unpredictable awfulness.

Put in a solid amount of work this week - helped by the fact that my sleep is sporadic and I am burning the candle at both ends trying to maintain breathing. Work as such, gobbles up my time, and then asks for more. All I've really ended up doing, is just making more work for myself. I am reminded of the saying that good work, or hard work, is often rewarded with more work. Uh huh.

After working a more than full day today, I snipped it off. Enough.

And promptly went to sleep. And then woke up a little while later struggling like a struggle bus.

Ah ha ha.

Sigh.

Maybe I should just take next week off. And forget about work for a week.

Today in a rather futile gesture, I have ordered myself a new washing machine. The joys of domestic drudgery. A washer dryer. Unusual for me, as there's nothing exactly wrong with my current washing machine - and I am absolutely not a person to chuck stuff out just because I'm bored with it. My current machine is probably getting on for 20 years old at this point and going strong ( albeit I've fixed it a couple of times myself ). I feel guilty about getting rid of it. It seems like a waste. Particularly in our era of trying not to be consumerist assholes adding to the pollution of everything around us. At the same time, getting a new one, with a bigger drum, and the capability to dry as well is going to help me out with my sporadic shitty energy and chore completion. Whilst part of me is very dubious about what exactly the point is, and it feels like a waste of money, another part of me is trying to just maximise any mechanical advantage I can get that helps me on a daily basis. Trying to offset my chronically ill with better helpers basically.

See. I am fairly harshly trained not to spend money. Not that I'm a tight ass. But I have a critical eye about waste and necessity. If it works. It works. But where once upon a time I would fix my oven, fix my washing machine and yada. Now. Eh. The prospect of doing that feels a little bit too much for my fucky self.

Anywho. Hopefully the new thing will be useful. It will be a while before it turns up. Or it could just be a mistake. Ha. Jeez. I can't enjoy consumerism. It just isn't in me. I'm way more of a pragmatist than a consumerist.

Day off tomorrow. I will try and get out and see Hazel before she disappears for 2 months. Despite her wanting to meet up this week, I have singularly failed to do so. Tomorrow will be my last chance.

Also tomorrow I have an invite for some gentle board gaming and dinner at a friends house local to me. One of the many people I reached out to last week. I am just hoping that a) I have the energy for it and that b) I then have the energy to do the hospital check up the day after. Such are the problems I have to deal with, forever gauging if you have enough petrol to get round the corner without spluttering out.

Uh huh.

Think positive. Rest. Look after myself. Enjoy seeing a few people. Hospital will be a breeze. I will start to feel better soon.

I can hear my cynical inner self wheezing with laughter in the background. Like dealing with the most mean spirited heckler. Tell yourself another one fuckface ! Idiot !

Ssssh.

It's gonna be all good. Gets better from here on for a while. Good things.