Bork Slowly Borking

 Anxiety is still riding very high. It's sketching me into weird corners and avoidances. Don't like being out of my bedroom. Don't like being away from my bed. Everything is a tangible holding of breath until I can go back to bed. Very sketchy. I am doing something to try not to give into the rampant mini phobias popping up, but, I'm also giving in at times and just retreating to my hole. And sleeping. Today I dropped off my overnight blood ox monitor. I did a bunch of "anti" things that I reckoned would trigger more the worse end of my sleeping spectrum, and it kinda worked. I woke up at 4am groggy and out of it. I dozedly checked my blood ox. 97%. Perhaps it means nothing. Perhaps it means it's not blood oxygen and sleep apnea. I went back to sleep. Anxiety smothering me I went out to drop off the monitor. Outwardly. I just did it. Inwardly, screaming, don't go out, don't go out, I don't want to go out. A sense of dread. A sick feeling. Awful...

 Athena is still not good. No change. She struggles to stay on her feet. She is due another librella shot on Monday, so, perhaps it being the end of the month, and injured, and everything else is making her super achey and wobbly. I don't know. Just wait. More days. See if anything changes. Talk to vet on Monday. Athena is a shadow of herself at the moment.  I think I am slowly processing the loss of Athena. Even though she is still here. Today I did not wake up with that inescapable anxiety. Just. Mild anxiety. So. That's something. I am at this point fully medically strait jacketed. Maximum mental meds putting a firm hand on the dampening. And perhaps because of that. Or because of burn out. Or whatever. I am starting to feel numb. An ache inside. But hollowed out. I was slow to work today. I need to be forgiving of myself. I managed to be useful at work and figure a few things out - a small miracle - before mid afternoon my anxiety started jumping hardcore, being eaten aliv...

 Athena is a tiny bit better. But still not good. It's a constant worry. Yesterday I told Hazel straight that I was "not doing good" and probably wouldn't be doing good for a while. I know the signs. I slept half the day. Carried Athena downstairs, fed the mutts, made sure she had a loo break and a drink. I anxietied up hard in the kitchen waiting for her to finish. I can't stay still for long. And I get ill if I stay standing for too long. A mess. She finished, wandered into the living room, I was going back upstairs. She pondered for a minute, then wanted to come with me. So I carried her back upstairs. Hazel had got up by the time we reached upstairs. Rest of the day I was quiet. Sleep. Miserable. Athena sneaked downstairs on her own at one point. In the evening I played our scheduled Monday game which cheered me up a little. Today is work day. And my anxiety and depression has kicked in even harder. Mornings are always the worst. I am very sketchy this morning...

 Athena was worse again yesterday. We went for a tiny walk, because she was bored and eager to go out. It was the shortest of walks. She struggled limping along. By the time we got to turn around, 50 yards at the most she was kind of done. Just. Stopped. Looked around. Didn't really want to move. I took that as a sign. Picked her up. And walked home with her. A neighbour several doors down who I have never met before waited for us. She ok she said ? She's ok I said. Old. Multiple injuries. Is it ok if I say hello she said ? Of course. Athena got cooed over in my arms. It's a good job you're strong the neighbour said. Ha. So am not anymore. Call this. Adrenaline strength. I didn't say this though. I can remember you running around the meadow years ago the neighbour said. This old age thing is rubbish. It is. It sucks I said. We went on our way. You don't realise how many people know you, or your dogs. For the rest of the day Athena was not great. Hazel came to te...

 I am exhausted. And permanentally vaguely ill. Off colour. Bleh. Shitty. Malaise. And the fatigue dogs my every step. Today I forced myself out of bed at 11am to pick up Athenas meds, and then my own. I groaned out of the door feeling sick and exhausted and just desperate for sleep. Athena, still laden down by multiple injuries and problems, has however had something of her spirit return. On seeing me leave she was having none of it. And pushed past me - limp and all to be first out of the door. I'm going with you ! I am fed up of resting indoors. Stubborn. I don't think Athena is going to lie down and let the reaper get her without a fight if she can help it. I let her hurriedly limp into the front yard then squeezed past her through the front gate. She attempted to bolt and just shove her head in the gate. No she was saying. I am going out too. No. You're not. Rest. Idiot. I went and got the meds. Filled up the car. Came back home and collapsed back into bed with an apol...

 An agonising 24 hours. Filled with half assed heating engineers. And waking up to a leaking ceiling dripping water on me. And of course. Athena being at deaths door. Athena has oh so slowly improved. Not good. But getting slowly better. She's wobbling a lot. She squeaks with pain with her front leg, still, weirdly, super painful to her. But. Every 6 hours that goes by, a little of her old self comes back. She is currently sticking to me like glue. Unusual. Where I go. She wants to go. I get up. She gets up. She is still Athena. And wants to see what's outside the door. Go for a small wander. But where I am. She is. By and large. She's vulnerable. And sticking close to her dad I guess. As all of us tend to do when wounded. Seek home. Seek safety. Seek loved ones. Curl up. I truly thought I had lost her yesterday she was so bad. And even now. She is not out of the woods. But she is better than yesterday. I don't know whether the trend continues or it reverses or stays as...

 Work is stressy and ongoing. A never ending problem both large and small. Not good. Worse still. The heating is still not fixed. Guy turned up for the third time today, replaced valves, couldn't fix the issue. Left with one rad buggered, where before, it was not. Gunk in the pipes. I don't have the bandwidth to deal with it. Fine. Because worse still. Athena has deteriorated. Took her to the vets yesterday for a once over. Some pain meds. Hopeful return to herself in 5 days or so. But it doesn't look that way. Today she is worse again. All round. Not just one thing. Many things. She is suffering. She occasionally squeaks with pain. Mostly spaced out. I think she knows. Or is spacey. She has wandered a bit around the house in small bursts. Stared out the front door for a while feeling the breeze and slowly falling over. Checked out the back. The bathroom and her blue ball she hasn't played with in years. You could almost be forgiven for thinking she is checking things o...

 No day is a reasonable day anymore. Everyday is a rough day. With windows of opportunity and not ghastly where maybe, sometimes, I can do something. My sleeping seems to have eased out a little. The punchy eyes have got slightly better. Which is something. I am slightly better on waking up. But I still need so much sleep. 8 hours absolutely does not cut it. I am struggling with staying upright. And when I am upright. I often then have a battle of mental wills. Against the hopelessness. Add in work stress. And other shit. And it's not good. I am not having a good time. Today was a very shit day. The last few days I have been doing my samples to send off. Pee. Poop. Four days of buggering around. And then trying to get the courier to turn up. Which they fucked up. And we had to put back a day. And they fucked up again. And I demanded they come out, because, this shit was time sensitive. And I absolutely did not want to bin it all, and start another shitty 4 days of fucking around wi...

 Had trouble staying out of bed over the weekend. Do a little. Collapse. Bad. Today I told myself I would have a better day. Be able to do stuff. The problem is, that's me telling myself that, and my health doesn't pay any attention to my wishes. Which. Of course it works like that. If it didn't, no one would get seriously ill. Along with the dumpster fire disaster all alarm lights flashing that I am on waking these days, today I also had my right arm cold and numb when I woke up. Couldn't feel my hand. Rolled over. A similar thing happened to the left arm, not so cold. Rolled onto my back. My left hand stayed tingly. Feet solid lumps of ice. My circulation is fucked. And I can't blame my mental meds for this either. As I am still off them at the moment. So this. Is just pure me. No meds. So today I got up very gloomy. Feeling ill. Sorry for myself. Right arm cold and numb I asked google, heart failure ? Yes.  My anxiety and being miserable about being ill toyed wit...

 Today was a collapse day. Here's a picture of me today after waking up for the second time. Rested. Ah ha ha. Ha.  I'd give this a middling score on the How Shit I Look scale. I've had much worse. I managed to get out today to pick up a minimum of groceries - didn't want to, could feel how borderline shit I was, but did it anyway as I had ordered a memory foam thing for Athena for upstairs. Did that. Couldn't complete the shopping just felt like garbage. Held it together. Came home. Done. Slept for another 5 hours. In the mail today I got a letter from the NHS addressed to "all residents". It invited me to take part in a trial for blood pressure and general health, so that it could address any future health problems I might suffer from. I threw it in the bin. They can't deal with my fucking current health problems, let alone any imagined bullshit future problems by prancing around sending out some bullshit circular to everyone about how they might, m...

 Work was hard today. Some very crunchy stuff that even when I was in the best of forms was a sweaty no pushover. These days I sometimes waver. Too much. Too hard. Too much sustained concentration. But. After some avoidance. I did it. Crunched my way through it. Let's be clear here, the task is way and above beyond even our senior dev. It is probably one of the gnarliest bits of codebase we have, requiring not only some pretty adept database work - something that most devs shy away from like a spooked horse - but also some hardcore code, and a heavy dose of product specific knowledge. All sitting in a service for the technical cherry on the cake. But services these days are ten a penny. A no brainer for anyone worth even a pinch of their technical salt. Nevertheless the whole thing is a complex piece of rules based parsing sitting in an enterprise architecture. It made our regular dev just pass at first glance. Nope. I'm a tiny bit surprised I managed to get it done. Tired as I...

 Work was a horror show yesterday. From bad to worse. Corners cut, things not being done right, missed, bad shit going live. It's a laundry list of fuckups from major to minor. I find myself debating just jacking it all in again. Absolutely dumbfuckery. And it doesn't do my health any good. But. Meh. Stay working. Earning the wage. If nothing else it pads the financial burden of paying for private healthcare. Then again. As I've thought before, I am just probably garnering money to eventually give away to someone else when I die. Andy however is being pretty good all round. Mostly because he has stepped back from getting involved in the mud and is letting the employees get on with it. Which is what I'm supposed to be doing too - he told me straight he did not want me stressing out and having to wade into fix things. This is a period of shifting everyday blood and guts away from myself in the first instance ( because if nothing else it's not sustainable for the busin...

 Bouncing around between zero and sometimes during the day being able to function. At its worst I can feel myself leaning into just carking it on the spot. Sleep can at times near kill me now. I can't convey just how bad it makes me. Awful. Extremely vulnerable. It's going to take just a little nudge I think for me never to wake up again. I don't know what's going on, other than to say it's an accumulation of all the usual suspects and then whatever nonsense goes on when I sleep getting much worse. And then. Miraculously. I will get 2 hours of sleep that has little of the bad effects. Out of the blue. Like a random switch, On. Off. But mostly. It's off. Hazel is still here. She seems reluctant to leave. I think some of it is some kind of "repaying" of debt owed to me and her keeping half an eye on Athena. And some of it is her unwillingness to face a day on her own. She seems to be on good terms with her boyfriend on the surface. But. She told me she h...